Cambodia

The heir to the greatest empire of mainland Southeast Asia and the site of one of the century's worst crimes. The Khmer Empire ruled from Angkor from the ninth to the fifteenth century, building the largest religious monument in the world at Angkor Wat and an irrigation system that supported perhaps three-quarters of a million people, the biggest pre-industrial city known. Decline and Thai and Vietnamese pressure followed, and Cambodia accepted a French protectorate in 1863 partly to survive its neighbours. Independence came in 1953 under Sihanouk. American bombing during the Vietnam war dropped enormous tonnage on the countryside and helped radicalise a small insurgency; the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh in April 1975, emptied the cities within days, abolished money, schools and religion, declared Year Zero, and killed around a quarter of the population in under four years through execution, starvation and forced labour. Vietnam invaded in 1979 and removed them, and was then treated as the aggressor by much of the world. A UN-backed tribunal convicted three leaders decades later. Hun Sen governed for thirty-eight years and handed power to his son. Angkor is the country's emblem and appears on its flag. The country has about seventeen million people. Khmer is the official language and its script derives from Indian models. The Tonle Sap reverses its flow twice a year with the monsoon, an unusual hydrological system that supports a large fishery. Landmines still contaminate parts of the countryside. Tourism to Angkor is a major earner. Around two million people visit the temple complex in a normal year.

MyHistorian
A causal knowledge graph of history