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The history of the Damnoen Saduak floating market, from royal canals to visitor market

The short version

The history of the Damnoen Saduak floating market begins with royal canals in Ratchaburi and grows into a visitor market, with no official founding date given.

The story in brief

  • Canals from King Rama IV's reign1
  • Old temple, over 145 years2
  • Bond film tied to Phang Nga5

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Map of the Damnoen Saduak area in Ratchaburi province with the floating market, the Lao Tak Lak market, a temple, the bus stop, an elephant show park, Amphawa and the Maeklong Railway Market in Samut Songkhram, and the Ratchaburi National Museum

  1. The floating market runs along the canals of Damnoen Saduak in Ratchaburi, about 80 km west of Bangkok.

    Google Maps

  2. Lao Tak Lak, drawn beside the main market on the map, is called Thailand's first traditional floating market.

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  3. A temple on the canal north-west of the main market, shown here to place the market in the town.

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  4. A public bus and minivan stop of the district town of Damnoen Saduak.

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  5. An elephant show park south-east of the market. This guide does not recommend riding; see the nearby page for the welfare notes.

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  6. Amphawa is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

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  7. The railway market in Samut Songkhram, the second market of the combined day tours.

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  8. The museum building was formerly the town hall, built in 1922.

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Map data: © OpenStreetMap contributors

A source-checked account of how a canal landscape in Ratchaburi became a famous market: the kings, the temples, the neighbouring old market and an honest answer on James Bond.

Editorial team, damnoensaduaktour.com · Updated November 12, 2026 · Takes 7 min

The essentials

  • The canalsThe main canal and over 200 small side canals date from King Rama IV's reign.1
  • Old templeWat Choti Thayakaram is described as over 145 years old.2
  • Old marketLao Tak Lak, beside the main market, carries the title of first traditional floating market in Thailand.3
  • TodayTAT says the market now feels like a working market for locals.4
  • The filmTAT ties the 1974 Bond film to Khao Phing Kan in Phang Nga.5

Water first: the canal country before the market

The history of the Damnoen Saduak floating market starts with the canals, not the stalls. The Tourism Authority of Thailand traces the main canal and its over 200 small side canals to the reign of King Rama IV the Great,1 a grid of waterways cut through low farmland west of Bangkok. In low, wet farmland, canals work as roads, and a floating market is a natural result: sellers come to the buyers by boat, and the buyers wait on the bank.

Ratchaburi itself is far older than the canals. TAT traces the area to the Dvaravati period, a time when Ratchaburi was a key trading hub for the Mon Kingdom.6 Exchange has been part of the place for a very long time, and the canal market belongs to that tradition. The reign of Rama IV, in TAT's account, is when the canal network that supports the district was created, which gives the market its watery setting.

A caution belongs here. The official pages we could read give the canals' reign and the age of some temples, but they do not give a founding date for the market itself. A question such as how old is the Damnoen Saduak floating market has no single official number to offer. What the sources do show is a layered history: an ancient trading province, royal canals, old temples along the water and a visitor market that grew on top of all of it.

Layers of the past

What each layer adds

LayerWhat the sources sayWhere it shows
Trading provinceDvaravati centre of the Mon Kingdom6Ratchaburi town
Royal canalsOver 200 small canals under Rama IV1The canal grid
Old templeDescribed as over 145 years old2Wat Choti Thayakaram
Old marketFirst traditional floating market3Lao Tak Lak
Town museumFormer town hall built in 192215Ratchaburi town
Film location25 productions in 202310The floating market

Dates and descriptions as TAT and the Thailand Film Office state them; the market's own founding date is not given.1

Temples, royal visits and the canals as a route

The waterways carry more than markets. TAT's account of a canal tour in Ratchaburi highlights Wat Choti Thayakaram, an historic temple described as over 145 years old,2 and says King Rama V the Great and King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great both visited it.7 The tour then continued in a solar-powered long-tail boat to a village called Ban Mahat Lek Chek Huat, another place King Rama V visited.8 The tour was designed to follow royal footsteps along the canals.

