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The Beginning of Bangkok
Bangkok’s history of the past 200 years is much interwoven with the Chakri dynasty which still reigns but no longer rules Thailand today. After Chao Phaya Chakri was crowned under the royal title of Rama I in 1782, one of his first major decisions concerned his capital. In short form, it is often said that Rama I founded Bangkok as his capital while before the capital has been Thonburi. However, in this abbreviated form, history is summarized not very accurately.
First of all, Bangkok was not really founded by Rama I. It had been a settled area for several hundred years already and it had even been well-known to European merchants who commonly stopped over at Bangkok on their way to Ayutthaya.
Second, the sharp demarcation between Thonburi and Bangkok is not justified. While European merchants stuck to the name of Bangkok for their place of stopover, the community left and right of the Chao Phaya River was known to the Siamese as the town of Thonburi, having been elevated from the village status of Bangkok.
Thonburi was chosen by King Taksin as his capital. And while it is true that King Taksin had erected his palace and all major buildings on the right bank of the Chao Phaya River, the city of Thonburi encompassed settled areas on both banks.
King Taksin’s rationale had been to have the river flowing through the capital as he feared another Burmese attack after Ayutthaya had been leveled by Burmese armies in 1767; in the case of a new attack he wanted to have an easy escape option. This option was maintained by having the river flowing through, not just alongside the capital. His idea was that he could embark his people and troops rather unnoticed and then make a getaway on the Chao Phaya. His destination would have been his old stronghold of Chantaburi on the east coast, close to what is now Cambodia.
On the other hand, when Chao Phaya Chakri became King of Siam, the Burmese threat was by far not as eminent any more; Siam was again a strong power, on equal footing with the Burmese. Rama I didn’t think in terms of easy escape routes anymore, but in terms of strong defense. He had no intention of vacating his capital, should the Burmese march on it - he wanted to defend it by all means. For this purpose, however, a river flowing through the capital was a disadvantage as it could have served as an hard to secure entry point. Therefore, he decided to neglect the western, larger side of what had been Thonburi, instead concentrating everything important on the eastern side. This included, of course, first of all his own palace.
To make space for his palace where it is still located, a large settlement on the eastern side of Thonburi had to be razed. At the end of the 18th century, the present palace area had chiefly been occupied by Chinese inhabitants . Chao Phaya Chakri had the whole Chinese community transferred some three kilometers downstream, to an area then known as Sampheng. The Chinese still live in that area, and Sampheng Lane now is a famous Chinese shopping area (after it had been a red-light district for many decades).
Work on the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha was by and large completed in 1785. The new capital, now more or less just covering the area on the eastern side of the Chao Phaya was inaugurated under the new name "Krung Thep Maha Nakhon Amorn Rattanakosindra Mahindrayutthaya Mahadilokpop Noparattana Radchhani Burirom Udom Rachnivet Mahastan Amorn Pimarn Avatarn Satit Sakatuttiya Vishnukarm Prasit." In English: "City of Angels, Great City and Residence of the Emerald Buddha, Impregnable City of God Indra, Grand Capital of the World, Endowed with Nine Precious Gems, Abounding in Enormous Royal Palaces which Resemble the Heavenly Abode where Reigns the Reincarnated God, a City given by Indra and Built by Vishnukarm". For convenience, it is the custom to abbreviate the name to Krung Thep. And for their further convenience, Westerners continue to call the place just Bangkok.
Population Figures
Bangkok is by far the largest city of Thailand. It’s safe to say that at least one out of every ten Thais lives in Bangkok. Aside from that, how large Bangkok actually is, seems to be a matter of debate. According to Thailand in Brief, published August 1990 by the Foreign News Division of the Office of the Prime Minister, "Bangkok houses over 5 million people... across 1,537 square kilometers on both sides of the Chao Phaya River." The 128th (1991-1992) edition of the Statesmen’s Yearbook gives the figure of 5.832.843 inhabitants in 1989 and cites as source the Thailand Statistical Yearbook of the Thai National Statistical Office. Other sources put the figure much higher. In their Bangkok book, the Australian-New Zealand Women’s Group declares rather boastfully that Bangkok "boasts a population of over 8.2 million."
Generally, Thai government statistics are not a good source for population data on cities. The reason is that population data is recorded primarily on Changwat level. Changwat is the Thai term for provinces. Provinces are always named after their capital city or town and are commonly treated as if they are just outskirts but otherwise integral parts of the capital city or town.
For the local administration, Chiang Mai City is actually Chiang Mai Province. And in many cases, the administrative unit below the Changwat, the Amphoe, may not be identical with the actual urban area which may encompass the Amphoe Muang (the capital district) as well as other Amphoes.
The result of this administrative structure can be rather confusing. Local government officials worried that their community may not appear grandiose enough commonly pass on the provincial population as the population of the city. Even the above quoted Foreign News Division of the Office of the Prime Minister follows suit. They list as the "10 largest provincial capitals / cities": Bangkok, 5,845,152; Nakhon Ratchasima 2,348,760; Ubon Ratchathani 1,881,427; Udon Thani 1,782,563; Nakhon Si Thammarat 1,401,624; Chiang Mai 1,356,556."
