Bangkok has to be one of the grimiest cities on the planet and one of the most magnetic. An estimated 6 million people live here in chaos, punctuated by occasional patches of serenity. Travelers leave with either a deep appreciation and fascination for the city, or an absolute disdain for it.

Krung Thep (City of Angels) is Thailand's capital and largest city. It's in the central part of the country, on the Chao Phraya River near the Gulf of Thailand (still often called the Gulf of Siam). Bangkok is Thailand's administrative, economic, and cultural center, and a major commercial and transportation center of Southeast Asia.

Busy street in Bangkok, Thailand
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Greater metropolitan Bangkok extends for more than 32 kilometers (20 miles) in all directions. It includes much of five neighboring provinces (Nakhon Pathom, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Samut Prakan, and Samut Songkhram) and covers an area of 7,758 square kilometers (2,995 square miles).

Temple in Bangkok, Thailand
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In 2000 the population of Bangkok Metropolis was measured at 6,542,751. With the surrounding provinces included, the population was 8,661,228.  Population of Thailand is estimated around 64,631,595 inhabitants (2006 estimate).

Until the end of World War II, much of the population was comprised of Chinese immigrants from the South China seacoast, but today the city's population is overwhelmingly Thai. The city also has significant minorities of Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Malays, Europeans, and Americans.

Thai is the national language, but many residents speak English.

Temple, Bangkok, Thailand
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Four hundred years ago, Bangkok and Thonburi, an area on the west bank of the Chao Phraya, were just small villages. At that time they served as ports for ships sailing up the river to Ayuthaya, the former capital of what was then called Siam. As ships got larger and the river got shallower, the villages grew in importance.

The kingdom's capital was relocated to Thonburi when Ayuthaya fell to Burmese armies in 1767. King Rama I moved the capital across the river to Bangkok in 1782, because the main Burmese threat to the Thai came from the west, on the Thonburi side of the river.

Photo taken from a riverboat, Bangkok, Thailand
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The city continued to grow in all directions through the 19th and 20th centuries, eventually encompassing Thonburi. Bangkok remained a quiet city until the 1960s, when the country's economy and society began rapid expansion (due, in part, to the Vietnam War). Bangkok's population increased by about 1 million people between the 1980 and 1990 censuses alone.

At first glance, Bangkok is not everyone's idea of a good time. It's polluted: the streets are shrouded in a gray-brown toxic cloud of carbon monoxide emitted by millions of cars, buses, motorcycles, and tuk tuks (open three-wheeled taxis), and pedestrians wrap their faces with surgical masks to keep the dense toxicity out of their lungs. It's noisy: the wailing of the tinny, two-stroke motorbikes could rival a heavy-metal concert. It's crowded: since the 1960s, the population has increased sixfold, and the traffic problem is so extreme that pedestrians outpace vehicles. And Bangkok is hot perhaps the hottest city in the world. There is no respite at any time of the year from the high humidity and temperatures.

River ferry, Bangkok, Thailand
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But the City of Angels is a tapestry of sound, color, and motion. It offers nonstop entertainment, fabulous food of all nationalities for all budgets, and stupendous (if risky) bargains on silk, handicrafts, jewelry, and a thousand other items. The wats (temples) found throughout the area are islands of beauty. There are few other cities in which you can find spirituality, art, history, pageantry, politics, and the pressures of urban life as closely intertwined as in Bangkok. And few other places are as generally good-natured as Thailand's capital.

Bangkok is a city that it takes time to appreciate fully.  It's a state of mind. And, as with any other state of mind, you have to surrender to its annoyances to appreciate its joys as the Thais have. Rarely will you find so content a people in so raw a place.

