Portal:Thailand/Selected article/18

The Democracy Monument (in Thai: อนุสาวรีย์ประชาธิปไตย Anusawari Prachathipatai) is a public monument in the centre of Bangkok, capital of Thailand. It occupies a traffic circle on the wide east-west boulevard Thanon Ratchadamnoen Klang, at the intersection of Thanon Dinso. The monument is roughly halfway between Sanam Luang, the former royal cremation ground in front of Wat Phra Kaew, and the temple of the Golden Mount (Phu Kao Thong).

The monument was commissioned in 1939 by the military ruler of Thailand, Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram (known as Phibun), to commemorate the June 1932 military coup which led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in what was then the Kingdom of Siam. Phibun saw the monument as the centre of what he envisaged as a new, westernised Bangkok, "making Thanon Ratchadamnoen the Champs-Élysées and the Democracy Monument the Arc de Triomphe.