Located in central Cambodia, north of the Great Thoneli Sap Lake, lies the former city of Angor. Today, the city is nothing but the ruins of its many temples and structures. However, during its heyday, it was one of the largest cities in the world and the capital of one of the world's great empires. It's now considered to be one of the greatest wonders of the world, attracts millions of visitors, and can even be seen from space. Learn more about Angor and the Khmer Empire, and how they built one of the greatest cities in the world on this episode episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. To understand Angor, we first have to understand why and who built it. And to do that, we need to understand what was happening in Southeast Asia in the ninth century. In particular, we need to understand the one person that is key to the entire story of Angor and the Khmer Empire, Jaya Varmin II. Jeha Varman II is a key figure in the entire history of Southeast Asia. There are certain people who are responsible for the creation of major empires. Genghis Khan, Augustus, Alexander the Great, and Chinchi Hwang are such people.

Jaya Varmin II probably belongs on that list as well. Much of what we know of Jaya Varmin II comes from inscriptions about him written well after his death in temples in modern-day Thailand. One of the descriptions simply tells how Jeeva Armin II broke with Java, unified the people around what is today modern-day Cambodia, and established what we know as the Khmer Empire. The reference to Java has been debated by historians for years. Most historians tend to think that it refers to the physical island of Java in Indonesia, and was probably a reference to the Srivajaya Empire, which ruled Java at the time. Jaya Varmin II's reign is usually said to have begun in the year 802. I'll probably do a future episode in the Khmer Empire, but briefly, the Khmer Empire ruled all of what is Cambodia today, as well as much of Laos, inland parts of Vietnam, and parts of Thailand. For the purpose of this episode, one of the salient facts you should know is that the Khmer Empire, at least at its start, was overwhelmingly Hindu. At the time, most of Southeast Asia was still Hindu. As we'll see in a bit, Buddhism didn't arrive in this part of the world until several centuries later.

Jeevh Armin II was crowned at Mount Kulun, which is just northeast of the city of CMreep, which is the modern day entrance to Angor. It was there that he declared himself a devarajah or a universal monarch. In addition to being crowned nearby, he also established the city of Hariharalaya on the banks of Tonele Sap, which was to be his new capital. Here, I should explain exactly what Tonele Sap is. If you look at a map of Cambodia, you will find a very large lake in the middle of the country. This is Tonele Sap. The lake is actually just a widening of the Mekong River. Over the course of a year, the lake can rise and fall by as much as 10 meters or 33 feet. Today, there are entirely floating communities that live on Tonleysap and change their community's location based on the season and the water levels. Tonleysap is important to the story because it served as an important source of water, food, and transportation for the entire Kamer Empire. Jaya Varmin II died in 850, and he was succeeded by a series of universal monarchs who ruled the empire and launched large construction projects.

King Yaso Varmin ascended to the throne in 889 and built a new capital city right near Hariharalaya called Yasodharapurra in Sanskrit. In the Khmer language, this new capital simply became known as Angor, which is the Khmer word for capital. Angor was to remain the capital of the Kmer empire for the next several centuries. Part of the construction of Angor was the creation of an enormous reservoir which Tonele sap fed. Over the next 300 years, Angor grew and became home to many elaborate construction projects in samples. Here I should note that Angor was very different from most cities from this time period, or for that matter, any time period. What separated Angor was the fact that it was very spread out. The population density was very low, so that to this day, there are differing definitions as to where the boundaries of Angor actually are. Numerous roads, canals, reservoirs, and dams came to define Angor. The city is often called a hydraulic city because its water system is so extensive and advanced. In the year 1113, King Surya Varmin II rose to power. His ascension was extremely dramatic and included personally killing his rival in combat, supposedly by jumping onto his war elephant from another one.

Having taken the throne, Surya Varmin II set out to build what was to be the greatest temple in all of Angor. It was to be an enormous structure dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu, and it would serve as his personal mausoleum. Today, we know this temple as Angor Wat. Here I should address some confusion regarding the terms Angor and Angor Wat. The two terms are often used interchangeably, even though they represent two totally different things. Angor refers to the entire complex, which spans an area of almost a thousand square kilometers or 390 square miles. And as I noted before, Angor is just the Khmer word for capital. The word Wat simply means temple. So Angor Wat is just one particular building in the Angor complex. To be sure, it's the largest and most famous building, but it's only one part of it. Angor Wat covers about 1.6 million square meters or 402 acres. It's listed by the Guinness Book of World's Records as the largest religious structure in the world today by area. The moat surrounding the temple is 5 km long, and the wall surrounding the structure is 3.6 km long. There are five towers in the middle of the temple that are arranged like the dots on the side of a die.