Bangkok Geography

Bangkok province covers 1,568.7 km², making it the 68th largest province in Thailand. Much of the area is considered the city of Bangkok therefore making it one of the largest cities in the world. The Chao Phraya River which stretches 372 km is its main geographical feature along with being Thailands longest river. The Chao Phraya River basin, the area surrounding Bangkok and nearby provinces are the series of plains and river deltas that lead into the Bay of Bangkok about 30km south of Bangkok City Center. This has given rise to Bangkok's name as 'Venice of the East' due to the number of canals and passages that divide the area into separate patches of land. The city once used these canals which were so plentiful within Bangkok itself as divisions for city districts, however as the city grew in the second half of the 20th century to enormous extents, the plan was abandoned and a different division was uptaken.

Bangkok lies about 2m above sea level. This low ground level causes problems for the protection of the city against floods during monsoon season. Often after a downpour, water in canals and the river overflow the banks, resulting in massive floods. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has recently installed higher planks alongside some canals to keep water levels from reaching street level.

The Khlong Saen Saeb is perhaps one of the cities most notorious canals, the largest and most useful especially for commuting into the city. There are however some downsides for Bangkok's extensive canal routes, the city is rumored to be sinking an average of 2 inches a year as it lies entirely on a swamp.

Bangkok has a tropical monsoon climate under the Köppen climate classification system. Bangkok is said to have the highest average temperature of any city in the world.¹

Bangkok Airport

Bangkok is one of Asia's most important air transport hub, as of 2005 more than 80 airlines served Don Mueang International Airport (IATA: DMK; ICAO: VTBD) and over 38,000,000 passengers, 160,000 flights and 700,000 tons of cargo were handled at this airport per year. It was the 18th busiest airport in the world and 2nd busiest in Asia by passenger volume and the 9th busiest in the world and 4th busiest Asia in international passenger volume. Don Mueang consistently ranked 19th in the world in cargo traffic, and 7th in the Asia-Pacific region. Don Mueang is considered to be one of the world's oldest international airports opening in March 1914, making it almost 20 years older than Heathrow. It has 3 terminals and is located about 30km north from the heart of Bangkok.

Old Bangkok Airport, Thai B747-300 bound for Phuket, Thailand
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On September 28, 2006 Bangkok officially opened Suvarnabhumi Airport (IATA: BKK; ICAO: VTBS) (pronounced RTGS Suwannaphum, or loosely Su-wan-na-poom), in the Bang Phli district of Samut Prakan Province. Suvarnabhumi has been one of the most, if not the most anticipated, mega-project in Thai history. The progress of Suvarnabhumi Airport dates back to the early 1970's when a large plot of land (8,000 acres, 20,000 rai) was bought. A student uprising in October of the same year prevented further progress with the development when the military government of Thanom Kittikachom was subsequently overthrown. After several military coups and the Asian financial crisis of 1997, construction finally began in 2002, after 5 years of clearing the cobra swamp. Moreover, the military coup d'etat of September 2006 was to inaugurate the first week of domestic flights.

Suvarnabhumi Airport has been dubbed the 'Pride of Thailand' due to its architecture. Its 2 parallel runways are connected by the 5 concourses of the main terminal building which is the world's second-largest passenger building after Hong Kong's Chep Lap Kok. The airport features a 134 meter-tall control tower, the tallest in the world and one meter taller than Kuala Lumpur International Airport control tower. Moreover, the Airports of Thailand Plc. (AoT) have announced another terminal within the airport for low-cost airlines to accompany 15 million passengers for the growing use of low-cost airliners. This will be encompassed by phase 2 of the Suvarnabhumi Airport which is expected to begin construction in 3-5 years. In total, the airport hopes to handle as many as 100 million passengers per year.

Bangkok Hotels

Don Mueang is now the base of the Royal Thai Air Force (RTaF) and is only used for chartered flights. Today Suvarnabhumi international airport has won many world records including, the most beautiful airport in the world, the highest control tower in the world, the largest airport in Asia, the world's largest single terminal building. By the completion of the second phase it will earn its title as the most efficient airport in the world, the biggest in the world and probably the busiest airport in south east Asia. Built for many reasons including to serve the ever increasing air traffic coming into the city and to try to regain the cities title as southeast Asia financial and economic center. It has indeed succeeded halfway and Bangkok and Singapore are now competing for the spot as the financial and economic heart of SEA.¹

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