Loy Krathong: origins, dates and places of the water festival

On the night of the full moon, at the foot of Phra Sumen Fort on the bank of the Chao Phraya, people crouch at the water’s edge. They light a candle and sticks of incense set in the heart of a corolla of banana leaves, raise the offering to their forehead, then lay it on the river. A little upstream, beneath the stay cables of the Rama VIII Bridge, the small flames drift away on the current. This is Loy Krathong, ‘floating the krathong’, and the same gesture is repeated at the same moment on a khlong in Don Mueang, before the ruins of Sukhothai and on the seafront at Saphan Hin, in Phuket.

In 2026, the festival falls on Tuesday 24 November, the full moon of the twelfth lunar month. It is not a public holiday, and in Bangkok it is lived above all along the river, close to the residential neighbourhoods we have described. What it asks comes down to three intentions, which Thailand’s Ministry of Culture describes as follows: to thank the water and honour Phra Mae Khongkha, the mother of waters; to ask its forgiveness for having fouled it; and to let the current carry away whatever one wishes to see go. For a foreigner living here, the point is not to watch the festival but to take part in it, with neighbours and children. Here is where it comes from, what goes into a krathong, what sets it apart from Yi Peng, and where to celebrate it this year.

Where does Loy Krathong come from, and what do historians really know?

The most common answer comes down to one name: Nang Noppamas. According to tradition, this lady of the court of King Phra Ruang fashioned the first lotus-shaped krathong at Sukhothai. Even official publications disagree on her portrait: one Ministry of Culture booklet makes her a royal consort, another the daughter of a Brahmin who became a lady of the court. The story is beautiful, and it says something about the spirit of the festival. It belongs to tradition, not to history.

The ministry’s booklet offers a more sober reading, and a more interesting one. In the inscription attributed to King Ramkhamhaeng, the booklet picks out the words phao thian len fai, ‘to burn candles and play with fire’, without reading them as an explicit mention of Loy Krathong: these are the very words taken up today in the official name of the Sukhothai festival. Published in 2014 by the Department of Cultural Promotion, the booklet looks for the earliest trace of a comparable rite in a bas-relief at the Bayon, in Angkor Thom, which it dates to after about 1157.

At Ayutthaya, the court celebrated a royal rite called Chong Priang, Lot Chut Loy Khom, a Brahmanical procession of lanterns; this is the basis of the hypothesis of a Brahmanical origin. As for the story of Nang Noppamas, preserved in the Tamrap Thao Si Chulalak, the prince and historian Damrong Rajanubhab (1862-1943) attributed it to the reign of Rama III, King Nangklao (1824-1851), on the strength of a style characteristic of the Rattanakosin period. The booklet goes on to describe how the krathong gradually spread from the court to the people of Bangkok, and then to the neighbouring towns. Rama VI later abolished the royal rite, which he considered too costly; the people, for their part, kept it alive.

Since 2011, Loy Krathong has been inscribed on Thailand’s national intangible cultural heritage list. On 27 March 2025, the Cabinet approved a nomination file for UNESCO entitled ‘Loy Krathong: Traditional Water-honouring Festival in Thailand’; the Minister of Culture, Sudawan Wangsuphakijkosol, described it, according to the Bangkok Post, as a crucial step for Thai soft power. On the UNESCO website, the file appears among pending nominations, with no year of examination set. The Thai nomination being examined from 30 November to 5 December 2026, in Xiamen, concerns the chut thai, the traditional dress.

The krathong, piece by piece

The word means, first of all, a receptacle. The classic base is a slice of banana trunk, which floats on its own, edged with folded banana leaves. Flowers, a candle and sticks of incense are arranged on it. Nothing more is required, and it is this simplicity that the authorities now recommend: banana leaves, lotus, or even ice krathong.

Two additions are more personal. Many people slip in a lock of hair or nail clippings, so that misfortune leaves with the offering; others a coin, which children then fish out. The ministry’s booklet also reports a belief linked to certain rites in the South: people avoid retrieving the raft of offerings, for fear of taking on the misfortune it carries away.

The gesture varies little from one region to another. You light the candle and the incense, raise the krathong to your forehead, make a wish or give thanks, then set it on the water. The Thai booklet gives a Pali formula for this moment; most people pray in silence. Three words are enough to follow a conversation with your neighbours: Phra Mae Khongkha, the goddess of the waters, whom the Thailand Foundation likens to the goddess Ganga; kho khama, to ask forgiveness; and wan phen duean sip song, the full-moon day of the twelfth month, which gives the date.

Loy Krathong and Yi Peng: why does Chiang Mai celebrate differently?

Yi Peng is the Lanna festival of the full moon of the second month of the Lanna calendar, and it falls on the same night as Loy Krathong. The North floats krathong like everywhere else, but adds light in the air: khom fai, flame lanterns that rise into the sky, khom khwan, smoke lanterns, and the lamps that adorn houses and temples. According to the Thailand Foundation, the lanterns rise as an offering to the relics of the Buddha in the heavens.