The same tour shows the other life of the canals: farming and craft. It stopped at the Bang Le Sugar Park and Ladies Golf Pier,11 and at Mae Thongyib Farm, where the activities include weaving, making Thai desserts and garden cruising.12 Travel between the attractions was by long-tail boat.13 These stops are modern tourism products, but each rests on an older way of living beside the water, and that is the background to every photograph of a boat of fruit.

For a reader tracing history on the ground, the lesson is to look past the market stalls. A temple pier, an orchard garden or a sugar-making house tells you as much about the district as the busiest stretch of canal. A listing includes a sugar-making stop of 20 minutes on its way to the market, while another names Wat Chottayakaram between its railway market and its floating market.

Ratchaburi in counts

Counts that frame the area

  • Small canals200
  • Nang Yai puppets313
  • Film productions25

Over 200 small canals; 313 complete Nang Yai puppets at Wat Khanon; 25 foreign film productions in Ratchaburi in 2023.1,14,10

Lao Tak Lak: the old market next door

Next to the main market sits Lao Tak Lak, which TAT names as Thailand's first traditional floating market, with old Thai-Chinese rows of wooden buildings still standing, a floating market museum and an exhibition about electric boats.3 For anyone interested in the history of the Damnoen Saduak floating market, this is a useful neighbour: it shows what a market of the older kind looks like in wood and water.

The detail about electric boats is worth a thought. The exhibition at Lao Tak Lak is about electric boats, and the canal tour that TAT organised used a solar-powered long-tail boat.8 The canals are no longer only a transport network, they are a heritage product, and the people who manage them are experimenting with quieter, cleaner boats. It is a small part of the market's recent story.

In a listing's route, the Lao Tuk Luck floating market is a photo stop between the main market and the railway market. That is one quick way to see the older market on a day tour, though this site's own day does not stop there. If you travel independently, treat it as a short extension of the visit rather than a separate day, and read the museum and the wooden architecture as the historical payoff of the trip. Ask your guide or the staff on the spot which parts are original and which have been restored, since the sources we could read do not say.

Which story first?

Which part of the history suits you?

Pick the thread you care about and follow it on the ground.

  • If I want the oldest market

    Lao Tak Lak

    Wooden rows of buildings and a museum sit beside it.3

  • If I want temples and royal history

    Wat Choti Thayakaram

    King Rama V and King Bhumibol visited the temple.7

  • If I want the farming past

    A palm sugar stop

    Locals demonstrate sap collection, boiling and dehydration.18

  • If I want the film story

    Phang Nga, not the canals

    TAT ties the 1974 film to Khao Phing Kan.5

  • If I want local life as it is now

    The market at dawn

    TAT says it feels like a working market for locals.4

Ages of the market

Canal country, old temples or visitor market?

The base

Canal country

Farming and trade by boat

  • CanalsOver 2001
  • ReignKing Rama IV
  • CropsCoconut, mango, lychee16
See the tours

The heritage

Old temples

Royal visitors on the water

  • TempleWat Choti Thayakaram
  • AgeOver 145 years2
  • Visited byRama V and Bhumibol7
See the tours

The present

Visitor market

Boats, snacks and cameras

  • ActiveEarly morning17
  • TAT viewRecovered4
  • Film office25 productions10
See the tours

From farming canals to a visitor market

At some point the market on these canals became a destination as well as a place to buy fruit. TAT calls the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market world-famous, a canal market of wooden vendor boats loaded with produce and goods,25 and it once included a trip there in a programme for delegates of an international travel summit, to experience Thailand's rustic traditions and culture.26 The step from local trading place to showpiece is clear in that language, even though no date for it is given.

The step came with a cost. In its feature on Ratchaburi, TAT admits that past overtourism left some visitors finding the market overrated.9 It then reports a recent recovery: the market now reads as a working Thai floating market for local shoppers.4 Read together, the sentences are a short history of the modern market: a boom, a backlash and an attempt to return to something closer to its roots. Whether that recovery holds on a given morning is for you to judge on the water.

