Cambodia Expat

Once known as the "Pearl of Asia" in the 1920s, Phnom Penh, along with Siem Reap, is a significant global and domestic tourist destination for Cambodia. Phnom Penh is known for its traditional Khmer and French influenced architecture.

Phnom Penh is the wealthiest and most populous city in Cambodia. It is also the commercial, political and cultural hub of Cambodia and is home to more than one million of Cambodia's population of over 13 million.

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The main tourist attractions in Phnom Penh include the Royal Palace, Phsar Thom Thmei, the Silver Pagoda, the National Museum, Independence Monument (Khmer: Vimean Akareach), the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Monument, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, and Wat Phnom. On the outskirt of the city is the Choeung Ek Genocide Center.

The Royal Palace of Phnom Penh are a complex of buildings which are the royal abode of the Kingdom of Cambodia. Its full name in the Khmer language is Preah Barom Reachea Vaeng Chaktomuk. The Kings of Cambodia have occupied it since it was built in 1866, with a period of absence when the country came into turmoil during and after the reign of the Khmer Rouge.

The palace was started after King Norodom relocated the royal capital from Oudong to Phnom Penh after the mid-1800s. It was gradually built atop an old citadel called Banteay Kev. It faces towards the East and is situated at the Western bank of four divisions at the Mekong River called Chaktomuk (an allusion to Brahma).

Wat Phnom is a historical and one of the most important pagoda located in Phnom Penh. Built in 1373,it stands at 27 metres and is by far the tallest religious structure in the city. Built on an artificial hill by the wealthy widow Daun Chi Penh after a great flood washed statues of Buddha downstream, it has since been renovated. There have been many additions to the original shrines over the centuries. The largest stupa houses the ashes of King Ponhea Yat and it is the center of city celebrations for the Cambodian New Year, and Pchum Benh festivals.

The National Museum, Phnom Penh is Cambodia's largest and was built in 1917–20 by the French colonial authorities then in control of Cambodia, in a traditional Khmer style, with French influence.

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) concentration camp by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979 is one of the city's most moving landmarks.

From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (some estimates suggest a number as high as 20,000). The prisoners were selected from all around the country, and usually were former Khmer Rouge members and soldiers, accused of treason. Classrooms were converted into tiny prison and torture chambers and all the windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent prisoner escapes.

In 1979, the prison was uncovered by the invading Vietnamese army. In 1980, the prison was reopened as a historical museum memorializing the actions of the Khmer Rouge regime. The museum is open to the public, and receives an average of 500 visitors every day.

The Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Monument is a large concrete monument to the former alliance between Vietnam and Cambodia located in the centre of Phnom Penh not far from the Royal Palace. It was built in the late 1970s by the communist regime which took power after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, which overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime.

It features heroic statues of Vietnamese and Cambodian soldiers in the "Socialist realist" style developed in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, together with images of a woman and baby representing Cambodian civilians. With the end of the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia and fading memories of the conflicts of the 1970s, the memorial is neglected and little used by the Cambodians.

The Choeung Ek Genocide Center is located about 17 km south of the urbanized centre of Phnom Penh the site of a former orchard and Chinese graveyard which is the best-known of the sites known as the Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge regime executed about 17,000 people between 1975 and 1979. Mass graves containing 8,895 bodies were discovered at Choeung Ek after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Many of the dead were former inmates in the Tuol Sleng prison. Today, Choeung Ek is a memorial, marked by a Buddhist stupa that is filled with skulls of the victims.

The Preah Suramarit National Theatre was built in 1968 and during late 1960s and early 1970s enjoyed many cultural performances ranging from opera and dance to musical concerts from talented musicians all across Cambodia. It was designed by the venerated architect Vann Molyvann, responsible for much of the city's modern architecture. A fire in 1994 gutted the entire building and due to a lack of funding it hasn't been restored.