Place

Sihanoukville

ក្រុងព្រះសីហនុ

Sihanoukville (ក្រុងព្រះសីហនុ, Krong Preah Sihanouk) is a port city on the southwest coast of Cambodia, in Preah Sihanouk province.[1][2] Its harbor is the only deep-water port in the country and a main hub for Cambodia's foreign trade.[2] The city was formerly called Kampong Som (កំពង់សោម).[1][3]

Name

Cambodianess wrote that the name Kampong Som dates from 1887, when France announced the opening of a port there under colonial rule.[3] A local account, from elders of Prey Nob (ព្រៃនប់) district, ties the name to rattan, pdao som (ផ្ដៅសោម). Fishermen and rattan cutters floated the canes down to a landing that came to be called Kampong Pdao Som, a name later shortened to Kampong Som.[3][1]

After independence, the city was renamed Preah Sihanouk city in honor of Norodom Sihanouk (នរោត្តម សីហនុ), since it was built during his time as leader.[3][1] Cambodianess dates the National Assembly's renaming to 1959, and wrote that the area was raised to the rank of Cambodia's second capital in September 1964.[3] After the 1970 coup led by General Lon Nol (លន់ នល់), the name went back to Kampong Som. It became Preah Sihanouk city again in 1993. In 2008 a royal decree formed Preah Sihanouk province, with Kampong Seila (កំពង់សីលា) district moved into it from Koh Kong (កោះកុង).[3][1]

History

Building of the deep-water port began in 1955 with French support, and the pier opened officially in 1960.[2] A US intelligence estimate of August 1955 recorded that France had taken charge of building a $10 million deep-water port at Kampong Som, a project it called a top priority for Cambodia.[4] By 1970 its quay had been extended to the east.[2]

In the late 1960s, Chinese military supplies for Vietnamese communist forces in South Vietnam came in through the port, and US estimates of their volume differed. In mid-1970 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) judged that 7,100 tons of ordnance had arrived through Sihanoukville, while the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, had put the figure at 17,800 tons. A CIA memorandum of February 1971 counted 21,600 tons of Chinese military supplies unloaded from 10 freighters at Sihanoukville from December 1966 through April 1969.[5] The civil conflict that followed badly damaged the port's facilities, its workforce and its management.[2]

Under the Khmer Rouge, in Democratic Kampuchea (1975 to 1979), the port served as the landing point for Chinese aid. The regime's own records show 22 Chinese ships docking at the port in 1975, about 2.5 a month, the first on April 30 with rice, salt, medicine and cloth. China's New China News Agency, repeating Radio Phnom Penh, credited the country's workers and soldiers with reopening the port, and a regime document claimed that the rail line to the port was running again.[6]

In May 1975, US forces moved to retake the ship Mayaguez. The US Pacific Command's report of May 15, 1975, records carrier air strikes on targets in the Kampong Som area, including warehouses in the port area. The same report states that a small boat flying white flags carried the ship's whole crew out from Kampong Som, and a US warship intercepted the boat.[7]

The port

Japanese technical cooperation to rebuild the port began in the late 1990s, and Japanese aid loans paid to modernize its container terminal in the early 2000s.[2] The port is run by the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, a state-owned enterprise that listed its shares on the Cambodia Securities Exchange in 2017. Its facilities include a container terminal, a general cargo terminal for goods such as grain, cement and steel, and a jetty for oil and other liquid cargo. In 2024 it handled one million twenty-foot container units.[2]

Chinese investment, 2016 to 2020

Chinese investment in Cambodia rose sharply from 2016, and a large share went to Sihanoukville, into casinos, online gambling and tourism projects, housing among them. The Cambodian Development Council put Chinese investment in the city from 2016 to August 2019 at about $2 billion.[8] The money went mostly into casinos and resorts, and property prices rose.[9]

On June 22, 2019, an unfinished seven-story building collapsed in the city onto construction workers who slept inside it, and 28 people died.[9][10] Chinese owners held the building, and local officials said they had twice told the company to stop work.[9] Human Rights Watch and Transparency International Cambodia blamed corruption and weak oversight of building sites; a provincial government spokesman denied that corruption was widespread. Provincial Governor Yun Min stepped down after the collapse.[9]

In 2019 the government ordered a ban on online gambling, in force from January 2020, citing rising crime and safety concerns.[8] The COVID-19 pandemic followed. In May and June 2020, reporters for Voice of America's Khmer service (VOA Khmer) found unfinished condominiums and towers and almost no building under way. VOA Khmer put the number of Chinese nationals in the city at around 200,000 at the peak and noted that state institutions gave differing estimates; on June 9, 2020, Governor Kuoch Chamroeun said about 15,000 remained.[8]

Since 2020

The Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway opened in 2022, cutting the trip from the capital from about five hours to about two.[2] At the road's first anniversary in November 2023, Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol said the 187-kilometer (116-mile) expressway had eased traffic and shortened travel between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville.[11]

On August 28, 2024, a sub-decree signed by Prime Minister Hun Manet (ហ៊ុន ម៉ាណែត) created a separate city named Kampong Som in Preah Sihanouk province, from five communes taken from Prey Nob district. The province's divisions also include Sihanoukville, Prey Nob, Stung Hav (ស្ទឹងហាវ), Kampong Seila and Koh Rong (កោះរ៉ុង).[3][1][12]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Thmey Thmey, Nhek Sreyleak, "Kampong Som" is named again, but as a town of Preah Sihanouk province (August 29, 2024; in Khmer)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Japan Transport and Tourism Research Institute, Takashima Minoru, Current situation and prospect of Sihanoukville Port (undated)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Cambodianess, Nhek Sreyleak and Meng Seavmey, Kampong Som: New City with Old Name and History (August 30, 2024)
  4. ↑ Office of the Historian, US Department of State, National Intelligence Estimate NIE 63.2-55, Probable Developments in Cambodia to July 1956 (August 16, 1955)
  5. ↑ Central Intelligence Agency, Studies in Intelligence, Richard A. Mobley, Analytic Tug-of-War: Cambodia's Role in Shipping Arms to Communist Forces in South Vietnam (June 2024)
  6. ↑ Documentation Center of Cambodia, Stephen Heder and Sopheak Pheana, Kampuchea-China Economic Relations as Indicated by Official Democratic Kampuchea Records in DC-Cam Archives and by Other Official DK Sources, Introduction and Part One 1975 (2026)
  7. ↑ Office of the Historian, US Department of State, Message from the Commander in Chief, Pacific (Gayler) to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mayaguez sitrep 001 (May 15, 1975)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 VOA Khmer, Sokummono Khan and Aun Chhengpor, A Pandemic and Gambling Ban Has Left Cambodia's 'New Shenzhen' Unfinished (June 11, 2020)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Al Jazeera, Yon Sineat and Andrew Nachemson, In a Cambodian beach town, China-led building boom flouts rules (July 3, 2019)
  10. ↑ The Guardian, Martin Farrer, Five Chinese charged as toll in Cambodia building collapse rises to 28 (June 25, 2019)
  11. ↑ Xinhua, via People's Daily Online, Chinese-invested expressway boosts Cambodia's tourism, economic growth (November 7, 2023)
  12. ↑ Open Development Cambodia, Sub-decree no. 201 on the establishment of Kampong Som city in Preah Sihanouk province (August 28, 2024)
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This page was last edited on 12 October 2026, at 00:22.