Landscape

At about half the size of Vietname, Cambodia's landscape is a blend of rice paddies, sugar palm plantations and remote jungles. While most visitors come to see the marvel of Angkor Wat, Cambodia offers plenty of natural beauty for those willing to explore.

Bordering the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest, Cambodia has some lovely beaches, while the north and northeast are mountainous. Life in Cambodia has always revolved around two bodies of water: the Mekong and the Tonle Sap Lake. The Tonle Sap Lake, the name of which meanse "Great Lake" is linked to the Mekong at Phnom Penh by the 100km-long Tonle Sap River. During the summer rainy season,the Mekong rises to the point that water flows into the Tonle Sap River, causing it to change direction and flow back towards the Tonle Sap Lake.

Climate

Tow monsoons dictate Cambodia's climate. From November to April, a northeastern monsoon brings some cool air, but with little rain, while a southwestern monsoon, which occurs from May to October, causes heavy winds and rains.

People

Cambodia is the most ethnically homogenous nation in Southeast Asia. More than 95 percent of its 13 millions citizens are ethnic Khmer. Chinese and Vietnamese Cambodians form the largest minority groups, followed by Cham Muslims. The dominant religion is Hinayana Buddhism.

History

The kingdom of Funan covered much of the present-day Cambodia from the first to sixth centuries, and was replaced by the even more powerful kingdom of Angkor in the eighth century; its territory covered from modern-day Myanmar to the South China Sea and north to Laos. The legacy of this area is what draws most visitors to Cambodia; from the ninth to thirteenth centuries Angkor's rules presided over the construction of one the most astonishing architectural achievements in the world. While more than a hundred temples remain, these magnificent structures are a shadow of the fabulous religious capital that once stood here. Hundreds of wooden palaces, houses and public buildings are long gone.

In 1864, the French added Cambodia to heir colonies in Indochina, until independence was declared in 1953. In 1969, the war in neighboring Vietnam spilled over into Cambodia, as American and South Vietnamese troops invaded to attact North Vietnamese forces that were operating in Cambodia.

On April 17, 1975, a Cambodian resistance group, the Khmer Rouge, took control of the campital, and proceeded to implement one of the most destructive campaings of social re-engineering over recorded. The Khmer Rouge wished to create a peasantled, agrarian cooperative, so Cambodia's cities were forcibly emptied and people were resettled in rural labor camps. Anyone with foreign ties or an education was likely to be executed. By the time the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979, and overthrew the Khmer Rouge, between one in four Cambodians had died.

In the middle of 1993, the United Nations oversaw elections in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge's leader, Pol Pot died of natural causes in April 1998.