Pailin

Pailin (ប៉ៃលិន) is a province in western Cambodia, north of the Cardamom Mountains (ក្រវាញ), about 370 kilometers (230 miles) from Phnom Penh. Battambang (បាត់ដំបង) province surrounds it on the north, east and south, and to the west it borders Chanthaburi (ច័ន្ទបូរី) province in Thailand. Khmer people know it for its gems, and the Phnom Penh Post called it "Cambodia's most important gemstone town".

A temple on Phnom Yat in Pailin, 2025. Photo: Kiensvay, CC0

Place details
Khmer name	ប៉ៃលិន
Place type	Province
Country	Cambodia
Area	803 km²
Subjects	Land, Place & Environment

Name

The provincial administration's account says that in 1846 a group of Kola (កូឡា) and Surin Khmer hunters from Chanthaburi followed game to a forest stream. There they saw otters playing in the water and picked up gemstones. When word spread, about 25 families of Kola, Lao and Surin Khmer settled there to hunt and gather gems. The place was called Phe Leng (ភេលេង), and the name Pailin grew from it. The Phnom Penh Post gives the longer form Kanleng Pe Leng, "the place where otters play in the stream", and writes that the Kola changed the sound to "Pe Lin" and the French wrote it "Phai Lin". The account says the French made the area an administrative district in 1909 under the name Rottanak Mondol Bor Pailin, where bor means a well.

History

The Kola, a people of Burmese origin, lived in Pailin for generations and made their living mainly by mining gems. The Kingdom of Siam began taxing the gem miners in 1881, and the taxes went on under the French protectorate.

Under the Sangkum Reastr Niyum government Pailin became a sub-province. From 1970 to 1975 the Khmer Republic made it a city, Pailin Mongkol, with four districts. From 1975 to 1979 no one lived there. In the civil war that followed, it was a main base of the Khmer Rouge. From 1989 to 1996 it was run by the Democratic Kampuchea administration, and on August 15, 1996, its administration, armed forces and people joined the Royal Government of Cambodia. That year Ieng Sary, a former foreign minister of the Democratic Kampuchea government, and Y Chhien came over to the government with thousands of soldiers and civilians. In 1998 Y Chhien was governor of Pailin.

A royal decree of July 31, 1997, created the municipality of Pailin, with the rank of a province. A royal decree of December 22, 2008, renamed it Pailin province. In 2020 the Ministry of Interior gave the province an emblem. It shows gems, the hills Phnom Khieu and Phnom Yat (ភ្នំយ៉ាត), an old stupa and a statue of Yeay Yat (យាយយ៉ាត), with an otter holding a gem for the story of the name.

Places to visit

The Aung Sula Mani stupa, 25 meters (82 feet) tall, stands on a spur of Phnom Yat. Pyonne Maung Maung, chairman of SeaNet Technologies, a Burmese information technology company, paid US$100,000 to restore it. He told the Phnom Penh Post that it was built in 1890 for the Burmese gem miners and is believed to have held a tooth of the Buddha. Phnom Yat is also among the province's resorts, with Phnom Koy, O Aem, Kbal O Ta Vao and the Phnom Chingchak dam, many of them hill forests with waterfalls.

Culture

In the 1960s the Kola of Pailin played their own music, called o-si (អូស៊ី), or drum music in Khmer. Its band had four kinds of instrument and a singer: a long drum, a small wind instrument like a Khmer sralai (ស្រឡៃ), two cymbals and a gong. Before the war the village people also performed the Pailin peacock dance (របាំក្ងោកប៉ៃលិន) at the New Year and other festivals.

Population

The 2019 census counted 71,600 people in Pailin, up from 70,486 in 2008, on 803 square kilometers (310 square miles).

References