White Elephant Gate
Welcome to the North Gate, called the White Elephant Gate, and your first glimpse at Chiang Mai's old city wall. Well to be clear, it's a replica of the original as the Japanese had torn it all down to re-purpose the bricks during a WWII occupation. Thankfully, in the late 1970's the Chiang Mai decided to rebuild 5 of the city gates and all four corners of the wall to match photos from 1899 and they did a great job. The gates of the wall were locked nightly for hundreds of years all the way until the Japanese occupation.
The North Gate was originally called Head Fortified Gate (Hua Vieng) before being changed to the White Elephant Gate around 1400 A.D. We've found a bunch of stories on why this happened but we'll spare you as they are all kind of drawn out stories and there is no consensus on which is true. Either way it's impressive that a mere 15 foot tall wall protected the city for hundreds of years.