Bangkok Metropolitan Area

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The Bangkok Metropolitan Area (Thai: กรุงเทพมหานครและปริมณฑล) is the urban conglomeration of Bangkok, Thailand, which includes residents of nearby provinces.

1 Area and population
2 Urban build-up
- 2.1 Provinces
3 Resources

[edit] Area and population

The Bangkok Metropolitan Area covers an area of 7,761.50 km² and has a registered population of 10,061,726 (as of December 19, 2007), with a population density of 1,296.36 per km². Due to the success of the service and tourism industry in Bangkok, the city has gained in popularity not only among provincial Thais from the northeast but to many countries in the Indochina region as well as many South Asian countries for work. In the past 20-30 years, there has been a large movement of Indians (Sikhs), Pakistanis, Persians, Burmese, Cambodians, Laotians, Cambodians and many more. The city is now home to nearly 3-4 million illegal foreigners, a third of which do not have Thai descendant. From this, there are large numbers of workers who reside outside the metropolitan area and flux into the city for day time jobs. Therefore, with regards to the population, the registered number of approximately 10 million could be as high as 15 million during the day. This also explains the reason why during New Year's Break, Songkran Break and other long weekends, the capital often seems deserted of many taxi drivers, side street vendors and other unaccounted forms of services in which many illegals engage in.

[edit] Urban build-up

Many consider Bangkok's built up area limited only within the Bangkok province, however, large communities and centers are currently cropping up throughout the metropolitan area. The rapid growth of suburban development is increasingly connecting these city centers. Much similar to Los Angeles, the city's many urban centers are now turning into cities in themselves and certain Bangkokians no longer enter the city core area due to businesses basing their headquarters at different city centers of the city. The built up area consists primarily of Bangkok province, most of Samut Prakan, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, boundary areas of Samut Sakhon and Nakhon Pathom to the Bangkok province. Samut Prakan, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani and Samut Sakhon all have a city center and downtown core as they were once separate cities and due to the large growth of housing district along the outskirts of Bangkok, have created an extremely large conglomeration of urban area. Bangkok's vast freeways are one way for many middle class workers to commute to city centers however, lower class workers normally work in areas of their residence unless they are employed by companies, in which they would use the city's extensive bus routes or carpool with tens of workers in the early hours of the morning.

Currently, the city's growth is not stricken to a certain area. The land value of the downtown core in each city is skyrocketing especially in the Bangkok downtown giving rise to a Manhattanization in city core areas. The outskirts of each city is growing and the boundaries are no longer visible between each province and city center. Due to the speed of this urban sprawl over the past twenty year, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has sought to tackle rising problems of commute time, pollution and air quality. Recent administrations have been relatively successful in increasing the air quality, however the city still lacks an effective mass transit interconnecting the many centers of metro and a clean and resolving plan on implementing environmental practice. This form of urbanization is not only limited to Bangkok but traces can be found in metropolitan areas where there has been a quick flux of populaiton. The Pattaya-Chonburi Metropolitan Area is a prime example due to the increase in residential high rise living and the rush for commercial office space in the Greater Hatyai-Songkhla Metropolitan Area, and Chiang Mai Metropolitan Area.

[edit] Provinces

	Area km²	Population (2007)	Pop.Density Inh/km²
Bangkok	1,568.20	5,714,481	3,643.97
Nonthaburi	622.30	1,023,341	1,644.45
Samut Prakan	1,004.50	1,126,485	1,121.44
Pathum Thani	1,525.90	896,113	587.27
Samut Sakhon	872.30	470,257	539.10
Nakhon Pathom	2,168.30	831,049	383.27
Total	7,761.50	10,061,726	1,296.36