Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh, city, capital of Cambodia (Kâmpŭchéa), at the junction of the Mekong and Tônlé Sab rivers, in the southern part of the country. The city was badly damaged and its population greatly reduced during warfare in the mid-1970s, but rebuilding began in the 1980s. The city traditionally had been a commercial center for the Mekong Valley with facilities for transportation by air, rail, river, and highway. It is a major port, with an outlet to the South China Sea through the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. Known as a picturesque Asian city with an enduring French colonial flavor, Phnom Penh is home to a number of cultural and educational institutions. Among the institutions of higher education in the city is the Royal University of Phnom Penh (1960). Points of interest include palaces of former rulers of Cambodia and Buddhist temples.

The first permanent settlement here was probably established in the late 14th century by the Khmers, and in 1434 it displaced Angkor Thum as the Khmer capital. Phnom Penh was abandoned and reoccupied several times before it became Cambodia’s capital in 1867. In the mid-1970s warfare in Cambodia led to social upheaval in the city; for a time almost all of its more than 2 million inhabitants were forced to live in the countryside as agricultural workers. The city was resettled during the 1980s, and some of its cultural and educational institutions have reopened. Population 1,157,000 (2003 estimate).