Bangkok hits your senses from the very first minute: the humid heat, the smell of street food, the golden gleam of the temples, the noise of the tuk-tuks and the reflection of the skyscrapers on the Chao Phraya River. It's one of those cities that overwhelms you and wins you over at the same time. Capital of Thailand since 1782, it blends like few others the traditional Asia of saffron-robed monks and flower offerings with the ultra-modern Asia of air-conditioned shopping malls, cocktail rooftops and nightlife. For most travellers it is the gateway to the country and to the whole of Southeast Asia.
But Bangkok is not just a stopover: it's a destination in its own right, endless and surprising. In a single day you can tour the lavish Grand Palace, rest in the shade of a 46-metre Reclining Buddha, cross the river to the Temple of Dawn, get lost in the maze of Chinatown eating at street stalls worthy of a star, haggle in a giant market and finish with a drink on a terrace 250 metres up. It's chaotic, yes, but also surprisingly easy to get around thanks to its elevated train and its boats.
This guide brings order to that wonderful chaos with a practical, warm approach: which temples you can't miss and how to visit them, where and what to eat without spending a fortune, how to get around while dodging the traffic, how much admission costs and how to make the most of each day. Bangkok rewards curious travellers with adventurous stomachs: those who dare to step off the tourist circuit and dive into its streets take home some of the most intense memories of an entire trip through Asia.
Although the area had long been inhabited as a small river port, Bangkok only became a capital in 1782, when King Rama I, founder of the Chakri dynasty that still reigns today, moved the court from Thonburi to the east bank of the Chao Phraya River and built the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Before that, the great capital of the kingdom of Siam had been Ayutthaya, destroyed by the Burmese in 1767. The new city, built on canals that earned it the nickname 'the Venice of the East', grew as the heart of a kingdom that —uniquely in Southeast Asia— was never colonised by a European power, thanks to the skilful diplomacy of kings such as Mongkut (Rama IV) and Chulalongkorn (Rama V), who modernised it in the 19th century. In the 20th century, Bangkok became a dizzying metropolis: the canals gave way to avenues, and skyscrapers, mass tourism and legendary traffic arrived. Today it is one of the most visited cities on the planet and the centre of a country that naturally combines Buddhist devotion with modern life. The full history of the kingdom of Siam and the Chakri dynasty is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The heart of Thailand: the fertile Chao Phraya plain where Sukhothai and Ayutthaya were born, where Bangkok rose, and where Kanchanaburi still bears the scar of the Death Railway.
Read the history of Central Thailand (Bangkok and the historic plain) →A local guide tells you in half an hour what no sign at the site will ever explain. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. They have over 10 activities in Bangkok. Three are below so you get the idea: tap any of them and they all open.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The name the world knows this city by, Bangkok, probably comes from 'Bang Makok', which in Thai means something like 'the village of wild plums' (or of water olives): a modest settlement on the banks of the Chao Phraya River. Thais themselves, however, call it Krung Thep, short for a very long ceremonial name usually translated as 'the city of angels'. Before it became the capital, this bend in the river was little more than a customs and trading post, protected by a small fort, on the route that ran up from the Gulf of Thailand into the interior.
For centuries, the heart of the Kingdom of Siam was not here but further north, in dazzling Ayutthaya, one of the largest and richest cities in the world at its peak. But in 1767, after years of war, the army of the Burmese kingdom took Ayutthaya and razed it: they looted it, burned its temples and palaces and deported a large part of its population. The fall of the old capital was a catastrophe that left the kingdom leaderless and on the verge of disintegration.
Out of that disaster rose a military leader, Taksin, who rallied the Siamese forces, drove out the Burmese and reunified the country within a few years. Taksin set up a new capital at Thonburi, on the west bank of the Chao Phraya, directly opposite today's historic centre of Bangkok. His reign was short and turbulent, and it ended in 1782 when he was overthrown. With him one chapter closed and another opened: that of the city that would change the map of Siam forever.
In 1782, a general named Chao Phraya Chakri seized power after Taksin's fall and was crowned king under the name Rama I, founding the Chakri dynasty, which still reigns in Thailand today. One of his first major decisions was to move the capital from the west bank (Thonburi) to the east bank of the Chao Phraya, ground he considered easier to defend and with a better future. There, on what would become the island of Rattanakosin —surrounded by the river and by canals dug for the purpose—, he ordered a city built to match the lost prestige of Ayutthaya.
