Place

Dangrek Mountains

ជួរភ្នំដងរែក

The Dangrek Mountains (ជួរភ្នំដងរែក) are a range of sandstone hills along the northern border of Cambodia with Thailand.[1][2] The range drops in a steep wall to the Cambodian plain on its south side and slopes gently north into the Khorat Plateau of Thailand.[1] The Temple of Preah Vihear stands on a promontory of the range.[3][4]

Geography

The border mostly follows the watershed of the range east from the source of the Stung O Pao to the Col de Preah Chambot, the pass where the borders of Cambodia, Thailand and Laos meet near the Mekong.[1] The range is a narrow belt of eroded sandstone, 32 to 40 kilometers (20 to 25 miles) wide, with ridges that reach out north and south from the main line like fingers.[1] In 1966 the US State Department's Geographer put its highest point at about 700 meters (2,300 feet) and its average height at about 490 meters (1,600 feet).[1]

On the Cambodian side, the range forms the northern edge of Oddar Meanchey (ឧត្តរមានជ័យ) and Preah Vihear (ព្រះវិហារ) provinces.[5][6] In Oddar Meanchey the border follows the hills for 224 kilometers (139 miles), facing the Thai provinces of Buriram, Surin and Sisaket. This stretch has no flat land but only hills. Five passes cross it.[5] Preah Vihear and Oddar Meanchey share the Preah Vihear-Phnom Dangrek Protected Landscape, an area of 47,318 hectares (116,900 acres), of which 25,046 hectares lie in Preah Vihear.[6]

Koh Ker, a capital of the Khmer Empire from 921 to 944, lies in forest between the Dangrek and Kulen ranges, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Angkor.[7]

Stone

The rock of the range near Preah Vihear is a siliceous sandstone, rich in quartz, of early Cretaceous age, the same rock found on the Khorat Plateau and at Phnom Kulen. Most Angkor temples were built of a different stone, a gray to yellowish-brown sandstone rich in feldspar. The blocks at Preah Vihear are mainly yellowish-brown as well, but they are of the siliceous kind. In Thailand these upper beds are divided into three formations, the lowest of which is named the Preah Vihear (Phra Wihan) Formation. The builders of Preah Vihear cut its blocks from this rock, and old quarries lie around the temple, mainly to its east and west.[3]

Temples

The Temple of Preah Vihear faces north on a slope of the range, its ground rising from the north entrance to its southern end.[3] The ground stands at 550 meters (1,800 feet) above sea level at the north entrance and 630 meters (2,070 feet) at the south end, about 500 meters (1,640 feet) above the plain.[3] The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) gives 547 meters (1,795 feet) above the plain,[4] and IntoCambodia gives a height above sea level of roughly 525 meters (1,722 feet).[6] The temple sits at the edge of a plateau above the plain of Cambodia,[8] and the view from its promontory reaches south across the plain to Phnom Kulen.[4] In its nomination, Cambodia wrote that caves in the 500-meter (1,640-foot) cliff below allowed hermits to settle there, and that a sanctuary founded on the promontory in the early 9th century grew into the temple. ICOMOS's own account links the founding with a sanctuary built by Prince Indrayudha and adds that the site's origins were probably older.[4]

Other temples stand along the hills. Prasat Ta Krabei (ប្រាសាទតាក្របី), an 11th-century temple, lies on the range in Banteay Ampil district of Oddar Meanchey.[2]

History

Chitrasena, a king of Chenla who took the name Mahendravarman around 600, left a number of inscriptions in the Dangrek area.[9]

The border along the range was set by treaties between France and Siam in 1904 and 1907, while Cambodia was under French rule. The treaties made the watershed the border, but the map drawn by the delimitation commission departed from it in places.[1] One departure placed Preah Vihear on the Cambodian side. Cambodia complained that Thailand had kept an armed detachment at the temple since 1954, and took the case to the International Court of Justice in 1959.[1][10] Thailand argued that the temple lay north of the watershed line; Cambodia relied on the commission's map.[1] On June 15, 1962, the court found that Thailand had accepted the map, ruled that the temple stood on Cambodian territory and ordered Thailand to withdraw its forces.[10] In 1966, Thailand accepted the ruling in practice but kept a reservation about it.[1] In 2011 Cambodia asked the court to interpret its judgment, and on November 11, 2013, the court found that the 1962 ruling gave Cambodia the whole promontory of Preah Vihear.[11]

In 1966 the Geographer wrote that most people living in the hills were Kuy, a people whose language is close to Khmer, with some Thai (Lao) or Khmer villages among them.[1]

Belief

Anne Yvonne Guillou wrote that, soon after the dispute over Preah Vihear, she saw a neak ta, a guardian spirit of the land, being set up at the border in the Dangrek hills.[12]

In writing

The range is named in the title of O! Maha Mount Dangrek, a book of poems of Cambodian refugee experiences by the Venerable Ly Van Aggadipo, published in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 2010.[13]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 The Geographer, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, International Boundary Study No. 40 (Revised): Cambodia – Thailand Boundary (November 23, 1966)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Thmey Thmey 25, Prasat Ta Krabei, a small and slender temple in Oddar Meanchey (2021; in Khmer)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Heritage Science, Etsuo Uchida and others, Determining the construction sequence of the Preah Vihear monument in Cambodia from its sandstone block characteristics (2017)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 ICOMOS, Preah Vihear (Cambodge), No 1224, evaluation for the World Heritage Committee (2008; in French)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 VAYO FM, The history of Oddar Meanchey province (2022; in Khmer)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Into Cambodia, Preah Vihear Province (undated)
  7. ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Lingapura or Chok Gargyar (inscribed 2023)
  8. ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Temple of Preah Vihear (inscribed 2008)
  9. ↑ Angkor Database, summary of Haksrea Kuoch, Survey of the Southern Provinces of Cambodia in the Pre-Angkor Era, M.Phil. thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies (1976)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 International Court of Justice, Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand), case summary (undated)
  11. ↑ International Court of Justice, Request for Interpretation of the Judgment of 15 June 1962 in the Case concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand), case summary (undated)
  12. ↑ Anne Yvonne Guillou, The Present Life of Post-Angkorian Royal Land Tutelary Spirits, in a Liber Amicorum for Ang Choulean (2020)
  13. ↑ Library of Congress catalog record, O! maha Mount Dangrek: poetry of Cambodian refugee experiences (catalog record, undated)


Retrieved from "https://khmerconnection.com/w/index.php?title=Dangrek_Mountains&oldid=14543"
This page was last edited on 17 October 2026, at 05:35.