Angkor was the capital of the Khmer Empire and contains Angkor Wat.
Angkor was a vast urban and ceremonial complex in present-day Cambodia that served as the center of the Khmer Empire from roughly the ninth to the fifteenth centuries. It included temples, reservoirs, roads, canals, embankments, and residential areas spread across a large landscape. Angkor Wat, its most famous monument, was built in the early twelfth century under King Suryavarman II.
Angkor Wat was originally dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu and later became a Buddhist site. Its galleries contain extensive bas-reliefs depicting Hindu epics, royal processions, and scenes associated with Khmer culture. The broader Angkor complex includes other major temples such as Bayon, known for its large carved faces, and Ta Prohm.
Angkor’s water-management system helped support dense settlement and intensive rice agriculture, but historians debate the relative importance of drought, flooding, political change, and environmental stress in its decline. The monuments were never completely forgotten, although forests concealed parts of the complex from wider international attention until modern archaeological work.