ABSTRACT
The many names under which Cambodia has lived in the past few decades reflect the turmoil its people have experienced. Cambodia was once known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, but the country became the Khmer Republic when the military came to power in 1970. From 1975 to 1979, the period of tyrannical Khmer Rouge leadership, the country’s name was changed to Democratic Kampuchea, followed by the People’s Republic of Kampuchea when the Khmer Rouge was replaced by a Vietnamese-backed government. In 1989, the country became the State of Cambodia only to return to its former name, the Kingdom of Cambodia, when the country restored royal institutions under a constitutional monarchy in 1993.
