Socio-economic conditions

"With Bangkok located in the Chao Phraya Sub-basin, this is economically the most important sub-basin, contributing 78.2% of the total GDP of the Basin. Sub-basins can be divided into three economic growth rate groupings:
- Tha Chin, Chao Phraya and Upper Ping with higher growth rates;
- Pasak and Wang at about the national growth rate;
- Lower Ping, Upper Yom, Lower Yom, Upper Nan, Lower Nan, and Sakae Krang with lower growth rates.
The division of the basin into prosperous north and south and poor middle is reflected in socio-economic conditions. Formal employment and social services, such as health and education, are similarly concentrated, with a generally higher per capita provision, in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR) and the Upper Ping. Considerable variation exists in the Gross Provincial Product (GPP) and economic growth rates of provinces depending on the industrial and agricultural shares in provincial (sub-basin) economies; high growth sub-basins are industrial and low growth ones are agricultural. Considerable inequalities exists in per capita income between urban and rural populations. It must be stressed that although Thailand is considered to be economically relatively advanced among developing countries, rural people are still poor, with average per capita incomes of about US$1,000 per year. Typically, there is about a six-fold difference in average per capita income between the citizens of Bangkok and the rural areas."

from http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/case_studies/chao_phraya/index.shtml