Nakhon Phanom Destination Guide

Updated 6th Sep 2026

Nakhon Phanom is a provincial town on the Thai bank of the Mekong River, directly across the water from Khammouan province in Laos. It has its own airport and a working land border to Laos over the Third Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge, and the province's best-known sight, the Phra That Phanom stupa, stands about 50 kilometres south of the town. This guide covers what to see and how to get there by air.

Getting there by air

Nakhon Phanom Airport (KOP) sits in Nong Yat subdistrict, in Mueang Nakhon Phanom district, and is operated by Thailand's Department of Airports. It opened on 1 June 1963 and has a single runway, 2,500 metres of asphalt.

Thailand's Department of Airports records Thai AirAsia and Thai Lion Air as the airlines currently flying between Bangkok and Nakhon Phanom, using Bangkok's Don Mueang Airport. Nakhon Phanom Airport has more on the terminal itself and its facilities.

Phra That Phanom

Wat Phra That Phanom stands in That Phanom district, in the south of the province, a reported 50 kilometres or so from Nakhon Phanom town and about 600 metres back from the Mekong. It is the province's best-known sight and a major Buddhist pilgrimage site. Local tradition holds that five Mon kings built it shortly after the Buddha's death, though archaeological dating instead places the innermost brick chamber at the site in the seventh or eighth century CE.

The stupa is reported to stand around 53 metres tall, topped with a gold spire said to weigh 110 kilograms. The original structure collapsed after heavy rain on 11 August 1975 and reconstruction is reported to have finished on 23 March 1979, with UNESCO recording the restoration as funded from the government budget and from donations. The site has sat on Thailand's UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List since 2 February 2017, under a listing covering the temple's historic buildings and the surrounding landscape.

An annual week-long festival at That Phanom draws large numbers of pilgrims, though the exact dates shift each year with the lunar calendar. In Thai folk-Buddhist tradition, people born in the Year of the Monkey regard Phra That Phanom as their guardian temple.

The river and the border with Laos

The Mekong River forms the provincial border here, separating Nakhon Phanom from Khammouan province in Laos. From the riverfront promenade in town, the mountains on the Lao side are clearly visible across the water.

The Third Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge crosses the river a short distance from town, linking Nakhon Phanom with Khammouan province at Thakhek. It opened to traffic on 11 November 2011, a date the Tourism Authority of Thailand says was chosen deliberately for its 11-11-11 form, and it was the third Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge to be built, after the crossings at Nong Khai and Mukdahan. It carries the Asian Highway Network's AH15 route onward through Laos to Vietnam.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand and the Thai government's Public Relations Department both put the bridge at 780 metres long. Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and construction reporting from 2011, give 1,423 metres for the same crossing, nearly twice as much.

The Lao side of the crossing is officially known as Friendship Bridge 3, and Laos's own Department of Immigration gives its stated hours as 06:00 to 22:00 and lists both visa on arrival and eVisa as accepted there. The Lao government's official eVisa portal, though, names the nine ports at which an eVisa can be used and Friendship Bridge 3 is not among them, adding that at a port not designated for eVisa a traveller has to apply for a visa on arrival and that the eVisa fee is not refunded. The two Lao government sources disagree, so do not count on an eVisa being accepted here, and check the current Lao entry requirements for your own passport before you travel.

The Thai-side checkpoint is at Ban Hom, in At Samat subdistrict, about 8 kilometres from Nakhon Phanom town centre.

The colonial town by the river

The Former Governor's Residence Museum stands on the riverbank on Suntorn Vijit Road, a two-storey building in French colonial style built between 1912 and 1914. It served as the provincial governor's official residence until 1984 and is now a museum covering the province's history and its ethnic communities.

The Catholic church in the Nong Saeng area of town is St Anne's Co-Cathedral, signed locally and on maps as St Anna Nong Saeng Catholic Church. The parish was established in 1926, its faith brought to the area by Vietnamese Catholic immigrants, and the building is French colonial in style with twin steeples linked by a footbridge. It is a working church; the separate hall next door, reported to date from the 1950s, is the building said to be undergoing conversion into a museum of the region's Catholic history.

A former library building on the riverfront, also built in French colonial style with a yellow facade, is another example of the town's colonial-era architecture.

Renu Nakhon's weaving villages

Renu Nakhon district lies a reported 50 kilometres or so south of Nakhon Phanom town, and is known for hand-woven cotton and silk, dyed in indigo and other dark blue and red patterns. Weaving is documented in villages including Ban Na Kham, and cloth is sold from stalls around the district's temple.

The district's landmark temple, Phra That Renu, is built as a replica of Phra That Phanom.

The province, and when to go

Nakhon Phanom province covers 5,637 square kilometres and had a population of 710,740 in 2024. It borders Mukdahan, Sakon Nakhon and Bueng Kan provinces within Thailand, and Khammouan province in Laos across the Mekong. Most of the population speaks Lao, alongside Thai, Isan and Vietnamese speakers in the town itself.

Nong Khai, further along the Mekong, is around 273 kilometres away, about four and a half hours' drive each way, so not a side trip from here.

The cooler, drier months from November to February are generally the recommended time to visit. April is the hottest month, and the rainy season runs roughly from May to October, heaviest in July and August.

Frequently asked questions

Does Nakhon Phanom have an airport?

Yes. Nakhon Phanom Airport (KOP) has scheduled domestic service to Bangkok, and Thailand's Department of Airports records Thai AirAsia and Thai Lion Air as currently flying the route.

What is there to do in Nakhon Phanom?

In the town itself: the Mekong riverfront with its view across to Laos, the Third Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge as a working border crossing, and the colonial-era buildings including the Former Governor's Residence Museum and the Catholic church at Nong Saeng. The Phra That Phanom stupa and the weaving villages of Renu Nakhon are both around 50 kilometres south of town rather than in it, so each needs a trip out.

Where is the Third Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge?

The bridge crosses the Mekong about 8 kilometres from Nakhon Phanom town, connecting Thailand with Khammouan province in Laos at Thakhek. Laos's Department of Immigration gives the Lao-side checkpoint's stated hours as 06:00 to 22:00 and lists both visa on arrival and eVisa as accepted there, but the Lao government's own eVisa portal does not include Friendship Bridge 3 among the nine ports at which an eVisa can be used. Check the current Lao entry requirements for your own passport before you travel.