Home › Distances › Bangkok to Tokyo

The dashed line joins the two city centres; the true shortest path on the globe is a great-circle arc, and real flight paths also bend around restricted airspace and follow airways.

What lies beneath

Flying east-northeast from Bangkok, the great-circle line passes over northeastern Thailand and Laos and crosses northern Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin. It then runs along southern China near Guangzhou and the Fujian coast before crossing the East China Sea and reaching Japan over Kyushu and Shikoku. Nonstop flights link Suvarnabhumi (BKK) and Don Mueang (DMK) with Haneda (HND) and Narita (NRT); many overnight flights from Bangkok arrive in Tokyo in the early morning.

Four centuries of contact

Japanese merchants and adventurers had a settlement at Ayutthaya, the old Siamese capital, in the early 17th century. Modern diplomatic relations date from 1887, which makes them among Japan's oldest in Asia. Thailand was never colonised, and after the Second World War it became one of the most important destinations for Japanese investment in Southeast Asia.

Factories and holidays

Japanese carmakers and electronics firms built large manufacturing bases around Bangkok and the Eastern Seaboard, which is why Thailand is sometimes called the Detroit of Asia. Bangkok has one of the largest Japanese expatriate communities in the world. In the other direction, Japan has become one of the most popular overseas destinations for Thai tourists.