Heritage site

Royal Palace (Phnom Penh)

ព្រះបរមរាជវាំង

The Royal Palace (ព្រះបរមរាជវាំង) in Phnom Penh is the residence of the King of Cambodia and the place of the court's ceremonies. It stands behind yellow crenellated walls on Sothearos Boulevard, on the riverfront, beside the Silver Pagoda, which shares its larger walled compound.[1] The palace was founded in the 1860s, when King Norodom moved the capital from Oudong to Phnom Penh, and its main halls went up under King Sisowath between 1913 and 1919.[1][2]

History

Before the palace

Canby Publications writes that after the court left Angkor, it settled at Phnom Penh in 1434 or 1446 for some decades, then moved to Basan, Lovek and Oudong.[1] Koh Santepheap, citing a book by Chuon Nath distributed in 1936, dates King Ponhea Yat's move of the royal palace from Tuol Basan in Kampong Cham to Phnom Penh to 1434.[3] Cambodianess holds that Ponhea Yat's first palace stood where the Royal Palace is now.[4] Canby, by contrast, writes that no record or trace of a royal palace in Phnom Penh survives from before the 19th century.[1]

In 1813 King Ang Chan built a fort, Banteay Kev, on the site of the present palace. He stayed there only briefly before moving to Oudong, and Banteay Kev burned in 1834, when the Siamese army set fire to Phnom Penh as it withdrew.[1]

King Norodom

King Norodom signed a treaty of protection with France in 1863, while the capital was still at Oudong, about 45 kilometers away. A temporary wooden palace went up that year a little north of the present site.[1] Canby dates the first palace on the present site to 1866, designed by the architect Neak Okhna Tepnimith Mak and built by the French protectorate. The court moved there from Oudong the same year, and Phnom Penh became the official capital in 1867.[1] The Phnom Penh Post also gives 1866,[2] while Cambodianess gives 1865 for the new palace.[4]

Over the next decade more buildings were added, among them a first Chanchhaya Pavilion and a wooden Throne Hall; most were later pulled down and replaced. The court settled at the palace for good in 1871, and the walls around the grounds went up in 1873.[1] Canby notes Khmer and European features in the buildings, along with echoes of the royal palace in Bangkok.[1]

King Sisowath and King Monivong

King Sisowath added the Phochani Hall, which opened in 1912. Between 1913 and 1919 he had several old buildings taken down and replaced the Chanchhaya Pavilion and the Throne Hall with larger ones in an Angkor-inspired Khmer style, with some European touches.[1] A French visitor in 1924 and 1925 described a large walled residence of recent Khmer design, with the cross-shaped Throne Hall, full of mosaics and frescoes, as its main building and the place of coronations.[5]

Under King Monivong the Vihear Suor chapel was added in 1930, and in 1931 the old royal residence was replaced by the Khemarin Palace, which is still the King's home. The Damnak Chan followed in 1953, for the High Council of the Throne, and the Villa Kantha Bopha in 1956, as a guest house for foreign visitors.[1]

1970 to the present

From the coup of 1970 until the monarchy was restored in 1993, the palace was at times a museum and at times closed. Canby writes that during the Khmer Rouge regime, the former King Sihanouk and his family lived in the palace and were in the end held there as prisoners.[1] Lonely Planet writes that the Khmer Rouge destroyed many of the objects once shown in the Throne Hall.[6] In the 1980s the Damnak Chan housed the Ministry of Culture, and from 1991 to 1993 the Supreme National Council of Cambodia. Many buildings were restored in the mid-1990s, some with foreign help.[1]

