History

Cambodia’s culture has its roots in the Funan Kingdom, the oldest Indianised state in Southeast Asia dating to the 1st to 6th centuries. Today’s language evolved from Mon-Khmer spoken at that time and has written elements from the Sanskrit used in the ancient Buddhist and Hindu scriptures.

The Funan Kingdom gave way to the Angkor Empire when King Jayavarman II rose to power in 802. The following 600 years saw the Khmer kings dominate much of the present-day Mekong region: from the Myanmar border east to the South China Sea and north into Thailand and Laos.

During this period, the Khmer kings built more than 1,000 religious temples in Cambodia including the renowned Angkor Wat complex, which holds more than 100 temples within its 400-square-kilometre area of Seam Reap province.

Angkor’s most illustrious kings – Jayavarman II, Indravarman I, Suryavarman II and JayavarmanVII – devised a sophisticated irrigation system that includes barays (large artificial lakes) and canals to grow up to three rice crops a year. Part of this system is still used today.

As the Angkor period ended, the capital moved first to Longvek and then Oudong in Kampong Chhnang province before finally being established in Phnom Penh. These years were also met with the population’s widespread conversion to Theravada Buddhism as seen in the change in temple carvings from Hindu to Buddhist features.

The 15th to 17th centuries were a period of foreign influence, with Siam and Vietnam battling over Cambodia. By the mid-1800s the kingdom, like many other Asian countries, came under increasing pressure from European colonial powers. In 1863, King Norodom signed a Protectorate Treaty with France.

The Japanese briefly ousted the French in 1945, after which King Sihanouk campaigned for independence. In 1953, he succeeded thus ending 90 years under French protectorate. King Sihanouk abdicated the throne to his father, and took the reigns of government as the head of state.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Cambodia was self-sufficient and prospered in many areas. However, the escalating war in Vietnam spilled over the borders into Cambodia in 1970, and Prince Sihanouk was overthrown by General Lon Nol.

On 17 April 1975, Lon Nol’s government was toppled by the Khmer Rouge, which immediately emptied the capital of its residents and returned Prince Sihanouk to power, only to hold him under house arrest. The ensuing four years under Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.

In 1979, the Khmer Rouge were ousted and the Vietnamese-backed People’s Democratic Republic of Kampuchea was established. In 1989, the Vietnamese withdrew the last of their troops, and the government renamed the country, the State of Cambodia (SOC).

The SOC ruled independently until the Paris Peace Agreement of 1991 created the United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC). Supported by the presence of some 22,000 UN troops, UNTAC supervised general elections in May 1993. Today, Cambodia enjoys a parliamentary system with one prime minister.