Nakhon Ratchasima

Long before the Thai town existed, this part of the plateau belonged to the Khmer world: Muang Sema, west of the present city, was an early settlement, and the road from Angkor ran north-east to the temple at Phimai. The modern city dates from the 17th century, when King Narai of Ayutthaya had a fortified town laid out on a rectangular plan with a moat and walls, reputedly with French engineering advice, to guard the approach to the plateau. It absorbed the populations of older settlements nearby and took the name Nakhon Ratchasima, though people have always called it Korat.

Its defining episode came in 1826, when the army of King Anouvong of Vientiane took the town during his rising against Siam. In the story honoured at the central monument, Lady Mo, the wife of a deputy governor, organised the captives and helped turn the tables on the occupying force; she was given the title Thao Suranari by King Rama III, and her festival is still the city's biggest. The monument was placed beside Chumphon Gate in 1934 and has become the emblem of the city, although historians have since suggested that the story was embellished during the nationalist years in which it was raised.

The railway from Bangkok reached Korat in 1900 and made it the gateway to the northeast. During the Vietnam War the United States operated a large air base here, which expanded the city and left a legacy of roads and bars, and the Thai air force still flies from the field. Since then Korat has grown into Isan's largest urban area, a centre for trade, food processing, universities and military garrisons, with improved highways and a rail upgrade tying it ever more closely to Bangkok.

Korat sits on a cultural boundary and knows it. The city speaks Thai Khorat, a dialect closer to central Thai than to the Lao-related Isan of the rest of the region, while Isan is heard in the surrounding districts and markets. Local identity is built around Thao Suranari: her monument is a working shrine where people pray, give thanks and hire troupes to perform the phleng khorat, a sung verse duel in the local dialect, as an offering.

The province is one of the country's centres of martial and musical tradition. Muay Thai gyms and boxing stadiums are well supported, and mor lam and luk thung concerts fill temple fairs, though the city's own music is the older phleng khorat. Crafts are strong nearby: the rust-brown pottery of Dan Kwian, silk weaving at Pak Thong Chai to the south, and the stone and brick conservation work around Phimai, which supports a community of restorers and guides.

Religious life is ordinary and constant — morning alms, merit-making at the temples inside the moat, ordinations in the dry season — and the Chinese-Thai merchant families who run much of the city's commerce add shrine festivals and a vegetarian week in the autumn. Manners are relaxed but conventional: quiet voices, respect for monks and elders, and a strong sense that Korat is the place where the northeast begins.

About 130,000 people live in the municipality and some 466,000 in the urban area spreading along the highways, making this the largest city and metropolitan area of the northeast. The economy rests on trade and distribution for the whole region, food processing and agriculture, universities and colleges, large hospitals, shopping centres, and a substantial military presence including the air force base and army units.

The rhythm is set by heat and traffic. Markets open before dawn, offices and schools start early, the middle of the day is spent indoors or under fans, and the evening belongs to the night bazaar, the malls, and food stalls along the main roads. Weekends bring trips to the reservoirs, to Khao Yai's cooler air and to the vineyards and resorts that have grown along the road towards Pak Chong.

Growth has brought the usual pressures: traffic congestion, ribbon development along the Mittraphap corridor, and water shortages in drought years, since the plateau depends on reservoirs fed by an unreliable wet season. The city has also become a commuter and weekend destination for Bangkok, and improvements to the railway are expected to strengthen that link further, which residents discuss in terms of both opportunity and rising land prices.

Korat's own dish is pad mi Korat, thin dried rice noodles stir-fried with palm sugar, tamarind, fish sauce and garlic, and often served with fresh bean sprouts and lime; it is drier and darker than the better-known pad thai and is sold from stalls throughout the city. The province is also known for sour sausages — fermented pork and rice sausages grilled over charcoal — and for crisp pork crackling eaten with chilli dips.

Otherwise the city eats Isan food, which arrives with khao niao, sticky rice pressed into balls by hand. Som tam, papaya pounded with chilli, lime, garlic and fish sauce, comes in mild versions for the Korat palate and fierce ones with pla ra, fermented fish sauce; gai yang, charcoal-grilled chicken, and larb and nam tok, salads of minced or sliced meat with lime, mint and roasted ground rice, complete the standard table. Tom saep, a hot and sour soup, and grilled river fish are common, and insects appear on market stalls in season.

Chinese-Thai cooking accounts for much of what is eaten in the old town: rice porridge in the morning, roast pork and duck over rice, and noodle soups at all hours. Sweets are coconut-based, with khao lam, sticky rice with coconut cream steamed in bamboo, sold on the highways. The road towards Khao Yai has become known for milk and dairy products from the dairy farms around Pak Chong, and for the vineyards that produce wine in the hills.