Cambodiaកម្ពុជា

Before Angkor there was Funan, a trading state on the Mekong delta that dealt with India and China in the first centuries AD, and then Chenla, a group of inland kingdoms whose brick towers still stand at Sambor Prei Kuk near Kampong Thom. From these the Khmer took Sanskrit, Hindu gods, the idea of a divine king and a writing system adapted from southern Indian script.

In 802 Jayavarman II had himself proclaimed universal monarch on Phnom Kulen, the sandstone plateau north of Siem Reap that later supplied the stone for the temples. His successors settled on the plain between the hills and the Tonle Sap lake, where they built reservoirs called barays, canals and a sequence of state temples, each one a model of Mount Meru, the home of the gods.

The empire peaked between the 11th and 13th centuries. Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat in the first half of the 12th century as a temple to Vishnu and probably his own tomb, which may explain why it faces west. After a Cham army sacked the city in 1177, Jayavarman VII rebuilt it as Angkor Thom, with the Bayon at its centre, and turned the state towards Mahayana Buddhism; he also built hospitals, rest houses and roads reaching into present-day Thailand and Laos.

Angkor declined slowly rather than falling at once. Theravada Buddhism spread among ordinary people, the costly Hindu-Buddhist court religion lost its hold, and research on the water system suggests that droughts and floods in the 14th and 15th centuries damaged the hydraulic network. An Ayutthayan army took the city in 1431, and the court moved south towards Phnom Penh. Angkor Wat itself was never abandoned; monks kept it as a Buddhist shrine.

For the next four centuries Cambodia was squeezed between Siam and Vietnam, which took the Mekong delta and fought for control of the Khmer court. That squeeze is still a sore point: the loss of Kampuchea Krom (the delta) and disputed border temples such as Preah Vihear run through modern politics and, in 2025, flared into fighting on the Thai border.

King Norodom accepted a French protectorate in 1863, partly to escape Siamese control. France drew the borders, built Phnom Penh's boulevards and colonial villas, and made Angkor a symbol of a lost Khmer greatness that the French claimed to be restoring. Siam handed back Battambang and Siem Reap provinces in 1907.

Independence came in 1953 under Norodom Sihanouk, who abdicated to lead politics directly and ran a neutral, nationalist state. The 1950s and 1960s are remembered as a golden age: young architects led by Vann Molyvann designed the Olympic Stadium and the Independence Monument, and Phnom Penh's rock-and-roll scene produced singers such as Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea.

The Vietnam War spilled over the border. US bombing of the eastern provinces began in 1969, Lon Nol deposed Sihanouk in 1970, and civil war followed. On 17 April 1975 the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh and emptied the cities within days. Under Pol Pot the regime abolished money, schools, religion and private life, and about 1.7 to 2 million people died from execution, starvation, overwork and disease.

Vietnamese troops drove the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh in January 1979. A Vietnamese-backed government ruled through the 1980s while a Khmer Rouge-led coalition held the UN seat and fought on from the Thai border. The 1991 Paris Peace Accords brought a UN transitional authority and the 1993 election; the Khmer Rouge finally collapsed in 1998, the year Pol Pot died.

Since then the Cambodian People's Party has dominated. Hun Sen was prime minister from 1985 to 2023 and handed the office to his son Hun Manet. A UN-backed tribunal convicted senior Khmer Rouge leaders between 2010 and 2018. The economy has grown quickly on garments, construction and tourism, while press freedom and opposition space have narrowed.

Cambodia has about 17 million people and one of the youngest populations in Asia: roughly half were born after 2000, into a country with no memory of war. Around 90 per cent are ethnic Khmer. The Cham, a Muslim people descended from the old kingdom of Champa, live along the Mekong and Tonle Sap; ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese-Khmer families are prominent in fishing and trade; and small highland groups such as the Bunong, Jarai and Tampuan live in the north-east.

Most people still live in the countryside, and life follows the rice year: planting with the rains from June, harvest from November. Migration is changing that. Young people move to Phnom Penh's garment factories and building sites or to Thailand and South Korea for work, sending money home; the 2025 border crisis pushed hundreds of thousands of workers back from Thailand.

