ABOUT BANGKOK

Located in the heart of the Chao Phraya delta, around forty kilometres from the Gulf of Thailand, Bangkok has long occupied a strategic position that has made it one of Southeast Asia’s principal political, commercial, and cultural centres. As the capital of the Kingdom of Thailand, it remains the country’s leading cultural and economic hub while preserving the visible imprint of the successive stages of its history. 

The Bangkok area is documented as early as the fifteenth century as a settlement within the kingdom of Ayutthaya, where it served commercial and river-control functions near the mouth of the river. After the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767, King Taksin established his capital at Thonburi, on the western bank of the Chao Phraya. In 1782, King Rama I, founder of the Chakri dynasty, transferred the seat of power to the eastern bank and founded the new capital of the Rattanakosin kingdom.

The foundation of the new capital was marked by the construction of the Grand Palace and Wat Pho. Under the reigns of Rama II and Rama III, several major temples were built, completed, or enlarged, including Wat Arun, Wat Bowonniwet, and Wat Suthat. Bangkok thus emerged not only as the centre of royal power, but also as a place of religious, intellectual, and artistic influence, with temples long serving functions related to education, the transmission of knowledge, and social life. 

The city’s historical identity remains deeply connected to water. For a long period, the river and the dense network of canals served as the principal routes of circulation, shaping a distinctive urban civilisation grounded in exchange, mobility, and the interplay between daily life and the fluvial environment. In the nineteenth century, especially under the reign of Rama IV, Bangkok entered a phase of transformation marked by the opening of new roads and canals, laying the groundwork for its gradual modernisation.

Contemporary Bangkok, established as a unified metropolis in the early 1970s, combines this historical depth with remarkable cultural vitality. Its major heritage sites — including the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun — stand alongside museums, long-established commercial districts such as Yaowarat, and urban spaces in which highly diverse expressions of Thai culture continue to flourish. 

A city of knowledge, rites, and encounters, Bangkok offers visitors a setting of exceptional richness: a capital in which royal history, Buddhist tradition, commercial circulation, and contemporary creativity combine to form an intellectual and cultural landscape of rare density. In this respect, it provides a particularly appropriate setting for an assembly devoted to dialogue among academies and to international scholarly cooperation.

The Royal Society of Thailand