Place
Kampong Khleang
កំពង់ឃ្លាំង
Kampong Khleang (កំពង់ឃ្លាំង), also written Kompong Khleang, is a fishing commune of stilt houses by the Tonle Sap lake, in Siem Reap province.[1][2] It lies in Soutr Nikom district. Le Petit Journal put it 45 kilometers (28 miles) southeast of Angkor Wat in 2025.[3]
The commune
In 2017 a photo caption for Wonders of the Mekong, a project of the United States Agency for International Development, described Kampong Khleang as one of the largest communities near the lake. It counted six villages joined together and 3,000 households in stilt houses.[2] The 2019 census counted 10,709 people living in households in the commune, against 8,102 in 1998 and 9,551 in 2008.[4]
In June 2026 the district governor, Kim Vanna, said the commune covered 20,836 hectares (about 51,500 acres). Forest made up 17,201 hectares of that. Rice grown in the dry season took 2,149 hectares, soybeans 1,280 and housing 206.[1]
Fishing
Fishing is the main living in Kampong Khleang. As catches fell, many families turned to raising fish in ponds.[2] In 2025 a member of the commune council, Touch Bunthoeurn, told Le Petit Journal that about 85 percent of the commune's 1,800 families lived from fishing. Others raised fish, grew peanuts or made fish products such as prahok and dried fish, and 30 families specialized in smoked fish.[3]
Smoked fish is made all year, as the catch allows. The fish are cleaned, dipped in iced water, skewered, dried in the sun for two hours and then smoked for four to five hours more.[3]
Tourism
Kampong Khleang Community-Based Tourism runs boat trips through the village and the flooded forest, with homestays.[3][1] In 2026 the Cambodia Association of Travel Agents named it the biggest of the four such sites the province has on the lake. It drew 34,225 visitors in 2025, about four in five of them from abroad, and its 146 tourist boats were run by 46 licensed operators.[1] In June 2026 the commune hosted the opening of that year's eco-tourism event, under the theme "Visit Cambodia's Green Season".[1]
Pagodas and a church
Two modern pagodas stand on either side of an old canal through the village: Wat Kampong Khleang on the west bank among market stalls and Wat Lvea on the east.[5][6] Wat Lvea keeps older funerary stupas, several in the style of the Angkor era. A wooden bridge there is built to open and let larger boats through.[6]
From 2002 to 2015 the Catholic Church in Siem Reap served a community of Vietnamese Catholic fishing families in Kampong Khleang, with Mass held in a floating church. When fishing on the lake became hard in 2015, the families left and the church closed. The church later built a learning center there for Cambodian children.[7]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Cambodianess, Isa Rohany, International Tourists Drive Growth at Kampong Khleang Eco-Tourism Site (June 30, 2026)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Thmey Thmey, Some families in Kampong Khleang have moved from fishing to raising fish in ponds, text and photo by Suthep Kritsanavarin for USAID Wonders of the Mekong (November 6, 2017; in Khmer and English)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Le Petit Journal Cambodge, Fumer le poisson, une tradition cambodgienne (February 15, 2025; in French)
- ↑ City Population, Kampong Khleang (Rural Commune, Cambodia), figures of the National Institute of Statistics of Cambodia (undated)
- ↑ Hello Angkor, Wat Kampong Khleang (updated January 1, 2026)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Hello Angkor, Wat Lvea (Kampong Khleang) (updated January 1, 2026)
- ↑ Catholic Church in Siem Reap, Kompong Khleang Community (undated)