Cambodia

Cambodia is a country in Southeast Asia.

It has wide, flat land and big rivers. There is a giant lake in the middle. The capital city is called Phnom Penh. Most people live in villages.

Cambodia is in mainland Southeast Asia, between Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, with a coast on the Gulf of Thailand. Most of the country is a low, flat plain around a huge lake, the Tonle Sap, and the great Mekong River, with hills and low mountains around the edges.

The capital is Phnom Penh, where three rivers meet. Cambodia covers about 181,000 square kilometers, and about 17.3 million people lived there in 2024. Most of them live in the countryside rather than in cities.

Cambodia lies in mainland Southeast Asia, amid important overland and river trade routes linking China to India and Southeast Asia (Britannica). It measures about 450 km from north to south and 580 km from east to west, and covers about 181,000 km². Its landscape is a low-lying central alluvial plain, containing the Tonle Sap and the upper reaches of the Mekong delta, ringed by transitional plains, uplands and low mountains.

The National Institute of Statistics projects a population of 17,280,543 for 2024. Some four-fifths of people live in rural areas; Phnom Penh, at the confluence of the Mekong, Bassac and Sab rivers, has been home to most town dwellers since the 1920s. Influences from many Asian cultures, and from France and the United States, can be seen in the capital.

Phnom Penh is the biggest city.

It is beside wide rivers. Near the town of Siem Reap is Angkor. It has huge old stone buildings. Angkor Wat has tall towers and a moat of water around it.

Phnom Penh, the capital, stands where the Mekong, Bassac and Sab rivers meet, and about 2.1 million people lived there in 2019. Battambang, in the northwest, and Siem Reap are other important towns.

Near Siem Reap is Angkor, one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia. Over about 400 square kilometers it holds the remains of the capitals of the Khmer Empire from the 800s to the 1400s, including Angkor Wat and the Bayon at Angkor Thom, covered in carvings. Villages and rice fields still lie inside the park.

Phnom Penh, thought to have been founded in the mid-15th century, when many Khmer were probably drawn south from Angkor, lies at the confluence of the Mekong, Bassac and Sab rivers; Wikidata gives about 2.13 million people in 2019. Battambang and Siem Reap lie in the northwest.

Angkor Archaeological Park, inscribed by UNESCO in 1992, stretches over some 400 km² including forest and contains the remains of the Khmer capitals from the 9th to the 15th century, among them Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon with its countless sculptural decorations; UNESCO also names Banteay Srei among the masterpieces of Khmer art. The park is inhabited, and its villagers grow rice. Two older capitals are also World Heritage Sites: Sambor Prei Kuk (2017), the remains of Ishanapura, capital of the Chenla Empire in the late 6th and early 7th centuries, and Koh Ker (2023), a Khmer capital from 921 to 944 CE built with colossal stone blocks.

A few elephants and tigers may still live in Cambodia's forests.

Bears and deer may live there too. Water birds such as cranes and herons are common. Lots and lots of fish swim in the big lake.

Forests cover much of Cambodia, from tall evergreen forests in the north to rainforests in the southwest and mangroves along the coast. Small numbers of elephants, wild oxen and several kinds of deer may still live in the northeastern forests, along with some tigers, leopards and bears.

Water birds such as herons, cranes, pelicans, cormorants and egrets are common. The Tonle Sap is full of fish, and the Siamese crocodile, now endangered, lives in the Tonle Sap area. Cambodia also has dangerous snakes, such as the king cobra.

Britannica describes evergreen forests with trees 30 m tall in the northern mountains, pine forests and rainforests over 45 m tall in the southwestern highlands, and mangroves on the coast. The northeastern forests once sheltered large populations of elephants, wild oxen, rhinoceroses and deer, but the loss of forest cover, warfare and unregulated hunting sharply reduced them; small populations of most of these species may remain, with some tigers, leopards and bears. Herons, cranes, pelicans, cormorants and egrets are among the more common birds, and the Indian cobra, king cobra, banded krait and Russell's viper are the most dangerous snakes.

The Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve combines the lake, the flooded forests and swamps around it, and seasonally flooded rice fields and grasslands. UNESCO notes that overfishing is a key issue: eight fish sanctuaries protect endangered and vulnerable fish, and the Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis) has become endangered because of its high commercial value.

About 17 million people lived in Cambodia in 2024.

Most people speak Khmer. Many meals have rice and fish. In April, people celebrate Khmer New Year. In November, there is a water festival.

Most people in Cambodia are Khmer, and nearly everyone speaks the Khmer language. Chinese, Vietnamese, Cham and Lao people live there too, along with Indigenous peoples of the northeastern highlands. Most Khmer people practice Theravada Buddhism, and the Cham are Muslim.

Many meals are based on rice and fish, flavored with hot peppers, mint, lemongrass, ginger and prahoc, a spiced fish paste. Ka tieu is a popular noodle soup. Khmer New Year comes in mid-April, and the Water Festival in early November marks the time when the Tonle Sap's flow turns around. In the countryside, houses have traditionally been built on wooden posts.

The Khmer, of the Mon-Khmer ethnolinguistic group, make up the vast majority of the population, concentrated in the lowlands around the Mekong and the Tonle Sap and along the coast. Minorities include Chinese, Vietnamese, Cham-Malays (Khmer Islam), Lao and the upland peoples known together as Khmer Loeu, such as the Jarai, Mnong and Stieng. Khmer, an Austroasiatic language, is spoken by nearly everyone. Most Khmer are Theravada Buddhists; Theravada Buddhism was restored as the state religion in 1993, and the Cham are mostly Sunni Muslim.

Cambodia remains a land of villages: some four-fifths of people are rural, and houses have generally been built on wooden pilings. Rice and fish are the base of many meals, with garnishes such as mint, lemongrass, ginger, prahoc and red curry paste. The Royal Ballet of Cambodia, or Khmer classical dance, has been associated with the Khmer court for over a thousand years; its graceful hand gestures take years of training, and UNESCO inscribed it in 2008. Bonn Om Touk, the Water and Moon Festival in early November, marks the annual flow reversal of the Tonle Sap.