Phnom Penh City

Phnom Penh city takes the name form the present Wat Phnom or Hill temple.Legend has it that in 1372 ,an old nun named Penh went to fetch the water in the Mekong river and found a dead koki tree floating down the stream .Inside the hole of the dead koki tree contained four bronze and one stone Buddha statues in it . Daun (Gandma) Penh brought the statues ashore and ordered people to pile up earth at northeast of her house and used those Koki trunks to build a temple on that hill to house the five Buddha statues, then named the temple after her as Wat Phnom Daun Penh, which presently known as Wat Phnom, a small hill of 27 metres (89 ft) in height.

The city was originally called Phnom Daun Penh after it was founded, but it was later abbreviated to just Phnom Penh. The city was also previously known as Krong Chaktomuk meaning "City of Four Faces". This name refers to the junction where the Mekong, Bassac, and Tonle Sap rivers cross to form an "X" where the capital is situated.

Phnom Penh the Royal capital of Cambodia Phnom Penh first became the royal capital of Cambodia in 1432 after His Majesty Ponhea Yat (b.1421, r.1432-1462), king of the Khmer Empire, moved the capital from Toul Bassan (presently called Srey Santhor) at Angkor Thom after it was captured by Siam a few years earlier. There are stupa behind Wat Phnom that house the remains of Ponhea Yat and the royal family as well as the remaining Buddhist statues from the Angkorean era.

Phnom Penh remained the royal capital for 73 years from 1432 to 1505 when it was abandoned for 360 years from 1505 to 1865 by subsequent kings due to internal fighting between the royal pretenders. Later kings moved the capital several times and established their royal capitals at various locations in Tuol Basan (Srey Santhor), Pursat, Longvek, Lavear Em and Oudong.

According to the historical records, in the 1600s, many Japanese immigrants had settled on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. But it was not until 1865 that Phnom Penh became the permanent royal capital of Cambodia when King Norodom I, great grandfather of Norodom Sihanouk, ordered 10,000 of his subjects to move out of the old royal capital of Oudong and settled in.

Phnom Penh and the current Royal Palace was built in 1866 under the supervision of Oknha Tep Nimitr Mak. Phnom Penh during H. M. King Norodom’s Reign: (1860), (r.1865-1904)

Phnom Penh during the first ten years of king Norodom’s reign was little more than a village with few huts lining the river. When Phnom Penh was re-established in 1865, it was divided into 3 villages: a Catholic Village located to the north of the city in the Russey Keo vicinity which was populated by the Vietnamese Catholic faithful. A Chen (Chinese) Village located in the middle of the city along Sap river which was populated by Chinese traders. A Khmer Village located to the south of the city, around the present royal palace and Wat Unalaom for Khmer population.

Beginning in 1870, the French colonial administration had turned a sleepy village into a city when it started to build hotels, schools, prisons, barracks, bank, public works offices, telegraph offices, Law courts, and health services buildings. In 1872, the first glimpse of a modern city took shape when the colonial administration contracted a French contractor, Le Faucheur, to construct the first 300 concrete houses for sales and rentals to the Chinese traders.