This is a town (thesaban mueang) in the west of Thailand and the capital of Kanchanaburi province. In 2006 it had a population of 31,327. The town covers the complete tambon Ban Nuea and Ban Tai and parts of Pak Phraek and Tha Makham, all of Mueang Kanchanaburi district, and parts of the tambon Tha Lo of Tha Muang district.
Thi is located where the Khwae Noi and Khwae Yai rivers converge into the Mae Klong river, spans the northern banks of the river and is a popular spot for travelers, its location at the edge of a mountain range keeping it much cooler than the other provinces of central Thailand.
In 1942 Kanchanaburi was under Japanesecontrol. It was here that Asian forced labourers and Allied POWs, building the infamous Burma Railway, constructed a bridge; an event immortalised in the filmBridge on the River Kwai. Almost half of the prisoners working on the project died from disease, maltreatment and accidents. At Kanchanaburi, there is a memorial and two museums to commemorate the dead. In March 2003, the Thailand-Burma Railway Museum opened and the JEATH War Museum dedicated to the bridge and the Death Railway. The city is also home to the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery.

This was a Siamese kingdom that existed from 1350 to 1767. Ayutthaya was friendly towards foreign traders, including the Chinese, Vietnamese(Annamese), Indians, Japanese and Persians, and later the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutchand French, permitting them to set up villages outside the walls of the capital, also calledAyutthaya. In the sixteenth century, it was described by foreign traders as one of the biggest and wealthiest cities in the East. The court of King Narai (1656–88) had strong links with that of King Louis XIV of France, whose ambassadors compared the city in size and wealth to Paris.
By 1550, the kingdom’s vassals included some city-states in the Malay Peninsula, Sukhothai, and parts of Cambodia.
In foreign accounts, Ayutthaya was called Siam, but many sources say the people of Ayutthaya called themselves Tai, and their kingdom Krung Tai, ‘Tai Kingdom’. By the end of the century, Ayutthaya was regarded as the strongest power in mainland Southeast Asia. Ayutthaya began its hegemony by conquering northern kingdoms and city-states like Sukhothai,Kamphaeng Phet and Phitsanuloke. Before the end of the fifteenth century, Ayutthaya launched attacks onAngkor, the classical great power of the region. Angkor’s influence eventually faded from the Chao Phraya River Plain while Ayutthaya became a new great power.