Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Compact Cambodia is heir to the ancient Khmer Empire whose capital was Angkor and whose legacy is a vast landscape of imposing monuments, including the majestic Buddhist-inspired temple complex of Angkor Wat (see Box 10-10 on Technology & Geography). Today, more than 85 percent of Cambodia’s 16 million inhabitants are ethnic Khmers, with most of the remainder divided between Vietnamese and Chinese. The current capital, Phnom Penh, lies on the Mekong River, which bisects Cambodia before it enters and forms its massive delta in Vietnam (Fig. 10-12). From 1970 to 1976, Cambodia suffered one of the most brutal and murderous regimes of the twentieth century. . . . By the time they were ousted from power by neighboring Vietnamese forces, as many as 2 million Cambodians (out of a population of 8 million at the time) had lost their lives in what forever will be known as the Cambodian Genocide. . . . Today, despite Cambodia’s continuing status as one of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries, it has finally begun to achieve some meaningful economic growth, especially in the garment manufacturing sector." [Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 435-6]