Why so many wats in rural Thailand?

My farang friends and I live in Thailand and enjoy exploring rural Thailand. We especially like to see the various architecture of special Buddhist temples.

Sometimes we’ll encounter 2-3 wats in a small village that can hardly support one wat. Why would this be? It seems that financially it would be difficult to support more than one community wat in a small village.

Also, it seems that some wats are more popular than others because of the famous monk in the area. Some Thai Buddhists will drive 1…2 hours to visit a special wat for making good merit or receive a blessing from a particular monk.

I know with Christianity we have different denominations; thus, different churches in a town or city. And we have our own”evangelical ministers” that become popular and create mega-churches. Any similarities to this?