According to TAT the working day of these canals begins in the morning, with rowboats offering fruit, vegetables and snacks ready to eat.17 That detail describes the working-market pattern, a morning trade. If the history of the market is what interests you, an early start is one way to see the older rhythm that the canals were created to serve, before the day turns to visitors. Seen that way, the history of the place is less a date than a daily routine, repeated along the same canals for as long as boats have carried fruit to the bank.

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  1. Train and temple stop8 hours · each person, from $25

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  2. Boat and Lao Tuk Luck8 to 9 hours · each person, from $29

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  3. Site day tour7.5 hours · each person, from $25

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How the district grew

From trading province to visitor market

  1. Dvaravati period

    A trading centre

    A hub of Mon Kingdom trade.6

  2. Reign of Rama IV

    The canals

    Khlong Damnoen Saduak and its small canals are created.1

  3. Royal visits

    The temple and the village

    Rama V and Bhumibol visit Wat Choti Thayakaram, and Rama V visits Ban Mahat Lek Chek Huat.7,8

  4. Traditional markets

    Lao Tak Lak

    The neighbouring market gains its title as the first of its kind.3

  5. Visitor boom

    World fame, then overtourism

    TAT notes the later overtourism and the recovery.9,4

  6. Today

    A film and tour location

    The film office lists the market among Ratchaburi's locations.10

James Bond at the Damnoen Saduak floating market: what is on record

Searches pair the market with the 1974 film,5 and this is what the official sources say. TAT calls Thai scenery in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) perhaps the most iconic case of a Thai place capturing the world's imagination, and it identifies the villain's lair as Khao Phing Kan, known worldwide as James Bond Island, in Phang Nga.5,27 That is the place the official tourism voice ties to the film. It does not mention Damnoen Saduak in that passage.

The Thailand Film Office does list the market as a filming location, but for a different reason. Its statistics for foreign productions name Ratchaburi with 25 productions in 2023, naming Damnoen Saduak Floating Market among its locations alongside Khao Hin Ngu National Park, Khao Chong Pran Temple and others,10 out of 466 foreign productions in Thailand that year.28 The market is listed as a film location today, while a link to the 1974 Bond film is not something we could confirm from an official page.5

The practical conclusion is simple. If you hear that a Bond chase was filmed on these canals, treat it as a story told on tours and not as an official record, and look at the Phang Nga sources for the film's documented location. What the market does have is a steady life as a backdrop: boats, hats, fruit and narrow water make it photogenic, and the film office's list shows that producers keep coming back to it.

Video

The story of the Damnoen Saduak floating market

eddyfier Documentary on YouTube · Until you tap play, no video is loaded.

Ratchaburi’s importance to the modern Thai state dates back to the Dvaravati period when it was a pivotal trading centre of the Mon Kingdom
Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom)6

On a heritage morning

A checklist for visiting the old sites

Dress and conduct3

  • Men wear sleeved shirts and shorts below the knee at temples22
  • Silence the phone before entering a temple23
  • Women keep their hands off monks and their robes24

Plan the route4

  • Reach the canals early, when they are most active17
  • Choose a tour that stops at Wat Chottayakaram
  • Add the Lao Tak Lak photo stop if the tour offers it
  • Check current temple hours with the temple or TAT

Sugar, coconut and the farming past

Behind the canals is an orchard economy. TAT says people in neighbouring Samut Songkhram, around the Mae Klong River basin, have produced coconut palm sugar for generations,29 and that the province has one of the largest populations of coconuts in Thailand.30 Orchards there grow pomelo, rose apple, mango, lychee, coconuts and other seasonal fruit.16 The boats of fruit you see in photographs are the visible end of that farming system.

Palm sugar is a living craft rather than a museum piece. At Ban Bang Plup, TAT says locals demonstrate the traditional method, starting with the collection of coconut sap, followed by boiling and dehydration.18 A private guided listing builds a sugar-making stop of 20 minutes into the route to the floating market, with a paddle-boat ride of 15 minutes before the market itself. For a history-minded visitor, that stop brings the older economy into the day.

