Phnom Penh City History in Cambodia

Belcome to Phnom Penh, one of Cambodia’s most iconic travel destinations and home to an amazing array of sights, activities and events. Even first time visitors to Phnom Penh will quickly be enthralled by how fun and fascinating Phnom Penh really can be. For those

 looking for a glimpse of the real Cambodia, or just a fun night out, Phnom Penh mixes old world charm with a modern and vibrant night life. Click the general information links below for further information.

Phnom Penh’s history is both riveting and tragic. While Cambodia has breath-taking oldest cultural artifacts and world heritage sites, for instance, in Angkor Wat in the North of Cambodia, the rest of the country tends to be very agricultural and rural. Phnom Penh has international fame, however, not for its monuments necessarily, but for its bloody history, as headquarters for the Pol Pot regime during the 70s.
Phnom Penh’s history begins when King Ponhea Yat abandoned Angkor Wat, the palatial colony in 1422, decided to begin his capital, Phnom Penh, on the strategic shores where two huge rivers in Cambodia join. For the next four hundred years, the reigning kings moved the capital several times, until it was recognized as the official seat of government until 1866. At this time, however, Phnom Penh was nothing like the bustling city it is today. Instead, it was really just a few, informal, huts lining the riverbed and most of the locals were fishermen or farmers. When the french colonialists entered Phnom Penh, they gave the city the civic structure that it has now. The french built canals for irrigation, roads and buildings, most of which still remain. Thanks to this energetic construction, daring Europeans flocked to Phnom Penh, which was thought to be exoitc and glamorous, hence nicknamed the “Peal of Aisa”. This allure and popularity continued to burgeon until it abruptly ented in the 1960s when the Vietnam War erupted.

This is a three exposure HDR image of the Temple located in Cambodia’s Capital of Phnom Penh.

Due to its close proximity to Vietnam, the first affect of the war was the thousands of refugees whom fled over the borders of Vietnam and crowded into Phnom Pehn. In a short period of time, North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong took over the city,  as the South Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge fought. At the tragic date, April 17, 1975, known as the Cambodian New Year, Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. (This day and the events to follow was commenorated in the Oscar-winning film “The Killing Fields”). Phnom Penh was completely evacuated by force so that all the foriegners in the city were forced to return back home and all the residents were pushed up into the farm lands of Cambodia where they were forced to labor for the Khmer Rouge. At this time the Khmer Rouge believed intellectuals and teachers, essentially any one who was not a farmer, was a dissident, and those they could find, they captured, tortured and killed. As the Khmer Rouge turned Phnom Penh into their headquarters, the Pol Pot regime converted Tuol Svay Prey High School into a grisley torture and prison camp, where Cambodians of all ages were imprisoned and brutally tortured. (Visitors can see pictures of the thousands of Cambodians imprisoned on these grounds today as the camp has been turned into a prison, where the beds with blood stains and nearby torture weapons are exposed for all visitors’ view, so this terror can not be forgotten.
The Khmer Rouge was eventually forced out of Phnom Penh in 1979 and have been rebuilding ever since, with the help of foreign investment and foriegn aid. Today, it is a bustling city and the heart of Cambodia’s political, economic and social action.