In Chiang Mai, the 2026 programme published by Thansettakij spans six days. From 20 to 23 November, Wat Chedi Luang hosts Tam Phang Pratheep, the lighting of oil lamps; on the 23rd, a procession makes its way to Wat Chedi Luang, while lamps are lit at the four corners of the old city; Yi Peng runs from the 23rd to the 25th and, according to Thansettakij, the only detailed source consulted on this move, its main hub shifts from Tha Phae Gate to the park of the Ton Lamyai market; and on the 25th, fifteen large krathong parade from Tha Phae to the city hall.

The images of skies filled with lanterns, for their part, mostly show private, ticketed releases organised outside the city. In 2026, the TAT announces the CAD Khomloi Sky Lanterns Festival at the CAD Lanna cultural centre in Mae On, on 24 and 25 November; Thansettakij reports others at Doi Saket and San Pa Tong.

The airport arranges itself around the festival. According to The Nation and Krungthep Turakij, flight schedules have been adjusted to avoid 10am to noon on 24 November, for the smoke lanterns, then 7pm to 1am on the 24th and 25th, and more than 200,000 lanterns are expected. The airport’s statement of 2 November, relayed by the Chiang Mai office of the Public Relations Department (PRD), gives the position as of 30 October: 108 flights cancelled, 80 rescheduled and 105 added, an interim count rather than a final tally. The airport’s director, Group Captain Sakan Udol, reminds the public that any release is strictly prohibited in the ‘red zone’, beneath the take-off and landing paths.

Where can you celebrate Loy Krathong in 2026?

The official calendar published by the TAT on 5 November covers much of the country. The sites below are those that matter to residents of the main destinations; the dates are the TAT’s wherever it publishes them, preferred to earlier versions that appeared in the press.

The announced Loy Krathong and Yi Peng events for 2026:

Bangkok. The BMA has placed its edition under the theme ‘Preserving Thai Traditions along Rattanakosin’s Waterways’. The official opening takes place on 24 November at 6pm at Mahakan Fort, with security gates and the Prime Minister expected. The same evening, the Wat Saket fair at the foot of the Golden Mount is in full swing: it runs from 17 to 29 November, with ceremonies around the relics from the 17th to the 26th. For those who live along the river, the TAT’s Vijit Chao Phraya transforms the view from the riverside towers for a whole month; our Chao Phraya guide maps these banks neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

Sukhothai. This is the setting of the tradition, and the most theatrical of the festivals: ten evenings of performances in the Historical Park, from 15 to 24 November, under the official name ‘Loy Krathong, Burning Candles and Playing with Fire’. Seats are booked in advance.

Phuket and Pattaya. In Phuket, the festival is held by the sea, at Saphan Hin, from 16 to 25 November; our article on life in Phuket describes the neighbourhoods from which people make their way there. In Chonburi, the TAT announces Pong on the 24th and Laem Chabang on the 23rd and 24th. In 2025, according to The Thaiger, Pattaya banned fireworks and lanterns and steered krathong towards purpose-built pools rather than the sea; the mayor, Poramet Ngampichet, said the city was not banning the tradition but guiding it towards a cleaner future.

Hua Hin and Koh Samui. Neither appears in the TAT calendar of 5 November, and we have not found a 2026 programme for either destination. For those living in Hua Hin or on Samui, the information will come from the municipality or the neighbourhood temple, in the days leading up to the full moon.

What is the right way to take part when you live here?

What to wear. In temples, shoulders and knees covered, shoes removed before entering a sacred building. The Thailand Foundation adds two simple rules: be discreet, observe first, ask afterwards. At the BMA sites, the ‘Wear Chud Thai to Loy Krathong’ activity lends traditional dress free of charge; it is an elegant way into the festival.

The krathong. The BMA’s figures tell of a real change, and a nuance. The number of krathong collected from Bangkok’s waters has fallen since 2017, and foam had almost disappeared by 2024. In 2025, its share climbed back above 7% of the krathong collected.

Krathong collected by the BMA in Bangkok, 2017-2025:

In 2025, of 391,027 krathong, 323,626 were made from natural materials, 28,298 from foam and 39,103 from bread. The ‘online’ krathong offered by the city on greener.bangkok.go.th fell from 36,832 in 2024 to 23,347 in 2025. The overall fall of 24% came in the year of a more restrained edition, held during the period of national mourning that followed the passing of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit The Queen Mother; it is probably not explained by a single factor. In the sources consulted, we found no legal ban on foam: the rule is a matter of official guidance.

One krathong per family. This is the BMA’s slogan, ‘1 family, 1 krathong’, and the simplest way to make the evening a shared moment: you make it together in the afternoon, everyone slips in a coin or a lock of hair, and you set it on the water together at night.

The case of Emma and Tom, a first Loy Krathong in Sathorn

What you can do now

Set aside the evening of Tuesday 24 November: choose a waterside site from the table, plan clothes that cover shoulders and knees, and suggest to your neighbours that you make a krathong together, from banana leaves, one for the family. If you are thinking of Chiang Mai, choose an event whose organiser confirms the authorised site and time slot, or join the lighting of lamps, and check your flight times. To place your neighbourhood in relation to the river and the festival sites, open the Reflexion map.