This may be a case of 'Everybody Already Knows' , in which case I simply look dumb (nothing new - my wife would say) , but I recently discovered that, apart from the usual very basic road-maps of northern Thailand (some of which don't even show Mae-Jo !) , there is also a series of large-scale 1:50,000 maps available for the region, showing 25km-square blocks.

These show local/village roads, streams & wats, and are therefore useful for local cycling, my own interest, but might also be helpful to anyone touring the area & looking to buy land, and settle-down.

They have green covers & are available for 135B each at Suriwong Book Centre, probably elsewhere too, and are in a display at the back of the regular touring-maps rack, which is probably why I'd missed them previously.

Place-names are in Thai + alphabetical-script.

Hope others find this helpful also !

This may be a case of 'Everybody Already Knows' , in which case I simply look dumb (nothing new - my wife would say) , but I recently discovered that, apart from the usual very basic road-maps of northern Thailand (some of which don't even show Mae-Jo !) , there is also a series of large-scale 1:50,000 maps available for the region, showing 25km-square blocks.

These show local/village roads, streams & wats, and are therefore useful for local cycling, my own interest, but might also be helpful to anyone touring the area & looking to buy land, and settle-down.

They have green covers & are available for 135B each at Suriwong Book Centre, probably elsewhere too, and are in a display at the back of the regular touring-maps rack, which is probably why I'd missed them previously.

Place-names are in Thai + alphabetical-script.

Hope others find this helpful also !

These are the Royal Thai Army survey maps. The selection at local bookstores is pretty limited. It looks like they carry lots of them but they're usually just multiple copies of around 20-25 different districts. If you want the full selection you have to visit the RTA map survey dept in Bangkok. They're much cheaper at the RTA office and you can also choose from several other scales. Maps to areas where there are border delineation disagreements with Laos and Myanmar (I think there are around four such spots) are off limits to the public.

Of course the RTA maps not 100% accurate - no map is, and the updating dates vary, and you'll find village names that don't exist on the ground (nowadays at least) - but they're the best available.

Seem to remember that there was a decent selection of these better maps at the DK bookstore on Thanon Khotchasan when we went for a browse there during last years annual visit. It was the first time I had seen decent detailed maps in Thailand.

Same thing at DK, around 20-25 of 1:50,000 maps, no more, multiple copies of each. There are actually 321 in print. At the map survey dept in BKK these sell to the public for 70B each.

Keep in mind that these maps are 35 years old. None of the new highways are on them. The good thing is the mountains haven't changed much except some of the foothill areas are now missing due to all the gravel pits being dug.