Map of Cambodia and geographical facts - World atlas

Currency Riel

Economy Agriculture 80%, services and industry 20%

Official name Kingdom of Cambodia

Form of government Constitutional monarchy with single legislative body (National Assembly)

Capital Phnom Penh

Area 181,040 sq km (69,900 sq miles)

Time zone GMT +7 hours

Population 12,776,000

Projected population 2015 18,585,000

Population density 70.6 per sq km (182.8 per sq mile)

Life expectancy 57.1

Infant mortality (per 1,000) 64

Official language Khmer

Other language French, Vietnamese, Chinese

Literacy rate 35 %

Religions Theravada Buddhism 95%, other 5%

Ethnic groups Khmer 90%, Vietnamese 5%, Chinese 1 %, other 4%

GNP per capita US$ 1,500

Climate Tropical, with wet season May to November

Highest point Phnum Aoral 1,810m (5,938 ft) Map reference Page 203

The Southeast Asian country of Cambodia is famous both culturally and politically. At Angkor Wat and Angkor Thorn it has the world's largest group of religious buildings, a priceless relic of the Hindu Khmer Empire (ad 802 to 1432). It also saw an outbreak of communist fanaticism in the 1970s in which over 2 million people died. Under French rule for almost a century from 1863, Cambodia won independence in 1954. In the late 1950s and during the 1960s there was a short period of relative stability in which the country developed its agricultural resources and rubber plantations and managed to achieve self-sufficiency in food.

Years of internal political struggles, in combination with Cambodia's involvement in the Vietnam War, led to a takeover by the Communist Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Pol Pot in 1975. With the aim of creating a classless agrarian society, money and private property were abolished, the professional classes were murdered (anyone with glasses was considered intellectual, and therefore at risk), and townspeople were brutally moved into the countryside and left to fend for themselves. Half a million refugees fled to Thailand, and between one eighth and one quarter of the entire population died. The regime fell in 1978 and Pol Pot went into hiding, but civil war continued for some years; Pol Pot died in 1998 without ever having to face trial for the atrocities that were committed under his direction. A devastated and desperately poor nation, numerous group, and the Chinese, who are smaller in number but considerably more prosperous. There were riots between the Malays and Chinese in 1969 with heavy loss of life. The many "affirmative action" provisions that are now in place to open opportunities for Malays at the expense of Chinese and Indians are strongly resented by the latter groups. There are also a number of unresolved territorial disputes with neighboring states—Sabah in Borneo, for example, being claimed by the Philippines.

Fold mountains aligned on a north-south axis dominate the Malay Peninsula. There are seven or eight distinct chains of mountains, many of which have exposed granite cores. Climbing to 2,189 m (7,181 ft) at Gunung Tahan, the main range divides the narrow coastal belt to the east from the fertile alluvial plains in the west. To the south lies poorly drained lowland, marked by isolated hills, some of which rise to over 1,060 m (3,500 ft). Several smaller rivers have also contributed to the margin of lowland around the peninsular coasts.

About 2,000 km (1,250 miles) east of the Malay Peninsula, northern Borneo has a mangrove-fringed coastal plain about 65 km (40 miles) wide, rising behind to hill country averaging 300 m (1,000 ft) in height. This ascends through various secondary ranges to the mountainous main interior range. The granite peak of Gunung Kinabalu, the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, rises from the northern end of this range in Sabah, towering above Kinabalu National Park. Dense rainforest in Sarawak and Sabah support a great diversity of plants and animals.

With a mixture of private enterprise and public management, the Malaysian economy averaged a healthy rate of nine percent annual growth from 1988 to 1995. Substantial inroads are being made towards the reduction of poverty and real wages are rising. New light industries including electronics are playing an important role in this development: Malaysia is the world's biggest producer of disk drives. Heavy industry has also grown: Malaysia's "national car", the Proton, is now being exported.

The traditional mainstays of the economy, however, remain rice, rubber, palm oil, and tin—Malaysia being the world's foremost producer of palm oil and tin. Rice, however, is becoming a problem. Subsistence farming has regularly failed to ensure self-sufficiency in food, and rice production does not meet demand. The main industries on the peninsula are rubber and palm oil processing and manufacturing, light industry, electronics, tin mining, smelting, logging, and timber processing. The main activities on Sabah and Sarawak are logging, petroleum production, and the processing of agricultural products. Malaysia exports more tropical timber than any other country, and the tribal people of Sarawak have been campaigning against the scale of logging on their land. The Asian economic downturn in 1997 and 1998 saw a depreciation of the Malaysian currency and a marked slowing of the growth of their economy.