Heritage site

Oudong

Oudong, also written Udong, was the royal capital of Cambodia from the early 17th century to the 1860s.[1][2] Its hill, Phnom Oudong (ភ្នំឧដុង្គ), north of Phnom Penh in Kandal province, carries the stupas of past kings and a stupa built for relics of the Buddha.[3][1]

A forested green hill topped by several pale stone stupa spires stands under a hazy blue sky, with a row of tall sugar palms in the middle ground and low vegetation in front.
The hill of Oudong with stupas on its crest in 2007.

Location

Tourism Cambodia puts the hill about 41 kilometers north of Phnom Penh, in Ponhea Leu district, where it spans the communes of Psar Dek and Phnom Bat.[1] The site lies 3 kilometers off National Road 5 toward Kampong Chhnang, from a turn at kilometer 37.[4] It is about 45 kilometers from the capital.[2]

The hill has three names: Phnom Preah Reach Troap, Phnom Edthareus and Phnom Udong. Its ridge takes in five summits over an area of about 1,500 by 700 meters, and seen up close it forms two hills.[1] It is a group of small mountains, with a lake in the area.[4] Into Cambodia names it among the few notable hills in a mostly flat province.[3]

History

Canby Publications traces the royal court's moves after it left Angkor in the 15th century: first to Phnom Penh, then by 1494 to Basan, and later to Lovek and then Oudong.[2] Into Cambodia writes that King Chey Chettha II moved the capital from Lvea Aem to Oudong in 1620 and named it Krong Oudong Mean Chey for short, with his palace at Kampong Luong on the river nearby.[3] Sources differ on when the capital period began: Tourism Cambodia dates it from 1618 to 1866 and writes that several kings were crowned there, among them Norodom.[1][5]

In 1842 a Siamese army placed Ang Duong on the throne at Oudong. For four years he ruled from there with Siamese support, while Vietnamese forces held Phnom Penh, until peace was made in 1846.[6]

The French naturalist Henri Mouhot, who reached Oudong on his travels of 1858 to 1860, found it walled by a moat, a parapet and a palisade three meters high. The palace of the second king, his brother's house and a pagoda stood in a square closed by ramparts, all under thatch. The town had a single street about a mile long, a market run by Chinese traders and about 12,000 people.[7] The only known plan of the royal palace at Oudong is by Andrew Spooner, a French-American merchant and reporter in Saigon, and was printed in L'Illustration on January 30, 1864.[8]

King Norodom moved the court to Phnom Penh in the 1860s, after the French protectorate began in 1863. Sources differ on the year. The Phnom Penh Post gives 1865, and Canby Publications gives 1866, the year the first palace on the present site of the Royal Palace was built.[9][2] Angkor Database prints both years.[8]

Monuments

The smaller of the two hills is topped by shrines and by the remains of the Ta San mosque, which was built by a Cham Muslim on land a king gave him. The stupas on the main hill hold the remains of past kings, among them Ang Duong. A large new stupa at the end of the ridge was finished in 2002 to hold relics of the Buddha. In December of that year King Norodom Sihanouk and Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk moved the relics there from a small stupa near the railway station in Phnom Penh.[1] The relic stupa on the hill is Preah Sakyamoni Chedi.[10] The Preah Reach Damrei Sam Poan stupa is known for its views.[3]

Vihear Preah Edthareus, the shrine of an 18-cubit Buddha, stands at the top of the stairs. It bears the marks of fighting in the 1970s, and Khmer Rouge forces blew it up in 1977, bringing down its roof. Its eight columns and part of the great Buddha remain, with a modern shrine built around them.[1] Tourism Cambodia also lists a reclining Buddha 8 meters high.[5] Pagodas, statues of the Buddha and coin molds survive, with traces of the old city's roads and water supply.[4]

Religious life

The government holds the yearly Meak Bochea festival at Preah Sakyamoni Chedi.[10] Besides the spirit Ghlaang Mieng, whose shrine is near Pursat, other land guardian spirits of the same kind are honored mainly in Udong and in Kampot.[11]

References 11
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Tourism Cambodia, Phnom Odong, Kandal travel guide (undated)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Canby Publications, The Royal Palace, Phnom Penh (undated)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Into Cambodia, Kandal Province (undated)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Phnom Penh Post, Phnom Penh: Capital of the Kingdom (supplement, undated)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Tourism Cambodia, Kandal Province travel guide (undated)
  6. ↑ Lawrence Palmer Briggs, A Sketch of Cambodian History, The Far Eastern Quarterly 6(4) (August 1947)
  7. ↑ Henri Mouhot, Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos, volume 1, London: John Murray (1864), Project Gutenberg edition
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Angkor Database, Les monuments religieux de la province de Bati, with a biography of Andrew Spooner (undated)
  9. ↑ Phnom Penh Post, Wat Phnom: Capital's Most Important Temple (undated)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Phnom Penh Post, Meak Bochea Urges Mindful Actions (undated)
  11. ↑ Anne Yvonne Guillou, The Present Life of Post-Angkorian Royal Land Tutelary Spirits, in a Liber Amicorum for Ang Choulean (2020)


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This page was last edited on 3 November 2026, at 05:49.