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Portal:Cambodia

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Coat of arms of Cambodia Welcome to the Cambodia Portal / សូមស្វាគមន៍ Angkor Wat

Geographic map of Cambodia

Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Mainland Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline along the Gulf of Thailand in the southwest. It spans an area of about 181,035 km2 (69,898 sq mi), dominated by a low-lying plain and the confluence of the Mekong river and Tonlé Sap, Southeast Asia's largest lake. It is dominated by a tropical climate. Cambodia has a population of about 17 million people, the majority of which are ethnically Khmer. Its capital and most populous city is Phnom Penh, followed by Siem Reap and Battambang.

In 802 AD, Jayavarman II declared himself king, uniting the warring Khmer princes of Chenla under the name "Kambuja". This marked the beginning of the Khmer Empire. The Indianised kingdom facilitated the spread of first Hinduism and then Buddhism to Southeast Asia and undertook religious infrastructural projects throughout the region, the most famous of which is Angkor Wat. In the 15th century, it began a decline in power until, in 1863, Cambodia became a French protectorate. Following Japanese occupation during World War II, Cambodia declared independence from France in 1953. The Vietnam War embroiled the country in civil war during the 1960s, culminating in a 1970 coup which installed the U.S.-aligned Khmer Republic and the takeover of the communist Khmer Rouge in 1975. The Khmer Rouge ruled the country and carried out the Cambodian genocide from 1975 until 1979, until they were ousted during the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. Peace was restored by the 1991 Paris Peace Accords and subsequent United Nations peacekeeping mission, establishing a new constitution, holding the 1993 general election, and ending long-term insurgencies. The 1997 coup d'état consolidated power under Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Cambodian People's Party (CPP). (Full article...)

Siem Reap (Khmer: សៀមរាប, Siĕm Réab [siəm riəp]) is the second-largest city of Cambodia, as well as the capital and largest city of Siem Reap Province in northwestern Cambodia.

Siem Reap possesses French-colonial and Chinese-style architecture in the Old French Quarter and around the Old Market. The city is a major hub for tourism in Cambodia due to its close proximity to the ancient temples of Angkor constructed during the Khmer Empire. In and around the city there are museums, traditional Apsara dance performances, a Cambodian cultural village, souvenir and handicraft shops, silk farms, rice paddies in the countryside, fishing villages and a bird sanctuary near Tonlé Sap, and a cosmopolitan drinking and dining scene. (Full article...)

Selected picture

Credit: Photo by User:Geocachernemesis

A map of Cambodia made of skulls on display in the former S-21 prison camp at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, in Phnom Penh

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Did you know (auto-generated)

More Did you know

  • ... that Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space, worked at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand and was a medical officer for the Peace Corps before becoming an astronaut?
  • ...that Saigon was founded by Cambodians?

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