ABSTRACT
The least-recorded period of Cambodian history falls between Zhou Daguan's visit to Angkor and the restoration of some of the temples there by a Cambodian king named Chan in the 1550s and 1560s. The suitability of Phnom Penh as a site for a Cambodian capital sprang in large part from its location at the confluence of the Mekong and the Tonle Sap. The Thai-oriented administration of the Angkor region was overthrown by forces loyal to Phnom Penh toward the middle of the fifteenth century. Until the end of the sixteenth century Phnom Penh and Ayudhya considered themselves not separate polities but participants in a hybrid culture. The Cambodians convinced the Chinese of their own continuing importance and were occasionally able, well into the seventeenth century, to attack Ayudhya and to defeat the Thai in war. When Cambodia gained its independence in 1953, some Cambodians lived in southern Vietnam, surrounded by more than ten times as many Vietnamese.
