Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok is the capital of Thailand and is the country’s political, commercial, and cultural center. Bangkok’s thriving business and consumer culture exists alongside an ancient spiritual heritage that is reflected in the city’s many Buddhist temples. This heritage is also evident in the city’s traditional name Krung Thep, which means “City of Angels.”

Landscape

Bangkok is located on the flood plains flanking both sides of the Chao Phraya River, Thailand’s most important waterway. Greater Bangkok is divided into fifty districts spread over more than 1,500 square kilometers (580 square miles). Within its sprawling limits, skyscrapers and luxury districts are mixed with industrial zones and traditional Thai buildings.

The heart of the city lies on the Chao Phraya’s eastern bank. Here, in the area called Ratanakosin (the Old City), Bangkok’s most important palace, temples, and museums attract throngs of tourists. East of Ratanakosin is Dusit, seat of many Thai government offices. To the south lies Chinatown, one of the oldest parts of Bangkok. To the southeast of Chinatown are Sathorn and Bangrak, Bangkok’s major financial and business districts.

The Chao Phraya’s western bank consists of an area called Thonburi, which briefly served as the Thai capital during the eighteenth century and which was officially absorbed by Bangkok in 1972. Thonburi’s narrow canals, called khlongs, link the capital and its suburbs. In Thonburi—where residents rely on the river for bathing, laundry, and fishing—traditional lifestyles persist in modern Bangkok’s shadow.

Bangkok’s warm, humid climate lasts throughout much of the year, with average temperatures in April, generally the city’s hottest month, often hovering around 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). The rainy season begins in May and lasts until October. In addition to the rainy season, the monsoon cycle produces a winter season (November through January) and a summer season (February through April). Because of its location, the city is under threat from rising sea levels due to climate change. It also faces increased risk of flooding as rain events become more unpredictable. Experts advocated for building sea walls to protect the city.

People

About 11.070 million people live in Bangkok as of 2023. Many first- and second-generation residents moved to the capital from rural areas of Thailand in search of jobs and a higher standard of living.

Native Thais are not the only people for whom Bangkok has represented a beacon of economic opportunity. The nineteenth century saw the migration of thousands of Chinese workers, so many that the capital soon featured bilingual street signs. In the period following World War II, the Thai government passed laws to limit immigration and to force the assimilation of the existing Chinese immigrant community.

Today about three-quarters of Bangkok residents are ethnic Thais, and nearly all of these are Buddhists. The remaining 25 percent of the population is predominantly of Chinese or Indian origin, although it also includes sizeable numbers of Arabs, Malaysians, and Europeans.

Economy

Bangkok is the main trading center for both Thailand and Southeast Asia. In addition to its massive import-export business, the local economy also features a significant manufacturing base. Bangkok factories turn out automobile parts, handguns, housewares, textiles, computers, and electronics. The banking and financial services sectors also play key roles. More than three-quarters of all Thai bank deposits are held in banks located in Bangkok, and many multinational companies have offices there.

The explosive growth of the Thai economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to Thailand’s recognition as one of a select group of powerhouse Asian economies known as the “Four Tigers.” When the prosperity bubble burst across Asia in 1997, Bangkok’s economic bottom line was severely compromised and the large influx of workers who had moved to the capital to take advantage of its burgeoning job market fell on hard times. A program of economic reforms designed to prevent another such crisis, however, helped Bangkok’s economy make a steady recovery.

In an effort to turn the devalued Thai currency to its advantage, the Thai government invested heavily in efforts to promote Bangkok, more affordable than ever to foreigners, as a tourist destination. Although the tourism industry has had to weather significant setbacks—most notably the downturns in global travel resulting from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the SARS epidemic, the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, and the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic—tourism has become an extremely lucrative part of the capital’s economy. In 2023, 22.78 million international tourists visited Bangkok.

Landmarks

Bangkok’s buildings and monuments are a rich hodgepodge of old and modern, Eastern and Western. The city’s most famous attraction is the spectacular Grand Palace, constructed in 1782. The palace, which served, until the beginning of the twentieth century, as home to the Thai king and his royal court, also housed key government institutions including the war ministry and the mint. Within the palace complex is the Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha), celebrated for its highly revered fourteenth-century image of the Buddha, carved from a single block of emerald.

Scattered throughout Bangkok are more than four hundred Buddhist wats, or temple complexes, where saffron-robed monks lead lives of work and prayer. The largest of them, Wat Phra Chetuphon (Temple of the Reclining Buddha), features a massive gold-encased Buddha statue 46 meters (151 feet) in length. The largest golden seated Buddha, reaching nearly 5 meters (16 feet) in height and weighing in at five and half tons, is enshrined in Wat Traimit, near Chinatown.

