Angkor

Home to the magnificent Angkor Temple complex Cambodia has emerged as a must-see destination on the Wonders of the World List. Despite the fact that Siem Reap is fast becoming the Kingdom of Coachloads and 'hospitality' as a concept may be relatively nascent, if you know how to work it right, you're going to have a ball.

Lonely Planet Cambodia is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Watch the sun rise over the magnificent temples of Angkor, hit boho bars in Phnom Penh, and find a tropical hideaway in the Southern Islands – all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Cambodia and begin your journey now!

A thousand years of Cambodian epigraphy - from the 7th Century to the 15th - come to life in this handsome hardbound set.

A thousand years of Cambodian epigraphy - from the 7th Century to the 15th - come to life in this handsome hardbound set.

Temples and killing fields, mighty rivers and impenetrable forests, a past filled with glory and decline Cambodia is a land of contrasts. A millennia ago it was an empire at the height of its power, building the vast temple complexes of Angkor. Now, a thousand years later, ravaged by conflict and a genocidal civil war, Cambodia finds itself struggling with democracy, beset by corruption and on the lowest end of the global spectrum of economic wealth.

Angkor, the ancient seat of the god-kings of Cambodia, is the great treasury of Khmer artistic culture, whose evocative, enigmatic sculptures are known throughout the world. Marc Riboud, the French photographer, visited the site several times, first in the late 1960s and most recently in November 1990, capturing its monuments and inhabitants before and after the years of the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields.

This long-awaited sixth edition, with an additional 180 pages of text and more than 80 new color photographs, offers detailed monument-by-monument itineraries and maps to the temple sites. Includes practical information on hip Siem Reap, plus historic Phnom Penh.

The great legacy of the ancient Khmer civilization, the temples of Angkor cover an area well over 200 square kilometers (77 square miles) in northwest Cambodia.

The history of Cambodia is essentially the history of the Khmer kings. Power can be very seductive and addictive; and for this reason, kings or people with power would not voluntarily relinquish what they had and they would use any means necessary to maintain their control for absolute power. Sometimes it was easier for the king to rule his country than his family. This was certainly true for Cambodia when the kings begat many children from their multiple wives and concubines, creating many possible successors in competition for his throne.

RECENTLY UPDATED! With profiles of 23 of Angkor's top temples and nearly 200 high resolution images, this is the definitive guide to the Temples of Angkor. Travel guidebooks for the ultra curious, Approach Guides reveal a destination’s essence by exploring a compelling aspect of its cultural heritage: art, architecture, history, food, or wine.

Beginning with a definition of who the Cambodians are, this fully illustrated history then tracks back to the earliest kingdoms before 800 AD, followed by an investigation of the creation of the magnificent city of Angkor and Cambodia’s centuries of greatness up to 1400 AD. The following chapter describes the times from 1400–1860, which were centuries of crisis, succeeded by the recovery during next 100 years when the country came under the influence of the French.