These are obviously Changwat figures. In the case of Bangkok, the figures for the province and the actual city may not diverge much. But Nakhon Si Thammarat certainly doesn’t appear to be as large an actual city as Chiang Mai, and certainly, Nakhon Ratchasima, while a large provincial city, impossibly is almost half the size of Bangkok.
Nakhon Ratchasima obviously ranks second in the list of the Foreign News Division of the Office of the Prime Minister only because incidentally, Nakhon Ratchasima is the largest province areawise (20,494 square kilometers, more than ten times the area of Bangkok province and 4 percent of all of Thailand). Furthermore, Nakhon Ratchasima is a particularly fertile province with a large rural populace while Chiang Mai province is not especially known for agriculture.
The 128th (1991-1992) edition of the Statesmen’s Yearbook gives the following figures of the populations of major provincial cities and towns (based on a 1980 census cited in the Thailand Statistical Yearbook of the Thai National Statistical Office): Chiang Mai 101,595; Hat Yai 93,519; Khon Kaen 85,863; Phitsanulok 79,942; Nakhon Ratchasima 78,246; Udon Thani 71,142; Songkhla 67,945; Nakhon Sawan 63,935; Nakhon Si Thammarat 63,162; Ubon Ratchathani 50,788; Ayutthaya 47,189; Nakhon Pathom 45,242; Lampang 42,301; Lampang 42,301; Ratchaburi 40,404.
But these figures are most probably too low, especially for Chiang Mai, Hat Yai and Nakhon Ratchasima. They may be the figures for the respective Amphoe Muang (see above) which in the case of big cities reflects too few, and in the case of small towns too many inhabitants. As the Thai government counts the people divided into administrative districts (Amphoes), and as administrative districts seldom correspond with the borders of urban settlements, accurate data on the size of urban communities simply doesn’t seem to exist.
Missing in the list of the Statesmen’s Yearbook is Pattaya, considered to have about 100,000 inhabitants by now.
The population of the Bangkok metropolis is probably indeed just over 5 million, and probably Chiang Mai is the largest provincial city, with a population of less than a million.
Economically speaking, the difference between Bangkok and Chiang Mai is greater than it is expressed by a 6 to 1 or even a 10 to 1 ratio. While Chiang Mai is a single city with a large rural hinterland, Bangkok is surrounded by a number of towns and cities with a strong orientation to the capital and an industrial infrastructure pretty much the same as the one of the outskirts of Bangkok.
With a population of some 5 million, Bangkok isn’t really a mega-city in the colloquial sense of the term (strictly defined, any city with more than one million inhabitants would qualify as a mega-city). The largest city of the world, Mexico City, is almost 4 times as big as Bangkok (18.5 million inhabitants, 1989 figure). Several times as large as Bangkok are Tokyo-Yokohama (17.5 million), Sao Paulo (16 million) and New York (15.5 million, including northeastern New Jersey). In the East, Bangkok is surpassed in population figures by quite a few cities. Considered the largest cities of Asia are Shanghai, Peking, Canton and Tonking in China, Calcutta and Bombay in India, Seoul in South Korea, Jakarta in Indonesia and Metro Manila in the Philippines. There are many more in the Bangkok bracket of around 5 million.
Parts of the City
Downtown
Downtown Bangkok is nestled into a bend of the Chao Phaya River that makes its boundary to the west, the northwest and the south. Most of the old architectural monuments of the capital lie in this area, among them the Grand Palace and a large number of the most interesting Wats (temples).
Aside from the Grand Palace with its large walled compound, the main landmark of the area is the Democracy Monument on Ratchadamnoen Klang, an eight- to ten-lane road. Near to the Democracy Monument is the Khao San Road area, preferred by Western budget travelers for its large number of low-price guest houses.
The northern downtown is were most edifices of the national government are located.
Chinatown
Chinatown could be considered part of downtown as it lies in the bend of the Chao Phaya River, south of the Democracy Monument area. The main traffic artery of Chinatown is Yaowaraj Road. As any Chinatown anywhere in the world, the Chinatown of Bangkok is characterized by an above average density of population.
As a shopping area, especially for foreign visitors, Chinatown is widely overrated. While there are some bargains available, the selection and more so the quality of consumer goods is inadequate by Western standards. Most of the items to be found are not only cheap but also rather cheapish. For those who have never seen a Chinatown, it’s worthwhile to go there once for a stroll.
There seems to be much more traffic congestion in Chinatown than in the actual downtown a few kilometers to the north, and the smell of the area is one of car exhausts and sometimes open sewers.
Silom Road Area
The Silom Road area is a modern business and tourist district with a high density of banks as well as the finest hotels in the city.
It is not a main shopping area, and in spite of many tourist oriented hotels, it is not the main area for tourists on package tours. For shopping, the Siam Square area has many advantages over the Silom Road area, and the newer and faster expanding area for visitors on package tours is along Sukhumvit Road.
For the business traveler, Silom Road is convenient because the distances to banks and offices of internationally active companies are short. However, Silom Road is one of the parts of town with a particularly bad air pollution.