Buildings

  • Throne Hall (Preah Tineang Tevea Vinichhay): the King's main audience hall, used for coronations, diplomatic meetings and other formal occasions. The first, of wood, was built in 1869 and 1870 and pulled down in 1915. The present hall was built in 1917 and opened by King Sisowath in 1919. It measures 30 by 60 meters, and its spire rises 59 meters. Scenes of the Reamker are painted on its ceiling.[1][2] Lonely Planet compares the tower to the Bayon at Angkor.[6]
  • Chanchhaya Pavilion, the "Moonlight Pavilion": built in 1913 and 1914 to the design of Norodom's wooden pavilion, it faces Sothearos Boulevard. The royal dancers perform there, the King speaks to crowds from it, and state banquets are held in it, as at the coronation of King Norodom Sihamoni in 2004.[1]
  • Phochani Pavilion: an open hall built as a theater for classical dance, opened on September 10, 1912, in the presence of the King. It replaced a wooden dance hall.[1][7]
  • Napoleon III Pavilion: an iron building made in 1869 for Empress Eugénie of France for the opening of the Suez Canal, and given to King Norodom by Napoleon III in 1876. The French government helped pay for its repair in 1991.[1]
  • Hor Samran Phirun and Hor Samrith Phimean, both from 1917: the first a rest house used by the King before he rides an elephant in royal processions, the second the store for the royal regalia.[1]
  • Khemarin Palace (1931), the royal residence,[2] and Damnak Chan (1953), the palace offices; both are closed to visitors.[1]

Dance and music

The palace has long been home to the court's dancers and musicians. The dance hall of the new palace, seen by the French explorers Doudart de Lagrée and Francis Garnier in 1867, appears in an illustration in Garnier's account, and Groslier saw a ritual dance in the Throne Hall in January 1911.[7] Under Queen Kossamak, the Chanchhaya was set aside for performances and large rehearsals of the royal ballet, and apartments were built in the palace for seven elderly former principal dancers.[8] AMS Khmer Civilization writes that the palace's lakhon khol troupe was known as lakhon luong or lakhon boran.[9] VAYO FM writes that the mahori ensemble began inside the palace.[10]

State occasions

On November 9, 1953, France handed power to Cambodia at a ceremony in front of the palace.[11] Independence Day is still marked with a military parade there.[12] The boat races of Bon Om Touk are held on the river in front of the palace. The scholar Ang Choulean links the choice of place to the unusual flow of the four-faced river there.[13] The King's blue royal standard flies outside the palace when he is in residence.[2] In July 2014 the remains of King Norodom Sihanouk were placed in a stupa at the Silver Pagoda, within the palace grounds.[14]

Parts of the grounds are closed to the public because the King lives there, and Lonely Planet notes that the palace is busiest on Sundays, when people from the provinces come to pay their respects.[6]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 Canby Publications, Phnom Penh: Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda (undated)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 The Phnom Penh Post, Phnom Penh the capital of the Kingdom (December 7, 2017)
  3. ↑ Koh Santepheap, ប្រវត្តិកកើត និងឈ្មោះវត្តឧណ្ណាលោម (undated)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Cambodianess, How Did Phnom Penh Get its Name? (April 27, 2024)
  5. ↑ Angkor Database, Visions d'Extrême-Orient, excerpt on King Sisowath's palace (undated)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Lonely Planet, Royal Palace (undated)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Angkor Database, George Groslier, Danseuses cambodgiennes anciennes et modernes (1913)
  8. ↑ Angkor Database, Le Ballet Royal (The Royal Ballet) (undated)
  9. ↑ AMS Khmer Civilization, ល្ខោនខោល (updated October 11, 2020)
  10. ↑ VAYO FM, Tha Chanthy, «មហោរី»ជាវង់ភ្លេងអ្នកប្រាជ្ញ មានប្រភពនៅក្នុងព្រះបរមរាជវាំង (October 22, 2020)
  11. ↑ The Phnom Penh Post, The enigma of the Independence Monument (November 7, 2003)
  12. ↑ National Radio of Cambodia, Cambodia will commemorate the 71st anniversary of the National Independence day 1953-2024 (November 8, 2024)
  13. ↑ Cambodianess, Ky Soklim, Exploring the Roots of the Water Festival (November 4, 2025)
  14. ↑ Global Times, Xinhua, Late Cambodian King Sihanouk's ashes enshrined in stupa in Royal Palace (July 12, 2014)


Retrieved from "https://khmerconnection.com/w/index.php?title=Royal_Palace_(Phnom_Penh)&oldid=13356"
This page was last edited on 19 October 2026, at 00:16.