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, 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 US-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.
Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy and a de jure multi-party state, although the CPP dominates the political system and rules the country as de facto one-party state. The UN designates Cambodia a least developed country. Agriculture remains its dominant economic sector, with growth in textiles, construction, garments, and tourism leading to increased foreign investment and international trade. Corruption, human rights issues and deforestation have remained challenges in Cambodia's post-conflict development. The official and most widely spoken language is Khmer, and the most widely practiced religion is Buddhism. The country's culture and traditions are shaped by its Angkorean heritage and international influences over its history.
Etymology
The Kingdom of Cambodia is the official English name of the country. The English Cambodia is an anglicisation of the French Cambodge, which in turn is the French transliteration of the Khmer កម្ពុជា. Kâmpŭchéa is the shortened alternative to the country's official name in Khmer ព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា and कम्बोज, referring to the descendants of Kambu. The term Cambodia was already in use in Europe as early as 1524, since Antonio Pigafetta cites it in his work Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo as Camogia.Scholar George Coedes refers to a 10th-century inscription of a Cambodian dynastic legend in which the hermit Kambu Swayambhuva and the celestial nymph Mera unite and establish the Cambodian Solar royal dynasty, that begins with the Chenla ruler Srutavarman and his son Sreshthavarman. Coedes suggests that the Kambu Swayambhuva legend has its origins in southern India, as a version of the Kanchi Pallava dynasty creation myth.
History
Prehistory
There exists evidence for a Pleistocene human occupation of what later is Cambodia, which includes quartz and quartzite pebble tools found in terraces along the Mekong River, in Stung Treng and Kratié provinces, and in Kampot province. Some archaeological evidence shows communities of hunter-gatherers inhabited the region during the Holocene: the most ancient archaeological discovery site in Cambodia is considered to be the cave of Laang Spean, which belongs to the Hoabinhian period. Excavations in its lower layers produced a series of radiocarbon dates around 6000 BC. Upper layers in the same site gave evidence of transition to Neolithic, containing the earliest dated earthenware ceramics in Cambodia.Archaeological records for the period between the Holocene and Iron Age remain equally limited. An event in prehistory was the penetration of the first rice farmers from the north, which began in the third millennium BC. Prehistoric evidence are the "circular earthworks" discovered in the red soils near Memot and in the adjacent region of Vietnam in the latter 1950s. Their function and age are still debated, and some of them possibly date from the second millennium BC. Other prehistoric sites of somewhat uncertain date are Samrong Sen, where the first investigations began in 1875, and Phum Snay, in the northern province of Banteay Meanchey.
Iron was worked by about 500 BC, with supporting evidence coming from the Khorat Plateau, in what later is Thailand. In Cambodia, some Iron Age settlements were found beneath Baksei Chamkrong and other Angkorian temples while circular earthworks were discovered at the site of Lovea kilometres north-west of Angkor. Burials testify to improvement of food availability and trade, and the existence of a social structure and labour organisation. Kinds of glass beads recovered from sites, such as the Phum Snay site in the northwest and the Prohear site in the southeast, suggest that there were two main trading networks at the time. The two networks were separated by time and space, which indicate that there was a shift from one network to the other at about the 2nd–4th century AD, probably due to changes in socio-political powers.
Pre-Angkorian, Angkorian, and Post-Angkor
During the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries, the Indianised states of Funan and its successor, Chenla, coalesced in what later is Cambodia and southwestern Vietnam. For more than 2,000 years, what was to become Cambodia absorbed influences from India, passing them on to other Southeast Asian civilisations that later became Thailand and Laos.The Khmer Empire grew out of the remnants of Chenla, becoming firmly established in 802 when Jayavarman II declared independence from Java and proclaimed themselves a Devaraja. They and their followers instituted the cult of the God-king and began a series of conquests that formed an empire which flourished in the area from the 9th to the 15th centuries. During the rule of Jayavarman VIII the Angkor empire was attacked by the Mongol army of Kublai Khan; the king was able to buy peace. Around the 13th century, Theravada missionaries from Sri Lanka reintroduced Theravada Buddhism to Southeast Asia, having sent missionaries previously in the 1190s. The religion spread and eventually displaced Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism as the popular religion of Angkor; it was not the official state religion until 1295 when Indravarman III took power.
The Khmer Empire was Southeast Asia's largest empire during the 12th century. The empire's centre of power was Angkor, where a series of capitals were constructed during the empire's zenith. In 2007 an international team of researchers using satellite photographs and other modern techniques concluded that Angkor had been the largest pre-industrial city in the world with an urban sprawl of. The city could have supported a population of up to 1 million people.
After a series of wars with neighbouring kingdoms, Angkor was sacked by the Ayutthaya Kingdom and abandoned in 1432 because of ecological failure and infrastructure breakdown.
The hill tribe people were "hunted incessantly and carried off as slaves by the Siamese, the Annamites, and the Cambodians".
Formerly part of the Khmer Empire, the Mekong Delta had been controlled by the Vietnamese since 1698, with King Chey Chettha II granting the Vietnamese permission to settle in the area decades before.
French colonisation
In 1863, King Norodom signed a treaty of protection with France. The protectorate of France period lasted until 1953, with a brief interruption while the kingdom was occupied by the Japanese empire from 1941 to 1945 and simultaneously existing as the puppet state of Kingdom of Kampuchea in 1945. Between 1874 and 1962, the total population increased from about 946,000 to 5.7 million. After King Norodom's death in 1904, France manipulated the choice of king and Sisowath, Norodom's brother, was placed on the throne. The throne became vacant in 1941 with the death of Monivong, Sisowath's son, and France passed over Monivong's son, Monireth, feeling he was too independently minded. Instead, Norodom Sihanouk, a maternal grandson of King Sisowath was enthroned. The French thought young Sihanouk would be easy to control. Under the reign of King Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November 1953.Kingdom (1953–1970)
In 1955, Sihanouk abdicated in favour of his father to participate in politics and was elected prime minister. Upon his father's death in 1960, Sihanouk again became head of state, taking the title of prince. As the Vietnam War progressed, Sihanouk adopted an official policy of neutrality in the Cold War. Sihanouk allowed the Vietnamese communists to use Cambodia as a sanctuary and a supply route for their arms and other aid to their armed forces fighting in South Vietnam. In December 1967 Washington Post journalist Stanley Karnow was told by Sihanouk that if the U.S. wanted to bomb the Vietnamese communist sanctuaries, he would not object unless Cambodians were killed.File:Mao Sihanouk.jpg|thumb|right|Norodom Sihanouk and Mao Zedong in 1956
The same message was conveyed to U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson emissary Chester Bowles in January 1968. In public Sihanouk refuted the right of the U.S. to use air strikes in Cambodia, and on 26 March he said "these criminal attacks must immediately and definitively stop". On 28 March a press conference was held and Sihanouk appealed to the international media: "I appeal to you to publicise abroad this very clear stand of Cambodia—that is, I will, in any case, oppose all bombings on Cambodian territory under whatever pretext." Nevertheless, the bombing continued.