Rama I wanted the new Bangkok to be a recreation of splendid Ayutthaya. He ordered the construction of the Grand Palace and, within it, Wat Phra Kaew, the temple built to house the Emerald Buddha, the most revered image in the country, which became the spiritual heart of the kingdom. Concentric canals were dug around the city to serve as defensive moats and as transport routes, and people got around by boat: that is why European travellers nicknamed it 'the Venice of the East'.
Bangkok was thus born as the capital of a kingdom rebuilding itself after the trauma of the Burmese invasion. The Chakri kings of this first period —Rama I, II and III— consolidated the territory, revived art, literature and law, rebuilt the temples and laid the foundations of the city-state that would reach the 19th century as one of the powers of Southeast Asia.
The 19th century was when the European powers carved up almost all of Southeast Asia: the British took Burma and Malaya, the French took Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos). Siam was left in the middle, surrounded by colonies. And yet —uniquely in the region— it was never colonised. That survival was largely down to the skilful diplomacy of two exceptional kings who ruled from Bangkok.
The first was Mongkut (Rama IV, who reigned from 1851 to 1868), a learned king who, before taking the throne, had spent decades as a Buddhist monk, spoke Latin and English and was interested in Western science. He opened Siam to trade and diplomacy with the West, signing treaties that avoided direct confrontation with the powers. His figure, distorted and romanticised, inspired the musical and film 'The King and I', a version considered disrespectful in Thailand and banned there.
His son, Chulalongkorn (Rama V, 1868-1910), is remembered as one of the great reforming kings. He gradually abolished slavery, modernised the administration, the army, finances and education, built railways and brought electricity and trams to Bangkok. He travelled to Europe, negotiated firmly and gave up some outlying territories to preserve the independence of the kingdom's core. Under his reign, Bangkok was transformed: wide avenues were opened, European-style palaces went up and the city began to leave behind its purely river-bound image. The devotion to Chulalongkorn is still alive: every 23 October, the anniversary of his death, Thais pay tribute to him.
The 20th century changed Bangkok and the whole country profoundly. In 1932, a bloodless coup led by a group of Western-educated military officers and civilians ended centuries of absolute monarchy and established a constitutional monarchy: the king now reigned but did not govern. In 1939, the country officially changed its name from Siam to Thailand ('land of the free'). From then on, Thai politics was marked by a long succession of civilian governments and military coups that recurred throughout the century.
During the Second World War, Thailand came under the influence of imperial Japan, which used it as a base and a route to Burma (it was in Kanchanaburi province that Allied prisoners built, in terrible conditions, the infamous 'Death Railway'). After the war, and during the Cold War, Bangkok became a key ally of the United States in the region, above all during the Vietnam War, when the city received thousands of American soldiers on leave, which boosted both its economy and some of the darker sides of its nightlife.
From the 1960s and 1970s onwards, Bangkok went through an explosion of growth. The canals that had earned it the name 'Venice of the East' were gradually filled in to build avenues and make way for the car; the city filled up with skyscrapers, factories and neighbourhoods that grew without planning. The population multiplied as people arrived from the countryside looking for work, and with them came the problems of a megacity: chaotic traffic, pollution and flooding.
21st-century Bangkok is one of the great megacities of the planet and one of the most visited tourist destinations in the world, having topped several rankings of cities with the most international arrivals. It is Thailand's economic engine —it accounts for a large share of the country's GDP— and a financial, commercial and cultural hub for all of Southeast Asia. Its skyscrapers, its gigantic shopping malls, its elevated train (BTS) and its metro (MRT) sit side by side with golden temples, saffron-robed monks who go out at dawn to collect alms, and offerings of flowers and food at the 'spirit houses' found on every corner.
That mix is perhaps the most fascinating thing about the city: the most frenetic modernity alongside a deeply rooted Buddhist faith. The monarchy remains a central and highly respected institution —protected, moreover, by strict 'lèse-majesté' laws—, and the figure of the king holds an enormous symbolic place in the life of the country. Thai politics in the 21st century has remained turbulent, with mass protests, military coups and tensions that have often played out on the streets of Bangkok.
Today Bangkok combines, with disconcerting ease, poverty and wealth, tradition and neon, spirituality and hedonism. It is a city that can be exhausting, but it hooks you: with its street food, recognised as among the best in the world, the friendliness of its people (the famous 'land of smiles'), its temples and that tireless energy on the banks of the Chao Phraya. Two and a half centuries after Rama I, it is still the beating heart of Thailand.
