History of Bangkok
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bangkok, as you could already read, is not the
true name of the city - it called by
the Thais as Krung Thep. This name was bestowed on the place in the year
1782 by King
RamaI, the father of the Chakri dynasty. The name
means "City of Angels"
Ayuthaya in the year 1767 was conquered and almost completely destroyed
by the Burmese. Those parts of the Thai army that
survived the attack fled south to
Thonburi on the banks of the Chao Phraya (Menam). There they established
a military headquarter
and temporary capital of Siam.
From
Thonburi, the Thai generals engaged in 15 years of
war with the attackers (the Burmese had in
the meantime been joined by the
Laotians and the Vietnamese) and finally managed to drive them out of
the country. After the final
victory, General Taksin assumed the throne, but was later executed. He
was replaced by General
Chakri, who as king took the name of Rama I. The king's plan was to
rebuild his
people's confidence by building a city that could match Ayuthaya's glory
and splendor. He decided that Thonburi was no
longer suitable as a royal residence and decided to move the
capital to Bangkok on the other side of the
river.
"Bangkok" used to be "plum orchard", and although
it sounds quite unbelievable today, that is indeed
what it once was
- a small, peaceful village surrounded by wild plum trees. At the time
Rama I. decided to move his capital,
it had already grown into a small duty port. The
town was mainly inhabited by Chinese merchants and customs inspectors,
who were asked to vacate the area and Rama
I started building his new city, beginning with
Wat Phra
Kaew (Emerald Buddha). Defensive moats were dug and canals built and a
city wall was erected from bricks from the old city
wall of
Ayuthaya.
Work on the Grand Palace and the Temple of the
Emerald Buddha (Wat Phra Kaew) 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.
In the 1850s, the city really was a "Venice
of the East" with lots of canals and waterways and
only a handful of dusty roads.
A city with a large network of water-roads in the
place of streets, and intersected with bridges. A
large proportion of its inhabitants lived in
floating
houses, which line both banks of the Menam (Chao Phaya river)
King Mongkut (Rama IV.) and then his son
King Chulalongkorn (Rama V.) pursued the
modernization of the country added roads and built railways.
The city continued to grow in all directions through the 19th and 20th
centuries, eventually encompassing Thonburi. In the 20th century the
city started growing both eastward and
towards north. The first bridge over the Chao
Phraya river (Memorial Bridge) was built in 1932. In the Second World
War, the city was occupied by the Japanese. The
1950s was a period of political turmoil , with
several coup
d'etats. The 1960s saw, due to the Vietnam war, the beginning
of the
economic rise of Thailand, which has only now, in the 90s come to a
halt.
Bangkok's population increased by about 1 million people between the
1980 and
1990 censuses alone. But still, the economic and
social conditions are far
better than in many of the neighboring countries in
Southeast
Asia.
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From : http://www.hellosiam.com/html/Bangkok/Bangkok%20-%20history.htm
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