Coconuts reach into every part of Thai life. TAT describes them as an essential crop for everyone from cooks to carpenters,31 and says the shells appear as carved dolls, bowls and utensils in souvenir stalls.32 When you buy a carved shell or a bag of palm sugar at the market, you are buying into the farming history the canals were dug to serve, and that is a good way to connect the stalls back to the landscape around them.

FAQ

Quick questions get quick answers.

How old is Damnoen Saduak Floating Market?
No official date is given.

TAT ties the canals to King Rama IV's reign and calls a nearby temple over 145 years old, but gives no founding date for the market.1,2

Who ordered the Damnoen Saduak canals?
TAT credits King Rama IV's reign.

TAT dates the canal and its over 200 small canals to Rama IV's reign.1

Was James Bond filmed at Damnoen Saduak?
We found no official record.

The 1974 film is linked by TAT to Khao Phing Kan in Phang Nga, and the film office lists the market as a modern filming location.5,10

What is the oldest floating market near here?
TAT names Lao Tak Lak.

It calls Lao Tak Lak the first traditional floating market in Thailand.3

Why did people say the market was overrated?
TAT cites past overtourism.

It says past overtourism left some finding the market overrated, before a recovery.9,4

Which temple should I know on the canal routes?
Wat Choti Thayakaram.

King Rama V and King Bhumibol visited the temple, which TAT describes as over 145 years old.7,2

Sources

  1. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Thai tourism minister leads expats on Ratchaburi canal tour ↩
  2. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Thai tourism minister leads expats on Ratchaburi canal tour ↩
  3. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Thai tourism minister leads expats on Ratchaburi canal tour ↩
  4. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · A Path worth travelling: Discovering Ratchaburi ↩
  5. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · The Golden Backlot ↩
  6. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · A Path worth travelling: Discovering Ratchaburi ↩
  7. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Thai tourism minister leads expats on Ratchaburi canal tour ↩
  8. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Thai tourism minister leads expats on Ratchaburi canal tour ↩
  9. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · A Path worth travelling: Discovering Ratchaburi ↩
  10. Thailand Film Office (Department of Tourism) · Foreign filming in Thailand reached new records ↩
  11. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Thai tourism minister leads expats on Ratchaburi canal tour ↩
  12. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Thai tourism minister leads expats on Ratchaburi canal tour ↩
  13. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Thai tourism minister leads expats on Ratchaburi canal tour ↩
  14. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · A Path worth travelling: Discovering Ratchaburi ↩
  15. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · A Path worth travelling: Discovering Ratchaburi ↩
  16. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · TAT to LINK the Arab world to its floating souks at Arabian Travel Market ↩
  17. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · A Path worth travelling: Discovering Ratchaburi ↩
  18. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · TAT to LINK the Arab world to its floating souks at Arabian Travel Market ↩
  19. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Thai tourism minister leads expats on Ratchaburi canal tour
  20. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · A day at Amphawa Floating Market
  21. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · A Path worth travelling: Discovering Ratchaburi
  22. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Observing temple and sacred site etiquette while in Thailand ↩
  23. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Observing temple and sacred site etiquette while in Thailand ↩
  24. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Observing temple and sacred site etiquette while in Thailand ↩
  25. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Thai tourism minister leads expats on Ratchaburi canal tour ↩
  26. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · WTTC Global Summit 2017 ↩
  27. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · The Golden Backlot ↩
  28. Thailand Film Office (Department of Tourism) · Foreign filming in Thailand reached new records ↩
  29. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · TAT to LINK the Arab world to its floating souks at Arabian Travel Market ↩
  30. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · The Unexpected Feeling Episode 3: Coconut Treasure ↩
  31. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Versatile coconuts shaped Thai culture ↩
  32. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT Newsroom) · Versatile coconuts shaped Thai culture ↩

Related reading

More to read before you go

GuideDamnoen Saduak tour pricesGuideThe Damnoen Saduak boat ride: paddle boat or longtailGuideHow to get to Damnoen Saduak from BangkokGuideIs Damnoen Saduak worth it?

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