The history of
Cambodia, a country in mainland
Southeast Asia, can be traced back to at least the 5th millennium BC.
Detailed records of a political structure on territory, what is now
modern day Cambodia first appear in Chinese annals in reference to Funan, a polity that encompassed the southernmost part of the Indochinese peninsula during the 1st to 6th centuries. Centered at the lower Mekong
, Funan is noted as the oldest regional Hindu culture, which suggests prolonged socio-economic interaction with maritime trading partners of the
Indosphere in the west.
By the 6th century a civilisation, titled Chenla
or Zhenla in Chinese annals, has firmly replaced Funan, as it
controlled larger, more undulating areas of Indochina and maintained
more than a singular center of power.
The Khmer Empire was established by the early 9th century. Sources refer here to a mythical initiation and consecration ceremony to claim political legitimacy by founder Jayavarman II at Mount Kulen (Mount Mahendra) in 802 C.E.
A succession of powerful sovereigns, continuing the Hindu
devaraja cult
tradition, reigned over the classical era of Khmer civilization until
the 11th century. A new dynasty of provincial origin introduced Buddhism as royal religious discontinuities and decentralization result. The royal chronology ends in the 14th century. Great achievements in administration, agriculture,
architecture, hydrology,
logistics, Urban planning and the arts are testimony to a creative and progressive civilization - in its complexity a cornerstone of Southeast Asian cultural legacy.
A transitional period of around 100 years followed, that initiated the Dark Ages or the Middle Period of Cambodian history in the mid 15th century . Although Hindu cult had by then been all but replaced, the monument sites at the old capital remained an important spiritual center.
Yet since the mid 15th century the core population steadily moved to
the east and - with brief exceptions - settled at the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers at Chaktomuk,
Longvek and Oudong.
Maritime trade was the basis for a very prosperous 16th century. But, as a result foreigners - Muslim
Malays and Cham, Christian
European adventurers and missionaries
- increasingly disturb and influence government affairs. Ambiguous
fortunes, a robust economy on the one hand and a disturbed culture and
compromised royalty on the other are continuing features of the Longvek
era.
By the 15th century, the Khmers' traditional neighbors, the Mon people in the west and the Cham people in the east had gradually been pushed aside or replaced by the resilient Siamese/Thai and Annamese/Vietnamese. These powers had perceived, understood and increasingly followed the imperative of controlling the lower Mekong basin as the key to control all Indochina. A weak Khmer kingdom only encouraged the strategists in Ayutthaya (later Bangkok) and Huế. Attacks on and conquests of Khmer royal residences left sovereigns without a ceremonial and legit power base.
Interference in succession and marriage policies added to the decay of
royal prestige. Oudong was established in 1601 as the last royal
residence of the Middle Period.
The 19th century arrival of technologically superior and ambitious European colonial powers with policies of concrete global control put an end to regional feuds and as Siam/Thailand, although humiliated and on the retreat, escaped colonization as a buffer state, Vietnam was to be the focal point of French colonial ambition. Cambodia, although largely neglected, had entered the Indochinese Union as a perceived entity and was capable to carry and reclaim its identity and integrity into modernity.
After 80 years of colonial hibernation, the brief episode of Japanese occupation during World War II, that coincided with the investiture of king Sihanouk was the opening act
for the irreversible process towards re-emancipation and modern Cambodian history. The Kingdom of Cambodia (1953–70),
independent since 1953, struggled to remain neutral in a world shaped
by polarisation of the nuclear powers USA and Soviet Union.
As the Indochinese war escalates, Cambodia becomes increasingly involved, the Khmer Republic is one of the results in 1970, another is civil war. 1975, abandoned and in the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia endures its darkest hour - Democratic Kampuchea and its long aftermath of Vietnamese occupation, the People's Republic of Kampuchea and the UN Mandate towards Modern Cambodia since 1993.
