The origin lies in the small town of Bangkok, Thonburi, it is on the western bank of the Chao Praya. General Taksin built Thonburi in 1772, after the capital of the kingdom of Ayutthaya in 1767 was largely destroyed during the war with Burma, as the new capital. Ten years later, the new King Rama I moved, the founder of the ruling to the present Chakri Dynasty, the seat of government to the eastern shores and began to allow the area known as Rattanakosin. It inhabited mainly by the Chinese village of Bang Kok, actually probably expand Bang Makok, which means each “village of wild plum, modeled after the former residence of the capital.
The official name of the city is since then in the short form Krung Thep (“City of Angels”), but only a short form of the full name of the world’s longest city name. Western traders and travelers used instead the name of the village of Bangkok, was from which the now internationally known name.
The city of canals
Rattanakosin has been through a channel, the Khlong Lot, on an artificial island in a bend of the Chao Phraya River in the center of the new royal palace and the royal temple of Wat Phra Kaew, the Emerald Buddha (Phra Kaew), the National Shrine of Thailand, were built.
In those days the whole city was crisscrossed by a dense network of channels (klongs). The traffic took place mostly off on these klongs. Even the markets (“floating market”) took place on the water. There were few roads. At that time, Bangkok was also sometimes referred to as the Venice of the East. Most klongs were from the mid-19th Century to make room for successively filled the ever-increasing traffic and creating a growing city.
In 1863 the first paved street in town was Thanon Charoen Krung (which they called Farang New Road – “New Street”, literally “street ready to increase the capital”) in place of a former elephant trail. During the reign of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) (ruled 1868-1910) a railway line, the Krung Thep emerged with the north of the country combined, Trams for inner city traffic, a large number of new roads and most often influenced by European styles of government buildings .
The modern Bangkok
At the beginning of the 20th Century, the city grew over their previous boundaries to the north and east. Another growth spurt, particularly in the districts located west of the river, which meant the inauguration of the first bridge, the Memorial Bridge across the Chao Praya in 1932. During the Second World War, Bangkok was occupied for several years by Japanese forces and was bombed by the Allies in 1944. After the end of the war, the city was quickly recovered and continued to grow steadily.
Until the mid-20th Century were already filled up most of klongs and were replaced by boulevards and streets. During this time, the highways in all directions, like the Sukhumvit Road, starting in the 1960s and 1970s, so many houses were built and freeways expanded. The economic boom of the 1980s (“tiger economies”) set up another new development, which led to the establishment of a large number of skyscrapers and the cityscape changed lastingly. The number of residents also rose rapidly and eventually made Bangkok one of the largest metropolises in the world.
At the beginning of the 21st Century living in Bangkok more than six million people in the metropolitan area even more than ten million. Economically, the city is recovering rapidly from the collapse at the end of the boom of the nineties, there was not least reflected in new construction projects. One of the largest urban problems of traffic is the public transportation. To develop the public transport network with Bangkok Metro and Bangkok Skytrain, the situation could yet enjoy only minimal.
Bangkok is an example of a dynamic, however, unplanned urban growth. In 1947, the population crossed the one million mark for the first time. In 1960, people lived in Bangkok, already 2.1 million people. Between 1970 (3.1 million) and 2000 (6.3 million), the population are doubled increased.
The population density was 4488 people per square kilometer (in Munich, which were most densely populated community in Germany, comparing it to 4,275). The city is much larger than all other cities of Thailand. It had 2009 already 16 times as many inhabitants as the closest major city Samut Prakan (446,375 inhabitants) Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR even 53 times as much as the closest major metropolitan area Udon Thani (228,738 inhabitants).
There are precipitated in the capital, all major political and economic decisions, Bangkok is primate city. The per capita gross domestic product in 2006 was ten times higher than in the poorest province in the country (Bangkok: 319,322 baht, 33,231 baht in Mae Hong Son). While the capital region is economically developed, benefiting large parts of the country or had even a reported to decline in the gross domestic product. Through this pre-eminence, the city had in the last decades a tremendous increase in migration.
In the metropolitan region were counted in the census of 2000, approximately 10.12 million people. In 2009, the NSO estimated the population reached 12.177 million. This represents a growth from 2000 to 2006 of 2.3 percent per year. The population density was 1569 people per square kilometer. For the BMR include the city of Bangkok and the surrounding provinces of Nakhon Pathom, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Samut Prakan and Samut Sakhon.
Development of housing
A major problem for the city of Bangkok is to serve the many people moving to the area in recent years, especially sufficient land Refugees. The increasing demand for land increased housing and land prices significantly.
So many settlements for less income earners will be built on the outskirts. The public institutions (hospitals and schools) are inadequate. Garbage and sewage are not properly disposed of, the ground water table is falling by the increased consumption is accelerating.
Above all, people in the settlements are vulnerable to infectious diseases such as cholera, diarrhea and typhoid, which are spread by poor hygiene conditions. In addition, respiratory and skin diseases are due to the toxic emissions from much industrial and vehicular traffic.
Another problem in Bangkok is the increasing traffic. The road system is completely overloaded. In addition, Bangkok has a relatively small metro and elevated railway network has little mass transportation, but has one of the largest bus networks in the world. Through the many cars there is in the city) to very high air pollution.