Bangkok’s Buddhist heritage has also produced large numbers of shrines and so-called spirit houses. Many Bangkok home and building entrances feature pedestals supporting these dollhouse-sized structures, where the faithful can leave small offerings to appease the spirits represented by the tiny human figurines placed within. One of Bangkok’s most famous shrines—places of worship where believers make petitions for love, health, and happiness—is the Erawan Shrine, created in the 1950s to appease the spirits said to occupy the land on which a luxury hotel was to be built.

Another of Bangkok’s notable shrines, located on the grounds of a large hotel in central Bangkok, pays homage to the fertility goddess Chao Mae Tubtim. Women anxious to conceive a child attempt to invoke the goddess’s favor by leaving offerings of lotus and jasmine. Hundreds of those women whose prayers have been fulfilled have returned to the shrine to express their gratitude in the form of wood or stone carvings of the male genitalia, some as tall as 3 meters (10 feet).

Bangkok is home to several noteworthy museums. The National Museum, housed in an eighteenth-century palace, holds the country’s largest collection of Thai art as well as many examples of traditional Southeast Asian weapons, ceramics, clothing, woodcarvings, and musical instruments. Kamthieng House, a restored teak house that originally belonged to a rice farmer, offers visitors a glimpse into what daily life was like for ordinary nineteenth-century Thais. The Jim Thompson House, formerly owned by an American who played an instrumental role in founding the Thai silk industry, houses a significant collection of Asian art. The Royal Barge Museum has on display several of the elaborately gilded teak boats used in royal processions. The Queen’s Gallery, opened in 2003, promotes contemporary Thai artists.

Two of Bangkok’s offbeat but popular attractions include the Royal Thai Air Force Museum, which houses one of the world’s finest collections of rare and antique military aircraft, and the Forensic Museum, located at Siriraj Hospital but open to the general public as well as medical students. Visitors are greeted at the entranceway by the skeleton of the museum’s founder, Songkran Niyomsane, the father of forensic medicine in Thailand, who died in 1970.

History

Bangkok was established as the capital of the Thai kingdom, known at that time as Siam, in 1782 by a general who proclaimed himself King Rama I. The capital had previously been located in an area called Thonburi on the opposite bank of the Chao Phaya River. As one of his first acts, the new king decided to move it across the river. The eastern side offered superior natural defenses against enemy attacks and more room for expansion.

King Rama’s reign marked the beginning of the Chakri dynasty, descendants of which remain on the Thai throne to this day. Bangkok grew steadily under a succession of Chakri rulers, but its most dramatic developments took place during the rule of King Mongkut (1851–68), who was also known as Rama IV. Mongkut negotiated trade agreements with American and European officials that prevented the foreign colonization of Bangkok. The volume of trade also made possible significant infrastructure development, such as an enlarged port and paved streets, in the capital.

Mongkut’s successors continued his ambitious modernization program for Bangkok through the pre-World War II era. In the early twentieth century, a grid of new roads was built on land created by filling in many of the city’s canals. In 1932, a bridge linking Bangkok to the old capital area of Thonburi was completed.

Bangkok’s role as the seat of an absolute monarchy came to an end with a 1935 coup that resulted in the creation of a new constitutional monarchy. Over the next several decades, Bangkok stagnated under the iron-fisted rule of a series of military dictatorships. Under the stabilizing and moderate leadership of General Prem Tinsulanonda, who came to power in 1980, however, Bangkok began to draw increasing numbers of foreign investors, spurring the rapid growth of its economy.

Bangkok remains home to a king of the Chakri dynasty. While the citizens of Bangkok face an uncertain political future, they have also contended with the impact of a 2006 bloodless coup on their city’s economy. The ruling military junta’s protectionist policies had a chilling effect on Bangkok’s economy, which, despite the corruption of the previous administration, had thrived under a free-market approach. This has caused foreign investors to reassess their role in the capital’s economy. Protests from 2008 to 2010 and those beginning in late 2013 have left Thailand’s political system in a state of upheaval. In 2014, after Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was removed from office and the caretaker government was overthrown by a coup, General Prayut Chan-ocha, head of the Royal Thai Army, was named prime minister.

On October 13, 2016, King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Phumiphon Adunyadet) died at the age of eighty-eight, after reigning for seventy years. His son, King Maha Vajiralongkorn (Wachiralongkon Bodinthrathepphayawarangkun), succeeded him as monarch. In April 2017 King Vajiralongkorn signed the constitution that had been drafted by the National Council for Peace and Order led by General Prayut and passed in a national referendum in August 2016. In December 2018 the government lifted its ban on political campaigning to allow for elections.

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