The Silom Road area also has the oldest nightlife district for foreign visitors, called Patpong (for details, see chapter Nightlife).
Near to Silom Road is Lumphini Park, indeed a nice walled garden of about one square kilometer in size, with an artificial lake, big enough to support a company that rents out small rowboats, and a joggers’ path furnished with structures and instruments for exercising. Lumphini Park closes at about 20:00 - actually a shame because it would be nice to stroll there in the evenings. During much of the day, Bangkok’s climate is too hot for walking around outside.
Sukhumvit Road Area
The Sukhumvit Road area is the largest modern tourism district of the Thai capital and also the area by far most preferred by foreign residents in Bangkok.
Sukhumvit Road actually is not just a city street but also the city street’s cross-country extension for more than 400 kilometers along the eastern seaboard, passing Pattaya and up to Trat at the Cambodian border.
In Bangkok, Sukhumvit Road is a long straight 6 to 8-lane road with only a few major intersections. Except for a few, all side streets (a side street is called Soi in Thai) are dead-end streets. While this sounds depressing at the first moment, it’s actually a major advantage of the Sukhumvit Road area as a residential district. As the side streets are dead-end streets, there is no passing traffic and in some of the Sois one can live as quiet as in a small town.
While the lower Sukhumvit Road between Soi 3 and Soi 21 is rather touristy, the upper part up to Soi 71 is where many foreign residents live. Around Soi 33 is an area with an especially good Western infrastructure, with a large supermarket as well as butchers, bakers and newsagents (see chapter Shopping), cinemas with English movies and a few good restaurants.
Siam Square Area
The Siam Square Area is the main shopping district of the Thai capital. There are several very large department stores, some of them Japanese. It’s primarily an shopping district for up-market locals but foreign visitors will find many of the items they would want to buy - and at prices lower than in tourist districts and especially lower than in the Silom Road area.
Thonburi
Thonburi ranks somehow higher than just as district of Bangkok as it is encompasses all the areas on the western bank of the Chao Phaya River. Administratively it’s no longer an entity separate from Bangkok, and actually, for most of its history it wasn’t. Bangkok several hundred years back was just a fishing village, located mainly on the eastern bank of the Chao Phaya. When the settlement was upgraded, the communities both on the eastern and the western bank of the Chao Phaya became Thonburi. All of Thonburi became Krung Thep in 1785. Today, Colloquially the part of town on the eastern bank of the Chao Phaya River is called Bangkok, the part on the western bank Thonburi.
In contrary to Bangkok, Thonburi still has many canals (Klongs) and one can get around by boat almost as well as by car or bus. The major sightseeing attractions of Thonburi are Wat Arun and the Royal Barges.
Bangkok Noi, Bangkok Yai
The foreign visitor may find it irritating but these two districts are not in Bangkok but in Thonburi.
Klong Thoey
This port district of the Thai capital, along the left bank of the Chao Phaya River in the south of Bangkok, is one of the poorest parts of the capital. There are no real slums in Bangkok but squatter areas in Klong Thoey come pretty close to qualify as such. Penang Market in Klong Thoey has the reputation of trading in smuggled electronics at prices lower than those of areas with legitimate merchandize. Best access to the Klong Thoey district is via Rama IV Road.
Phrakanong
Much of the Sukhumvit Road area described above administratively belongs to the district of Phrakanong, a designation which is, however, not in use among foreign residents in Bangkok.
In a more narrow sense, Phrakanong is the lower Sukhumvit Road area, around Soi 71. Despite its closeness to the middle and upper Sukhumvit Road area, the Phrakanong area around Soi 71 is not much frequented by foreign residents, and even less by foreign tourists. This may change as it actually is a good shopping area, especially for household products. There are several department stores and prices are lower than in the Siam Square area.
Hua Mark, Bangkapi
These are two districts in the northeast of Bangkok. Hua Mark has the huge Ramkhamhaeng University, one of the largest in the world. It’s not one of the long established and rather exclusive Thai universities where studying entails considerable expenses but rather an institution for students from poorer families.
Bangkapi is a large northeastern district of Bangkok. The Hua Mark area administratively is part of Bangkapi. Most of Bangkapi are pleasant residential areas with much less air pollution than more central parts of Bangkok. It’s not quite as industrial as the extension of Sukhumvit Road to Bangna or areas more directly to the north of the actual Bangkok. Many townhouse as well as single house villages for middle-income Thais have been built in Bangkapi in recent years, and it’s a good area to rent a home for those who do not have dealings in central Bangkok every day. Commuting into the Silom Road area will take around two hours on an ordinary day.
Dindaeng, Ladprao
The Dindaeng district is northeast of the Siam Square area. Because of its proximity to the northern downtown area where most of the ministries of the national government are located, the Dindaeng district also has a considerable infrastructure of public offices.
The main traffic artery of Dindaeng is Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, a wide road where traffic flows better than in many other parts of Bangkok. Furthermore, Vibhavadi Rangsit Road leads directly to the international airport, 20 kilometers to the north at Don Muang.
Ladprao is the district north of Dindaeng. The main traffic artery of the Ladprao district is Ladprao Road.