The People Who Put Buriram on the Map

The list of famous people from Buriram isn’t a long one. What it has, however, is range — and several of the names on it are, in their respective fields, genuinely remarkable. Here are the most notable people born in or deeply associated with Buriram province.

Lisa (Lalisa Manobal) — Global Superstar from Buriram

Born Pranpriya Manobal on 27 March 1997 in Satuek district, Buriram, Lisa is the most globally famous person to come from this province. By most measures, she is also one of the most internationally recognised Thais alive.

She later changed her name to Lalisa, moved to Bangkok as a child, and travelled to Seoul as a teenager to audition for YG Entertainment. In 2016, she debuted as a member of BLACKPINK, which went on to become one of the best-selling girl groups in music history.

The scale of what followed is difficult to overstate. She was the first K-pop artist to reach 100 million Instagram followers. Her 2021 solo single “LALISA” became one of the fastest music videos in YouTube history to reach 100 million views. Additionally, Thailand’s Ministry of Culture appointed her a national cultural ambassador.

She grew up in Bangkok and has spent most of her adult life between Seoul and the world’s major cities. Buriram, however, is where she was born — in a part of the province that sits within the ancient Northern Khmer cultural belt, a detail explored in our article on the Khmer dialect of Buriram and Surin.

Newin Chidchob — The Man Who Built Modern Buriram

No figure has shaped contemporary Buriram more profoundly than Newin Chidchob. A native of the province, he spent two decades in Thai national politics. He then turned his full energy toward transforming his home territory into something that had never existed in Isaan before: a world-class sports destination.

Buriram United and Chang Arena

The project began with football. Newin took over a small local club and built Buriram United FC into the most successful in Thai football history. Multiple Thai League titles followed, along with a pipeline of Thai internationals. The result was Chang Arena — a 32,600-seat purpose-built stadium that stands as one of the finest football venues in Southeast Asia.

Chang International Circuit

Then came the circuit. Chang International Circuit covers 1,400 acres, was designed by Hermann Tilke, and is certified to both FIM Grade A and FIA Grade 1 standard. Its capacity of 100,000 makes it one of the largest motorsport venues in Asia. It opened in 2014, brought MotoGP to Thailand four years later, and has hosted the World Championship season opener since 2025. The contract runs until 2031.

Between the stadium and the circuit sits the Amari Buriram United hotel — the only accommodation in the world where you can walk to both a MotoGP Grand Prix and a top-tier professional football match from the same room.

The economic impact on Buriram has been substantial. The 2025 MotoGP event alone generated five billion baht in economic activity. Hotel capacity across the province has expanded by more than 5,000 rooms. As a result, thousands of jobs have been created across hospitality, transport and retail. Newin has spoken publicly of a longer-term ambition to add health and wellness to the mix — a third pillar alongside football and motorsport.

For visitors to Buriram, his legacy is the reason many of them are there at all. Our MotoGP Thailand guide and Buriram United guide cover both facilities in detail.

Yinglee Srijumpol

Yinglee Srijumpol is one of Thailand’s biggest names in luk thung — the country music genre that dominates rural Thai musical culture and commands an audience that international visitors rarely encounter.

She became the first Thai luk thung artist to achieve 100 million YouTube views. This milestone reflects both the scale of the genre’s following across Thailand and her particular prominence within it. She records under Grammy Gold, part of the GMM Music stable that leads Thai popular music.

Furthermore, her connection to Buriram extends beyond birthplace. She owns and operates a resort and water park in the province — a tangible investment in the region where she grew up, and a significant local employer.

Lumplearn Wongsakorn — Mor Lam’s Digital Generation

Mor lam is the traditional music of Isaan — rooted in the same flat, rice-farming northeast that Buriram embodies — and Lumplearn Wongsakorn is among its most successful contemporary artists.

He grew up in Ban Kruat, Buriram province. Before music, he worked as a boxer, earning money to support his family. He began building an audience through social media, and the numbers grew large enough to attract Grammy Gold — the same major Thai label that Yinglee Srijumpol records under.