Family and hierarchy shape daily life. Age decides who speaks first, who eats first and which pronoun to use. Patronage runs through business and politics, and connections to officials matter. The Khmer Rouge period broke families apart, and survivors and their children still carry the trauma quietly; it is rarely discussed with strangers.

The tourist economy is a large employer in Siem Reap, but so are NGOs: Cambodia has one of the densest aid-sector presences in the world. That brings good work in health and education, and also problems such as orphanage tourism, which many child-protection groups now campaign against.

Theravada Buddhism is the state religion and the faith of about 95 per cent of Cambodians. Most villages have a wat with a sala (open hall), a vihara (main shrine), stupas holding ashes and a school. Many young men spend time as monks, and the saffron robes are a daily sight at dawn when monks walk the streets collecting alms.

Buddhism sits on older layers. Neak ta, local guardian spirits, live in trees, rocks and small shrines at crossroads; spirit houses stand outside homes and shops; and achar (lay ritual specialists) run ceremonies. Brahmin priests still serve the royal court, including at the Royal Ploughing Ceremony each May, when sacred oxen choose between bowls of rice, beans and water to forecast the harvest.

The Khmer Rouge banned religion, killed most monks and turned pagodas into prisons and stores. The monkhood was rebuilt from a handful of survivors after 1979, and much of what visitors see in village temples is recent. Angkor's Hindu gods are now honoured as protective spirits; people pray at the statue of Vishnu (Ta Reach) inside Angkor Wat.

Islam is the second religion, practised mainly by the Cham, who suffered heavily under the Khmer Rouge. Christianity is a small minority, and there are Chinese temples in every market town.

The apsaras carved on Angkor's walls are the ancestors of Cambodia's classical dance, the Royal Ballet, which UNESCO lists as intangible heritage. Its slow hand gestures carry meaning and its repertoire draws on the Reamker, the Khmer version of the Ramayana. The Khmer Rouge killed most dancers; a few survivors retrained a new generation from 1979, and performances in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap are part of that revival.

Sbek thom, large shadow puppets cut from single cowhides, tell the same Reamker episodes by firelight; a few troupes survive, notably near Siem Reap. Lakhon khol is masked dance-drama performed by men. Pinpeat orchestras of xylophones, gongs and oboes accompany ceremonies and dance.

Khmer architecture runs from Angkor's sandstone towers through wooden stilt houses to the modernism of the 1950s and 1960s. Vann Molyvann's New Khmer Architecture adapted Angkorian forms to concrete and the tropics: raised floors, double roofs and ventilated walls. Several of his buildings in Phnom Penh have been demolished; the Olympic Stadium and the Independence Monument remain.

Silk weaving, especially hol ikat with patterns dyed into the threads before weaving, survives in villages along the Mekong and in NGO workshops. Stone and wood carving schools in Siem Reap train young artisans in Angkorian styles, and Phare circus in Battambang and Siem Reap grew out of an art school for young people from poor families.

The Tonle Sap is the country's pantry. Each year the Mekong's monsoon flood pushes water back up the Tonle Sap river, the lake swells to several times its dry-season size, and fish breed in the flooded forest. When the flow reverses in autumn the catch is huge, and much of it becomes prahok, the fermented fish paste that seasons almost everything.

Khmer cooking relies on kroeung, a paste of lemongrass, galangal, turmeric and kaffir lime, rather than chilli heat. Amok, fish steamed in coconut and kroeung, is the dish restaurants show off; everyday food is samlor (soups), grilled fish, pork on rice and noodle soups. Kampot pepper, grown on the southern hills since the 13th century, carries a protected geographical indication.

The festival year follows the moon and the rice cycle. Khmer New Year in mid-April comes at the end of the harvest, before the rains. Pchum Ben in September or October is the fortnight when the dead return; people bring rice balls to pagodas before dawn to feed wandering spirits. The Water Festival, when the Tonle Sap reverses, brings boat races to Phnom Penh.

Street food runs on a clock too: noodle soup and bai sach chrouk at breakfast, rice and soup at lunch, grilled skewers, fruit shakes and fried insects from late afternoon. Markets are busiest at dawn, and the best stalls sell out by mid-morning.