Post-war expansion: 1945-58
The post-war world and Bangkok-centred development
Thailand entered the post-war period with an economic structure that was unchanged from the pre-war years. The economy relied overwhelmingly on the export of basic commodities (primarily rice but also rubber) produced by a society of rural smallholders who lived and worked in villages largely isolated from the metropolis. Bangkok remained utterly distinct from the rest of the country over which its elites presided. In 1947 the capital dwarfed all other urban centres of the nation (being 20 times the size of the second-largest centre of Chiang Mai) en though the municipalities of Bangkok and Thonburi housed only 781,662 people representing just over 4 per cent of Thailand's population (Donner, 1978 792). Bangkok maintained its traditional h on trade, with the overwhelming majority of imported and exported goods being processed handled and distributed through the city, princ pally via Sino-Thai business concerns