“Today, remnants of this heritage — mines, factories, shophouses, warehouses and railway stations — remind us of Siam’s integral role in the colonial-era regional economy. These places attract history buffs, cultural travellers and school groups. It doesn’t matter if this heritage is called “industrial”. It tells stories that are real and meaningful.”

In this Heritage Matters article, Dr Rungsima Kullapat highlights Thailand’s industrial heritage — from rice mills, tin mines, to railway infrastructure — as a vital yet often overlooked part of the nation’s history, which tells the story of how people lived, worked, developed unique know-how and traded with the wider world. With conservation laws still centred on ancient monuments, many of these sites remain unprotected, underscoring the urgent need to recognise and preserve this disappearing legacy.

Read more about this in Heritage Matters, a column presented by The Siam Society in The Bangkok Post here.

Rungsima Kullapat, PhD, is a researcher at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.