The scale of his following is striking for a regional folk artist. His YouTube channel has 1.83 million subscribers and over 640 million views across 745 videos. On TikTok, he has 1.6 million followers and 32.9 million likes. These figures reflect both the enduring audience for mor lam across the Thai diaspora and the reach that short-video platforms have given traditional Isaan music globally.

Adisak Kraisorn

Born on 1 February 1991 in Buriram Province, Adisak Kraisorn is among the most decorated Thai footballers of his generation. A striker, he played for Buriram United during one of the club’s title-winning periods. He has also represented the Thai national team across a long international career.

His most significant honours came with the national team. Adisak is a three-time winner of the ASEAN Championship — Southeast Asia’s most prestigious international football competition. He took the title with Thailand in 2014, 2020 and 2022.

He is not a household name beyond football-following circles in the region. However, as a Buriram-born player who won the domestic title with his home province’s club and represented his country at the highest available level, he represents a quieter kind of local achievement.

Lamnamoonlek — World Muay Thai Champion

Muay Thai is Thailand’s national sport, and Lamnamoonlek — born Nattapon Saenkla in Buriram in 1998 — stands among its elite at lightweight.

He started training at age seven, inspired by two older brothers who were also fighters. He developed in the Muay Femur style — technical and points-based, prioritising ring intelligence over raw power — and after years at the Sakchaichot camp, moved to the Teeded99 gym where his career accelerated.

His major titles include back-to-back Rajadamnern World Series Lightweight Tournament championships in 2022 and 2023, the WMC World Lightweight title, and Sports Authority of Thailand Fighter of the Year in 2021. He has competed in ONE Championship’s Super Series, which showcases world-class striking talent. His professional record stands at over 100 wins.

Sansanee Wattananukul — The Voice of Nobita

For anyone who grew up watching Doraemon in Thailand, the voice of Nobita — the clumsy, endearing boy at the centre of the story — has belonged to Sansanee Wattananukul since 1982. That is over four decades of one of the most consistently heard voices in Thai broadcasting.

Born in Buriram in 1945, she built a career as both a screen actress and voice actress. Beyond Doraemon, her credits span more than a hundred anime productions dubbed for Thai audiences, including Sailor Moon, Pokémon and Digimon Adventure. As a screen actress, she won Best Supporting Actress at both the Kom Chad Luek Awards and the Star Entertainment Awards in 2009.

In a quiet way, she is one of the most culturally embedded voices in Thailand — heard by millions of children across multiple generations.

Pira Sudham — The Voice of Isaan

Pira Sudham is the most internationally recognised writer to come from Isaan, and one of the very few Thai authors to have built a readership in English-speaking countries through literary fiction.

Born in a Buriram village in 1942, he won a New Zealand government scholarship to study English Literature at Victoria University of Wellington. His first story appeared in Landfall, New Zealand’s leading literary journal. He went on to write several novels and short story collections, the most notable being Monsoon Country (1988) and its sequel The Force of Karma.

His subject matter is consistently Isaan: poverty, deforestation, displacement, the student uprisings of 1973 and 1976, and the experience of rural Thais navigating a changing country. He has called himself “the voice of Esarn” — a phrase that captures both his sense of purpose and the limited representation the region has received in English-language literature. He now lives in his home village in Isaan, continuing to write.

Famous People from Buriram: A Remarkable Short List

Eight names from a province of 1.6 million people — still a short list by any measure, but the range is hard to ignore. A global pop phenomenon. The architect of one of Southeast Asia’s most ambitious regional development projects. Two recording artists with combined YouTube views in the hundreds of millions. A world Muay Thai champion. A voice actress heard by generations of Thai children. A decorated international footballer. And a novelist who gave Isaan its literary voice in English.

For a province that most of the world had barely heard of twenty years ago, the famous people from Buriram represent a considerable footprint.

Interested in visiting? See our guides to getting to Buriram and where to stay.

Feature image: Chang Arena, home of Buriram United FC — built as part of Newin Chidchob’s Thunder Castle sports complex.
Newin Chidchob photo: MGR Online VDO, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Adisak Kraisorn photo: El Loko Foto (Sven Beyrich), CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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