Phnom Penh
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | Date: 2008
Phnom Penh or Phnum Penh , city (1994 est. pop. 527,000), capital of Cambodia, SW Cambodia, at the confluence of the Mekong and Tônlé Sap rivers. Phnom Penh was founded in the 14th cent. and was made the Khmer capital after the abandonment (1434) of Angkor . It became the capital of Cambodia in 1867. The city was occupied by the Japanese in World War II. The cultural and commercial center as well as political capital of Cambodia, it was severely stressed and battered by the civil war in the 1970s. The onset (1970) of fighting between government forces and the Khmer Rouge drove refugees from the war-torn countryside to Phnom Penh. Its population swelled from c.500,000 in 1970 to c.2 million in early 1975, when it was evacuated after falling to the Khmer Rouge. By the time the Khmer Rouge were overthrown in 1979, the city had become virtually a ghost town, with no more than 50,000 residents and its universities and cultural institutions no longer in operation. It gradually revived through the 1980s; Phnom Penh Univ. reopened in 1988. The transportation center of Cambodia, Phnom Penh is the focus of four highways radiating out to the provinces. It is the terminus of the country's only two railroads—one extending to the Thai border and another to the deepwater port of Kompong Som on the Gulf of Thailand. There is an international airport in nearby Pochentong.
Author not available, PHNOM PENH.,
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition 2008
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press
Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from HighBeam Research
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Cambodia: Ten Years After The Vietnamese Invasion; Phnom Penh Buzzes With Economic Activity
The Washington Post; 1/1/1989; Murray Hiebert; 1215 words
; When the invading Vietnamese Army reached Phnom Penh 10 years ago to oust the Khmer Rouge from power, the capital city was desolate, testimony to the brutality of the four-year rule of Pol Pot and his followers. Today, the city is buzzing with economic activity as preparations are being made for a
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Khmer Rouge Gaining in Cambodia;Thousands Are Reported Fleeing Villages; Phnom Penh `Tense'
The Washington Post; 7/1/1990; Keith B. Richburg; 1058 words
; Cambodia's Communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas have made steady political and military gains recently, seizing small towns and battling government troops only 50 miles from the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. Relief workers inside Cambodia report that tens of thousands of refugees are fleeing from
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Khmer Rouge Threaten To Resume Fighting; Radical Faction Lets Election Deadline Pass
The Washington Post; 1/29/1993; Mary Kay Magistad; 885 words
; While U.N. officials and diplomats in Phnom Penh and beyond try to salvage the troubled 15-month-old peace process, Khmer Rouge guerrillas in northwestern Cambodia say they are tired of talking and ready to fight. "The U.N. should remember that we never disarmed," said Khmer Rouge official Hem
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Khmer Rouge Quit Phnom Penh, Leave U.N. Peace Plan Hanging
The Washington Post; 4/14/1993; Mary Kay Magistad; 536 words
; Khmer Rouge officials, citing security concerns, closed their office here today and left the capital in another blow to the troubled U.N. peace-keeping process. Officials of the U.N. peace-keeping body here said they did not believe that the Khmer Rouge would pull out of the overall $2 billion
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Khmer Rouge Balks, Halts Peace Process; Cambodian Guerrillas Refuse to Demobilize
The Washington Post; 6/13/1992; William Branigin; 875 words
; The Khmer Rouge guerrillas have refused to join the U.N.-sponsored demobilization of Cambodia's armed groups due to begin this week and are effectively blocking aid to the country, Cambodian and U.N. officials said today. The moves constitute a major setback for the peace process here. As the most
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4 Factions, Including Khmer Rouge, To Take Roles in Cambodian Capital
The Washington Post; 6/26/1991; William Branigin; 721 words
; ... Sen {the Phnom Penh government's prime minister} gives me the signal, I will go immediately to Phnom Penh," Sihanouk told the news conference. "We have achieved our national reconciliation, and Phnom Penh does not belong exclusively to Mr. Hun Sen." He added ...
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Khmer Rouge Guerrillas Seize 6 U.N. Observers in Cambodia; 7 Others Wounded After Security Council Imposes Sanctions
The Washington Post; 12/3/1992; William Branigin; 877 words
; Six U.N. peace keepers were seized by Khmer Rouge guerrillas in central Cambodia and seven others were wounded by mines or gunfire today after the U.N. Security Council imposed economic sanctions on the radical rebel group in an attempt to force its compliance with a foundering U.N. peace plan.
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Cambodian Guerrillas Make Gains; Khmer Rouge Keep Violating Peace Pact
The Washington Post; 10/31/1992; Mary Kay Magistad; 911 words
; Cambodia's two decades of war and upheaval were supposed to have ended last year, when leaders of three guerrilla factions and the Phnom Penh government signed a peace accord and set in motion the biggest and most expensive U.N. peace-keeping operation in history. But the Communist Khmer Rouge
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Khmer Rouge Attacks in Cambodia Said to Be Small-Scale Harassment; Claims of Major Assaults on Phnom Penh, Battambang Discounted
The Washington Post; 1/11/1990; Murray Hiebert; 817 words
; Accounts from both sides make clear that guerrillas mounted several small-scale attacks in Cambodia's two main cities last weekend. But diplomats here said the guerrilla groups' claims of major assaults on the capital, Phnom Penh, and the northwestern city of Battambang seem to be exaggerated. At
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U.N. Peace-Keeping Efforts Criticized in Cambodia, Bosnia; Khmer Rouge Charges Tilt Toward Phnom Penh
The Washington Post; 6/19/1992; William Branigin; 830 words
; Efforts to get Cambodia's faltering U.N.-sponsored peace process back on track are being complicated by the Khmer Rouge guerrilla group's underlying fear of outside influence and by an apparent U.N. tilt toward its archenemy, the Phnom Penh government, according to analysts here. As bloodstained
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Battambang
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... both the highway and railroad linking Phnom Penh with Thailand; after the outbreak (1970) of civil war in Cambodia, the Battambang-Phnom Penh road was a prime target of the Khmer ... insurgents, who, by capturing it, severed Phnom Penh from its major source of rice. Battambang ...
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