History
The city gets its name from Phra That Kham Kaen, a revered chedi at Wat Chetiyaphum in the village of Ban Kham, 32km to the northeast. Legend says that early in the last millennium a thâat (four-sided, curvilinear reliquary stupa) was built over a tamarind tree stump that miraculously came to life after a contingent of monks carrying Buddha relics to Phra That Phanom (in today’s Nakhon Phanom Province) camped here overnight. There was no room at That Phanom for more relics, so the monks returned to this spot and enshrined the relics in the new That Kham Kaen (Tamarind Heartwood Reliquary). A town developed nearby, but was abandoned several times until 1789 when a Suwannaphum ruler founded a city at the current site, which he named Kham Kaen after the chedi. Over the years the name has changed to Khon Kaen (Heartwood Log).
