Place
Battambang
បាត់ដំបង
Battambang (បាត់ដំបង) is a city in northwestern Cambodia on the Sangker River, and the capital of the province of the same name. The province has long been called Cambodia's "rice bowl".[1] To the east lie Siem Reap (សៀមរាប) province and the Tonle Sap (ទន្លេសាប) lake. Thailand and Pailin lie to the west, with Banteay Meanchey to the north and Pursat to the south.[2]
Name
Many Khmer people link the name to the legend of Lok Ta Dambang Kranhoung (លោកតាដំបងក្រញ៉ូង), whose lost stick, by the tale, gave the place its name. A study on the Khmer Civilization website traces it instead to an old place name, Vrei Taṃvvaṅ, found in three Angkorian inscriptions near the city. In this reading the name passed through Preah Dambang to Battambang. The study says King Rama I of Siam gave the name Preah Dambang to the village of Sangke, and that coins of the family who governed the province carried it.[3]
History
In the 1790s Siam took Battambang and Siem Reap, which held the ruins of Angkor, as the price of placing the Cambodian prince Ang Em on the throne.[4] Siam's king crowned him in 1795, and an official named Ben received the government of the two provinces. Ben's family held them for Siam for more than a century.[5]
A treaty signed at Bangkok on March 23, 1907, by Victor Collin de Plancy for France and Prince Devawongse for Siam, returned Battambang, Sisophon and Siem Reap to Cambodia, then a French protectorate. Siam received the port of Trat and the territory of Dan Sai in exchange.[5] The historian Lawrence Palmer Briggs wrote that the return "meant much to Cambodia", for the provinces' people, land, rice fields and fisheries.[5] In the 1930s a railway opened between Phnom Penh and the Thai border.[4]
In January 1941, in the Franco-Thai War, Thai aircraft bombed Battambang and Sisophon. Japan settled the war in Thailand's favor, and Thailand took Battambang and Siem Reap.[6][7] Thailand made the territory part of its own administration, and its people voted in Thai elections in 1946. That year Thailand handed the territory back to France, which had threatened to block Thailand's entry to the United Nations.[7]
Under the Khmer Rouge, prisoners were executed at Phnom Sampeau and their bodies thrown into a cave.[1] The site, known as the Killing Caves, is kept as a memorial and is a common stop on tours from the city.[1]
The city
The center lies along the Sangker River. Rows of colonial-era shophouses stand on Streets 1, 1.5 and 2, and Wat Piphetaram, a pagoda of the late 1800s, is a common starting point for walks.[1] The provincial museum, the provincial history museum and the old stone bridge are among the city's old buildings.[2] The Battambang Provincial Museum holds Angkorian and pre-Angkorian statues, lintels and pottery, many from Ek Phnom and Wat Banan.[1]
Battambang is known for its artists. Phare Ponleu Selpak, a non-profit school started in the 1990s by people who had been refugees as children, trains young people in visual arts, music, theater and circus. Small galleries cluster around Street 2.5.[1]
Around the city
Wat Banan stands on a hilltop south of the city, at the top of more than 300 steps. Ek Phnom, to the north, has a working pagoda and a large modern seated Buddha beside a ruined temple of the 11th century.[1]
The bamboo train began in the 1990s, during the United Nations transitional authority, as a makeshift way to move goods on the little-used northern railway.[8] Locals call it the norry. In 2017 the head of the provincial tourism department said 80 percent of visitors to Battambang rode it.[9] The old line closed to make way for regular trains, and in 2018 a 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) line opened in its place at the foot of Phnom Banan, more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the city.[8]
The province
The province has 14 districts and towns. Mountains rise in nine of them, most of all in Samlout; the provincial environment department counted at least 300.[10] The 2019 census counted 987,400 people in the province, fewer than the 1,025,174 of 2008.[11] The provincial tourism department counts more than 100 places to visit, among them 22 religious sites and farms such as grape farms that take visitors.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Cambodianess, Wonders of Cambodia, Battambang City Guide for Culture Lovers: Cambodia's Creative Second City (2026)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Thmey Thmey, Battambang province has more than 100 tourist sites (September 12, 2021; in Khmer)
- ↑ AMS Khmer Civilization, A study on the origin of the name of Battambang province (July 10, 2021; in Khmer, with an English summary)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cambodia: Tai and Vietnamese hegemony (undated)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Lawrence Palmer Briggs, The Treaty of March 23, 1907 between France and Siam and the Return of Battambang and Angkor to Cambodia, The Far Eastern Quarterly (1946)
- ↑ CambodgeMag, Shadows of Empire: Southeast Asia's Secret War, 1940-1945 (January 13, 2026)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 EBSCO Research Starters, Barry M. Stentiford, Thai Forces Attack French Troops Near Battambang (undated)
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 The Phnom Penh Post, 'Bamboo train' back on tracks in Battambang (January 2, 2018)
- ↑ The Phnom Penh Post, Battambang's bamboo railway to keep on chugging (February 10, 2017)
- ↑ Koh Santepheap, Battambang is full of mountains: how many are there and what are their names? (January 24, 2019; in Khmer)
- ↑ National Institute of Statistics, Provisional Population Census 2019 (2019)