Cambodia

Abstract

In 1863 Cambodia covered roughly its present area, with a population of about 2m.—Khmer rice farmers on the lowlands and mixed groups of hillmen on the uplands, whose life had changed little for centuries. All education and learning was with the Buddhist monks ; there were few roads and little trade. In the few small towns the business was done by Chinese. The country had suffered centuries of invasion and exploitation from the Siamese and the Annamites, who had seized and occupied wide areas once Cambodian in the Menam basin and the lower Mekong delta.