Rural Thailand: Change and Continuity

Summary

Few countries have undergone greater structural changes in recentyears in the passage from rural underdevelopment to urbanization andindustrialization than Thailand. As recently as 1980, the Thai ruralpopulation made up 82 per cent of the total population and only 15 percent lived in cities with populations larger than 50,000. The Bangkokmetropolis alone accounted for around 60 per cent of the country’s urbanpopulation.2 Rice cultivation was still dominant, and was done withlimited mechanization, using traditional technology. Today, however,large cities (especially Bangkok, and many other fast-growing centresin the central region such as Rayong) and rapidly expanding industriesdominate much of the country.The economic and demographic transformation of Thailand wasparticularly apparent from around 1986 until the early 1990s. Inaddition, despite the sharp dip caused by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis,impressive growth continued until recently.