In the jungles of Cambodia, an empire built a capital that may have been the largest city on earth — three-quarters of a million people, fed by reservoirs the size of seas — and crowned it with Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument ever built. Then the water system faltered, the neighbors closed in, and the jungle took the city back.
Angkor ★ Tonle Sap Mekong Phnom Penh Ayutthaya Greatest extent — stylized map 802 Jayavarman II, god-king 1113 Suryavarman II — Angkor Wat 1431 Ayutthaya sacks Angkor Rise · zenith · fall By the numbers (log scale) Capital's population 750,000 people City extent 1,000 square kilometers Bayon stone faces 200 stone faces Free hospitals of Jayavarman VII 102 hospitals Angkor by the numbers The rise In 802, Jayavarman II declared himself a god-king on a Cambodian hilltop, founding a divine kingship that would rule for six centuries. His successors built outward from Angkor, absorbing the rice plains of the Mekong and the Tonle Sap — the great lake whose annual flood reversal is one of Asia's natural wonders.
