Cambodia

Why Cambodia works

Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Mainland Southeast Asia, bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, with a 443-kilometre coastline along the Gulf of Thailand. The country lies entirely within the tropics and is dominated by a low-lying central plain that holds the Tonlé Sap, Southeast Asia's largest lake, and the upper reaches of the Mekong River delta. Phnom Penh is the capital and most populous city, followed by Siem Reap and Battambang, and the great majority of Cambodia's roughly 17 million people are ethnically Khmer.

From the third to fifth centuries, the Indianised states of Funan and its successor Chenla emerged in the region, absorbing Indian cultural influence that Cambodia later passed on to neighbouring Thailand and Laos. The Khmer Empire grew from the remnants of Chenla and was firmly established in 802, when Jayavarman II declared independence and proclaimed a cult of the god-king; the empire that followed became Southeast Asia's largest in the twelfth century. Theravada Buddhism, introduced by Sri Lankan missionaries around the thirteenth century, gradually displaced Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism as the popular religion, becoming the official state religion under Indravarman III in 1295.

That empire's monuments remain Cambodia's defining landmarks: the temple complexes around Angkor, near modern Siem Reap, were built across the ninth to fifteenth centuries as the empire's religious and political centre. Cambodia's modern history has been far more turbulent, running through French colonisation, a kingdom, the Khmer Republic, the Khmer Rouge regime, a period of Vietnamese occupation and transition, and a return to constitutional monarchy in 1993 — a twentieth century arc that shapes how the country presents its history today alongside its ancient temples. The Tonle Sap lake itself sits at the centre of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, designated in 1997, spanning nine provinces and supporting some 850 recorded freshwater fish species, part of a wider biodiversity that also includes the dry forests of Mondulkiri province and the Cardamom Mountains.

Cambodia's climate is dominated by monsoons, producing a clearly marked wet and dry season with temperatures ranging from about 21°C to 35°C. The southwest monsoon brings moisture-laden winds from the Gulf of Thailand and Indian Ocean between May and October, with the heaviest rain falling in September and October, while the northeast monsoon ushers in a dry season lasting from November to April, driest in January and February. Forest still covers around 46% of Cambodia's land, though that figure has fallen from about 11 million hectares in 1990 to just over 8 million hectares in 2020.

Rice is the staple of Cambodian cuisine, supplemented by fish from the Mekong and Tonlé Sap, and French colonial influence shows in dishes such as Cambodian red curry served with toasted baguette. Kuytiav, a pork-broth rice noodle soup with fried garlic and scallions, is a common dine-out dish, sometimes topped with beef balls, shrimp, or pork liver, while Kampot pepper, grown in the country's southwest, accompanies crab at the seafood shacks of Kep. Tea grown in Mondulkiri Province and around Kirirom is prepared in distinctive local styles, including te krolap, a strong brewed tea, and te kdau kroch chhma, a lemon tea made with red-dust tea. Rice remains central to the diet in most forms, and fish from the Tonle Sap has historically supplied a significant share of Cambodians' protein.

• Cambodia — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Text adapted from the linked articles under CC BY-SA 4.0; edited for length.

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