The Kingdom of Cambodia is a small country located in the interior of Southeast Asia. It has a total area of 181,035 square kilometers. The main avenues of commerce are the major rivers, which run north to south. The rivers are the Irawaddy, the Salween, the Chao Phrya, the Mekong, and the Red River.
The Cambodian government is a multiparty constitutional monarchy, and the capital is Phnom Penh. The current constitution dates from 1993.
A French colony since 1863, Cambodia gained its independence from France in 1953. Cambodia is one of three present-day countries which are located on the IndoChina peninsula, the other two are Laos and Vietnam; they were collectively known as "French Indochina" while under French administration. The French withdrew from Indochina in 1954 in accordance with the Geneva Conference of 1954.
During the Vietnam civil war, Cambodia attempted to remain neutral under the leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. A junta overthrew Sihanouk's regime in 1970. The country became known in 1975 as Communist Kampuchea with the rise to power of the Khmer Rouges. In 1977 the ruling organization of the country was the Communist Party of Kampuchea, whose leader was Pol Pot. Pol Pot subsequently became notorious for the radical social deconstruction program which caused the death of an estimated 1.7 million of the country's inhabitants. The current population is 13,995,904 (2007).
Cambodia has an ancient and very advanced civilization. Most Cambodians (90%) consider themselves Khmers, descendants of the Angkor Empire which reached its greatest extent and peak of power between the 10th and 13th centuries AD. Attacked by the Thai and Cham peoples of Vietnam, the civilization declined for several centuries, until the King placed the country under French protection in 1863. The most visible lasting symbol of the Angkor Empire is Angkor Wat, the archaeological site (former Royal temple complex), which was placed on the United Nations' UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1992. Other ethnicities are Vietnamese, Chinese and other. Nearly all of the population is Theravada Buddhist (95 percent). Khmer is the official language and is spoken by 95% of the population. French and English are also spoken.
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