Ayutthaya (Civ6)/Civilopedia

As the Khmer Empire declined in the 14th century, the lands that it dominated started to assert themselves. In the Chao Phraya valley, in modern-day Thailand, a series of Theravada Buddhist city-states called “mueang,” populated by Thai-speaking and Lao-speaking peoples, began to split off from the Khmer, asserting their own linguistic and cultural independence while retaining the religion, royal traditions, and many other cultural and legal features of the Khmer. Mueang were “mandala states,” kingdoms without defined borders but centered on a city that stressed beauty, artistic achievements, and cosmopolitan outlook – think of countries in that time not as the bounded puzzle pieces we see on a map today (or the bordered civilizations in your current game), but as magnets, drawing in people and power from the landscape. Power and profits came via royal monopolies on certain goods – especially porcelain or incense (the name of Vientiane, a Lao “mueang” from the same time, means “city of sandalwood”).
Once the mueang were free of the Khmer, they made war on each other. And, through the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, one became dominant. Ayutthaya, named after the city in the Hindu epic Ramayana [Ramakien, in Thai], became first the center of the Chao Phraya river plain, and, later, a significant power in mainland Southeast Asia, one that European travelers compared with India and China. In the course of its rise, Ayutthaya struggled diplomatically and militarily with its neighbors, especially the Burmese, who conquered Ayutthaya in the 1500s, but were rebuffed by the ambitious warrior-king Naresuan. Ayutthaya could also be the aggressor: at its height, Cambodia, parts of Malaysia, and Laos were controlled by the kings of Ayutthaya.
The city flourished in the 1600s, and the kingdom was called by some travelers a name we might find more familiar – Siam (itself derived from a Khmer word, or possibly a Chinese term). The kings of Ayutthaya were curious about the world and open to it, and employed Japanese, Arab, and European councilors to help them navigate the tricky realm of international diplomacy. The city itself, situated on an island in the middle of the Chao Phraya river, was large for the time, with about a quarter million residents, and had a cosmopolitan, polyglot nature – communities of Japanese, Chinese, and Europeans were established in the city and mingled with the locals. Gender roles, too, were relatively progressive in comparison with East Asia, South Asia, or Europe. One Chinese traveler remarked that “it is [Siamese] custom that all affairs are managed by their wives,” and Alexander Hamilton noted that the “Women in Siam are the only Merchants in buying Goods.”
Ayutthaya did not decline; it crashed. Specifically, it crashed against the Burmese army, yet again. In 1767, the Burmese sacked Ayutthaya and destroyed it, carrying off the gold of its temples, many of its skilled artisans, and putting most of the city to the torch. Siam reformed some years later further south, in a city called (in part) Krung Thep, a city known to foreigners as Bangkok. Today, Siam – Thailand - remains the only country in the region not to be formally colonized by a European power.