Inside, there are many walkways with walls covered in bas relief carvings that show scenes from Hindu mythology and also from the life of Surya Vaarman. Ondly enough, Very soon after the completion of Angor Wat and the death of Surya Varmin II in 1150, the Khmer Empire wonderwent a profound religious transformation from Hinduism to Mahayana Buddhism. By the end of the 12th century, just a few decades after it was built, Angor Wat had become a Buddhist temple. With the death of Surya Varmin, the Empire went into a period of decline with warring factions, and the man who brought order back to the empire was Jaya Varmin VII. J. V. In the seventh. Jaya Varmin, the seventh, created a new core walled capital city within the overall Angor complex. This became known as Angor Tom. For those of you who've been there, you know that Angor Tom is on par with Angor Wat in terms of overall splendor. Angor Tom, unlike all previous construction projects in Angor, was explicitly Buddhist. The primary temple at Angor Tom is known as the Bayon temple, which is known for its large stone faces. And it's thought that the stone faces might be based on Jeevharm and the Seventh.

Jeevharm and the Seventh also constructed the Tha Pram temple, which has in recent years been dubbed the Tomb Raider temple, because it was used in the 2001 film, starring Angelina Jolie. After the death of Jai Avarman VII, the seventh, the Kamer Empire actually reverted back to Hinduism for a time. A period of decline began in the Kamer Empire that continued until 1431, when Angor was sacked by invaders from Thailand. The religious upheavals, in addition to the invasions, led to the neglect of the infrastructure in Angor, which hurt the water system and eventually resulted in much of the population leaving Angor completely. The seat of power in Cambodia shifted from Angor to what is now the country's current capital, Phnom Penh, which is just downstream from Thonlisap on the Mekong River. Angor slowly began to be reclaimed by the jungle. I should note that given the sheer size of Angor by area, and it was perhaps the largest city in the world up until that point by area. It was never totally abandoned. People still lived there, and it didn't disappear, but the temples weren't repaired, nor was any upkeep done on them. Many of the buildings simply became covered with plants and overgrown.

By the collapse of Angor in the 15th century, perhaps only a few envoices from neighboring Kingdom, such as Thailand, Vietnam, or China, ever saw Angor. The first person from outside of Asia to ever witness Angor Angor was a Portuguese priest by the name of Antonio da Matalina, who did so in 1586. The abandonment of Angor continued through the 17th and 18th centuries, with the temples mostly being ignored but not quite forgotten, and with forest growth covering more and more of the site. In the 1860s, several notable European travelers came to Cambodia, which by this time had become a French colony. What really brought Angor to the attention of the rest of the world were the works written by academics such as Louis de la Port and Adolphe Bastaine. From 1907 to 1970, the French School of the Far East worked on restoring, repairing, and protecting the many historic structures in Angor. The work was eventually halted when the Khmer Rouge came to Angor. The story of the Khmer Rouge will be covered in a future episode, but suffice it to say that they were anti-academics, anti-foreners, and anti-the-past. They managed to close off Angor for several decades, even after their control of the country ended, as their last holdout area was around Angor.

While the Khmer Rouge didn't intentionally damage any of the structures, they did open the door for art thief to enter the country from Thailand in the 1980s, who systematically took the heads off a great number of statues. When the Khmer Rouge finally gave up the fight, it opened up the country to tourism, and the main attraction was Angor. Tourism has exploded over the last several decades, and today, over 2 million people per year visit Angor. This has caused an explosion in hotel construction in the nearby city of Siem Reep, and there are concerns that all the tourism and the rise in population may deplete the water table, which could cause land around many temples to sink, causing them serious damage. In 1992, the entire Angor complex was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the very first in Cambodia. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Angor is probably the greatest historical circle site you can visit in all of Southeast Asia. If you visit, I highly recommend you give yourself several days. In addition to the core sites, there are many other temples scattered across the region around Angor. Angor, as I've mentioned, is quite large and can be seen from space.

You can check this out yourself on Google Earth by viewing the area from the altitude of the International Space Station. Once you know what you're on the look out for, the large rectangle is very obvious. The history of Angor mirrors the rise and fall of the Khmer Empire. Its temples, especially Angor Wat, remain enduring symbols of Cambodia's past, drawing global attention to the country's history and culture. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Peter Bennett and Cameron Kiefer. Today's review comes from listener MDFWJSEJS over on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, Super interesting. This is my time ever reviewing a podcast, but I've been blown away by this one. Little pocket-size deep dives on diverse and fascinating topics. Every single episode has kept my interest and taught me something new. Without a doubt, my favorite podcast I've come across lately. Thanks, MDF. My father always said that you should try to learn something new every day. So I created this podcast to make sure everyone can schedule learning something new into their day quickly and easily. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.