Place

Tbong Khmum

ត្បូងឃ្មុំ

Tbong Khmum (ត្បូងឃ្មុំ; also written Tboung Khmum[1]) is a province of eastern Cambodia, east of the Mekong, created at the end of 2013 from part of Kampong Cham.[2][1][3] Its capital is the city of Suong (សួង).[4][2] The red-soil country around Memot (មេមត់) holds prehistoric circular earthworks, and the province grows rubber, a crop the French brought to Cambodia.[5][6][7][8][9][10]

Geography

The province covers 5,250 square kilometers. The National Institute of Statistics places it in the Central Plain region, with Kampong Cham, Kandal, Phnom Penh, Prey Veng, Svay Rieng and Takeo.[11]

The royal decree that created the province gave it six districts and one city, all on the east side of the Mekong: the districts of Dambe, Kroch Chhmar, O'Reang-ou, Ponhea Krek, Tbong Khmum and Memot, and Suong City.[3]

People

The provisional results of the 2019 census counted 775,296 people (377,205 men and 398,091 women) in 169,281 households, an average of 4.6 people to a household. The 2008 census counted 761,036, and the population grew by 0.2 percent a year between the two counts. In 2019 the province had 148 people per square kilometer.[11]

History

Circular earthworks

The red-soil plateau of eastern Cambodia and western Vietnam holds prehistoric circular earthworks, known in Khmer as banteay kou.[5] A typical site sits on top of a gentle slope and has an outer earthen wall, an inner ditch and a central platform lower than the ground outside.[12] The sites average about 250 meters (820 feet) across.[5] The French historian Bernard Philippe Groslier wrote in 1966 that one such site east of the Mekong was "one of the most important prehistoric sites in South-East Asia", and he gave the tradition the name "Memot Culture".[5]

The Cambodia Daily put the number of earthworks in the Memot region at 37 in 2010.[8] Latinis and Dega reported more than 55 in 2011, across eastern Cambodia and western Vietnam.[5] The team that dug the Krek 52/62 earthwork wrote in 2000 that the finds pointed to villages of rice farmers, not forts: the shape of the walls and the absence of weapons argued against defense.[12]

The age of the earthworks is debated. The Krek 52/62 team questioned a Neolithic date and pointed to a glass bracelet fragment from the site's living layer as evidence of the first millennium BC.[12] Latinis and Dega gave the sites' occupation as about 2300 BC to 300 BC, with the eastern sites older than the western ones.[5] The Cambodia Daily dated them in 2010 to between 1000 and 500 BC, as probably Iron Age farming villages.[8]

In September 2010 bulldozers leveled part of the Samrong earthwork in Memot district during work to privatize the state-owned Memot Rubber Plantation. After the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts confirmed the site, a spokesman for the Asian Development Bank said the new village for more than 500 families of rubber workers would be laid out so as not to disturb it. The earthwork was placed under a protection plan. An archaeologist at the Memot Center for Archaeology said that the moat and outer wall were gone but the artifacts inside were intact.[8] The Memot Archaeological Center and Museum, near the Memot district hall, holds finds from excavations in the region, most of them from the earthwork sites.[7]

Rubber

The French planted Cambodia's first rubber trees in 1910, in what is now Preah Sihanouk province, and by 1924 plantations were reaching farther inland, to Kampong Cham.[9] Kampong Cham then included the land that became Tbong Khmum.[1] In a 2026 article republished by Cambodianess, Wonders of Cambodia wrote that French agronomists turned to the eastern provinces, among them parts of what is now Tbong Khmum, for several advantages, one of them their volcanic red soil.[6] The Khmer Rouge period halted production, and seven state-owned companies restarted the industry in 1979.[9] The privatization of the Memot Rubber Plantation, a project of $7.5 million funded by an Asian Development Bank loan, was under way in 2010.[8] In January 2023 the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries was planning a museum of the history of rubber in the province.[10]

Creation of the province

On December 31, 2013, Kampong Cham was divided into two provinces, Kampong Cham and Tbong Khmum.[1] King Norodom Sihamoni approved the government's request for the new province in December, and the royal decree is dated December 31.[3] Prach Chan, then governor of Battambang province, was appointed governor of the new province in January 2014. Interior Minister Sar Kheng presided over its official launch at Suong, where 30 senior members of the provincial government were named.[4]

The split was disputed. In the national election of July 2013, the ruling Cambodian People's Party won majorities in only five districts of Kampong Cham, and all five went to the new province. The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party won all 12 of Kampong Cham's remaining districts.[3][4] Applied to the new boundaries, the 2013 results would have given the ruling party 51.75 percent of the vote in Tbong Khmum and the opposition 42.10 percent.[3] Khieu Sopheak, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, said the split would bring government services closer to the people, and he denied that it was meant to help the ruling party. Koul Panha, executive director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, said its purpose was to affect future elections. Kem Sokha, the opposition party's vice president, said the government wanted a firmer hold on the people there, rather than new electoral lines.[3]

Places

Wat Vihea Tontim (វត្តវិហាទន្ទឹម) stands in Suong. On December 19, 2025, monks, local officials and lay people held a large blessing ceremony and prayers for peace in its grounds.[2]

Other Wats in the province, by district:

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Statistics Bureau of Japan, Cambodian New Provincial Boundaries (December 31, 2013)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Koh Santepheap, ជ្រះថ្លាក្នុងធម៌មេត្តា! ពិធីចម្រើនព្រះបរិត្ត និងបួងសួងសុំសន្តិភាពដ៏ធំមួយ ត្រូវបានប្រារព្ធឡើងយ៉ាងអធិកអធមនៅខេត្តត្បូងឃ្មុំ (December 20, 2025)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 The Cambodia Daily, Phorn Bopha, Government Creates New CPP-Majority Province (January 10, 2014)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Cambodia Daily, Saing Soenthrith, New Province Tbong Khmum Officially Launched (June 3, 2014)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, D. Kyle Latinis and Michael Dega, A Brief Study of Cambodian Circular Earthwork Ceramics as Explained through EDXRF Analysis (2011)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Cambodianess, from Wonders of Cambodia, French Introduction of Rubber Plantations to Cambodia: How Colonial Ambition Changed the Kingdom's Landscape (July 20, 2026)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Hello Angkor, Memot Archaeological Center and Museum (updated January 1, 2026)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 The Cambodia Daily, Julia Wallace, Ancient Earthwork Now Under Protection Plan (November 3, 2010)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Eco-Business, from The Phnom Penh Post, A new century for rubber (December 30, 2010)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Open Development Cambodia, from The Phnom Penh Post, Ministry mulls museum to celebrate rubber legacy (January 27, 2023)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 National Institute of Statistics, General Population Census of the Kingdom of Cambodia 2019: Provisional Population Totals (2019)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 University of Hawaii Press, Gerd Albrecht and others, Circular Earthwork Krek 52/62: Recent Research on the Prehistory of Cambodia (2000)


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This page was last edited on 17 October 2026, at 05:35.