Extreme heat in Bangkok: plans, cycles and who is at work

A tropical megacity where heat costs lives, livelihoods and a share of the city’s economy. Heat plan: heat plan in force.

Heat type: Mostly humid heat. Dry heat and humid heat, explained.

Heat action plan: Heat plan in force

For the 2026 hot season Bangkok opened 304 cooling centres in schools, health centres and district offices, under a heat management plan developed with the World Bank.

Sources: Government of Thailand, 2026 · World Bank, Shaping a Cooler Bangkok, 2025

Heat today

Live readings and the week’s forecast are on the interactive map. Official warnings: Thai Meteorological Department. How much climate change shaped today’s heat: Climate Shift Index map, Climate Central.

Vicious cycles the evidence ties to Bangkok

The poverty–heat trap

Nearly 80% of informal workers surveyed cut their hours in the heat; 75% of home-based workers lost a day’s work a month to heat illness. Source: WIEGO and HomeNet Thailand, 2025

People who can’t afford to stop working fall ill. Illness costs income, and lost income makes stopping even less affordable. Follow it on the map.

The reactive-spending loop

Heat deaths, about 593 a year, cost up to 0.7% of the city’s economy: more than its 2020 public health budget. Source: Park and Rubinyi, World Bank working paper, 2026

Stretched budgets skimp on prevention. Emergencies multiply, and costly emergency response stretches budgets further. Follow it on the map.

The sleepless-nights loop

One of the tropical cities whose nights stay hot.

Hot nights wreck sleep. Poor sleep frays mental health, and stress makes sleep harder still. Follow it on the map.

The green-displacement loop

Fieldwork is tracing how green urban renewal affects the city’s lower-income residents. Source: Endo, The Developing Economies, 2026

Green space follows wealth. When greening reaches poorer districts without protection, rents rise, residents are pushed into hotter housing, and the gap grows. Follow it on the map.

Recently updated here

• Support for the Southeast Asia Heat Health Hub’s next stage (added in the October 2026 update)

Every change is checked before it appears. What changed this month · Corrections

Who heat hits hardest here

• Workers in heat-exposed jobs
• People in informal settlements

Already at work here

• HomeNet Thailand: With WIEGO, surveyed more than 1,000 informal workers in Bangkok on heat: nearly 80% had cut their hours. A trusted link between workers and authorities.
• Bank of Thailand: A 2023 policy statement asks banks to build environmental and climate risk into governance, strategy, risk management and disclosure. It has worked with the World Bank on assessing physical climate risk in Thai banks’ loan books.
• United Nations Development Programme (UNDP): Helps governments connect heat resilience with health systems, urban planning and finance. Its work includes a financing strategy for tackling urban heat in Bangkok.
• Asian Development Bank: Supports heat resilience in Asian cities, including technical assistance on heat stress among women and girls in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tajikistan. Its 2026 report on the heat crisis in Thailand and Southeast Asia calls for mobilising public and private finance, and proposes a heat action plan for Thailand.

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The national picture

Plans and law, warnings, rules for heat at work, cooling, money and other cities in Thailand: the Thailand country snapshot.