"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.