Somebody recently asked how many ancient sites are there in Cambodia, to which the simple answer is, thousands. The exact number according to official databases is close to 5000 in Cambodia and that number grows to over 7000 when including parts of the ancient empire that are now present-day Laos and Thailand. That number grows again slightly if you add in the sites from the more recent databases of several university-based archeological teams.
It’s important to consider that a lot of those listings are cataloging old French notes from the 1900s and include the location of where a photo was taken etc., contemporary monasteries/museums/stores where some object is held or were seen, sites that no longer exist or have been lost to development, basins etc., and, hundreds of sites where there are no longer any remains.
That’s all quite fascinating, and essential in building a big picture of this vast multi-century, multi-empire ancient realm. Especially so if you are an archeologist, but most of us aren’t, and for us laypeople, we are probably not going to derive a whole lot of value from traveling 100s of miles to see a mound.
For those studying the art of the empire, those who love the outdoors, and those driven by the thrill, or insatiable curiosity, and willing to clumber through the jungle, the reward is seeing something with our own eyes and connecting with those remnants in their original setting. In this case, the number of sites of interest drops exponentially but I don’t have an exact number. Efforts by authorities at cataloging the vast number of remains are ongoing and that deserves applause as it’s no small task. What’s fantastic to see is that there is also a lot of young Khmer who are leading the charge on that point also and dedicating their time to uncovering all these remains across the country, here, I’ll point to Lon Nak and Thon Varantha as just two examples.
How many sites are still actually standing then? As you’d expect that number greatly reduces again. As a ballpark figure, perhaps there are around 600 that would likely have more than 30% of their original structure intact. I was really hoping to have completed the task of visiting and photographing all of the standing sites by now with only a handful in the northeast of Cambodia left to visit (if it’s safely possible), but alas, the rainy season is here again and unless there are some lengthy dry periods, it could be next year before that’s completed.
How many sites would interest a temple superfan? That’s a bit easier to qualify. Sites that are standing, cleared, and have reasonable access would be near 500 (not including bridges), with 200 or so around Siem Reap and the rest across Cambodia. Stay tuned for a map and post on that topic.
Since starting HelloAngkor.com in late 2017, to date, 654 locations in varying states of preservation including temples, bridges, structures, and locations with ancient remains have been visited and photographed across Cambodia. Some of the photos are pretty average I admit, I love to travel light and have used Xiaomi phones exclusively (bar some images with the 360 camera) but I think in the near future I should probably do a bit better on that point. Also, there’s a lot of work to do on curating the research and historical info on each site.
I thought it would be cool to see all the sites on one page which may or may not work on some web browsers as it’s a lot of images to open, but see how it goes for you, a little patience might be needed.
Scroll to load more, hover over an image to get the site name, and click to go through for more info on any site of interest.
