Cambodia

Heir to Angkor and the Khmer Empire, scarred by genocide, reborn as a constitutional kingdom under the shadow of one family's long rule.

Cambodia is the modern heir of one of Southeast Asia's most brilliant civilizations. From the Hinduized kingdoms of Funan and Chenla rose the Khmer Empire (802-1431), whose god-kings raised Angkor Wat and the Bayon and ruled much of mainland Southeast Asia before Thai and Vietnamese pressure forced the abandonment of Angkor. Reduced to a buffer state, Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1863 and part of French Indochina, regaining full independence under King Norodom Sihanouk on 9 November 1953. The country was then swept into the Vietnam War, endured the catastrophic Khmer Rouge genocide of 1975-79, a Vietnamese occupation, and a United Nations transition that restored the monarchy in 1993; it remains a kingdom dominated since the 1980s by Hun Sen and, since 2023, his son Hun Manet.