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The Complete Cambodian Travel Guide
Angkor Wat
​Angkor is one of the most important religious archaeological sites in the world. The whole site stretches over somewhere in the region of 400 km2. Angkor Archaeological Park contains the amazing remains of over one thousand temples, all from the various ages of the Khmer Empires from the 9th – 15th centuries. At its peak the population of Angkor was over 1 million inhabitants-compare this to London at the same time in the midst of the Dark Ages which had a population of 50,000.
You will find the famous Temple of Angkor Wat, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations and Ta Prohm which has been left to be claimed by the jungle. The many temples of Angkor range from unremarkable piles of stone rubble to the majestic Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious monument.
When Frenchman Henri Mouhot rediscovered the complex in 1860, the natives of the Cambodian jungle could not fully explain who had built the temples. They believed that it was the work of ancient Gods or giants.

Since the rediscovery of the complex much of the temples have been restored, and the site was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.
​History
Khmer King Suryavarman II, built Angkor in the 12th Century as a temple to the Hindu god Vishnu.
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Even following 37 continuous years of construction the temple was never finished and some of the ornamentation remains incomplete.
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After the conversion of the Cambodian people from the Hindu faith to Buddhism, which started in the late 13th century, the temple was also converted to Buddhist use. This is why you will find numerous Buddha statues decorating the temples to this day.
The Western world first became aware of Angkor Wat in the late 16th century, but serious restoration and archaeological work on it began under the French in the mid-19th century.
