Angkor Archaeological Park

Angkor is the vast archaeological park in Siem Reap province that covers Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and hundreds of temples; its scale and number of monuments make it a multi-day destination for temple exploration and study.

Hours: Open daily 5:00am-6:00pm. A few temples keep special hours for sunrise and sunset - Angkor Wat and Phnom Bakheng open early for sunrise, while Pre Rup and Phnom Bakheng are favourites for sunset.

Admission: An official Angkor Pass is required - USD 37 for 1 day, USD 62 for 3 days (valid within 10 days), or USD 72 for 7 days (valid within 1 month). Buy passes at the official ticket centre northeast of Siem Reap; children under 12 enter free.

Don’t miss: sunrise over Angkor Wat, the giant carved faces of the Bayon in Angkor Thom, and the tree-swallowed ruins of Ta Prohm.

Size and tickets: The Angkor Archaeological Park covers an area of about 400 square kilometres; entry uses a timed ticket system with single-day and multi-day passes.

Photo tips: Sunrise at Angkor Wat and late-afternoon light on the temple facades are the most popular photographic times; arrive early to avoid crowds.

Practicalities: Temperatures and sun can be intense; wear sturdy shoes for uneven temple steps and respectful clothing for active religious sites.

When to go: November-February for the coolest, driest weather; start at dawn to beat both the heat and the tour buses.

Angkor was the religious and administrative centre of the Khmer Empire between the 9th and 15th centuries, and today its monuments spread across many square kilometres of forest and rice paddy just north of Siem Reap town in northwestern Cambodia. The park preserves an extraordinary concentration of temples, vast baray reservoirs and the remains of successive royal cities.

At its heart, Angkor Wat - built in the early 12th century - is the most famous individual temple and is widely described as the largest religious monument in the world. Nearby Angkor Thom, the walled royal city crowned by the serene stone faces of the Bayon, and the tree-entwined galleries of Ta Prohm are the other great highlights.

Beyond the core temple groups lie hundreds of smaller ruined temples, reservoirs and avenues, with outlying monuments such as Banteay Srei and Beng Mealea standing several tens of kilometres from the centre. Most visitors explore the park over several days along a set of well-worn circuits:

Angkor’s temples are usually explored along a series of circuits fanning out from the great temple of Angkor Wat:

• Angkor Wat & Angkor Thom: Angkor Wat is the grandest temple of all; just to the north lies the walled royal city of Angkor Thom, whose highlights are the face-towers of the Bayon, the pyramid-temple of the Baphuon, and the Terrace of the Elephants and Terrace of the Leper King.
• Little Circuit (Le Petit Circuit): The short loop takes in Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, plus the temples just east of the royal city: Ta Keo, the jungle-wrapped Ta Prohm, Banteay Kdei, the royal bathing pool of Srah Srang, and Prasat Kravan.
• Big Circuit (Le Grand Circuit): The longer loop adds the major sites north and further east of Angkor Thom: Preah Khan, the island-temple of Neak Pean, Ta Som, the East Mebon and Pre Rup.
• Roluos Group: About 15 km east of Siem Reap along National Highway 6 stand some of the earliest Angkor temples: Bakong, Lolei, Preah Ko and several smaller shrines.
• Outlying Temples: Further-flung monuments, spread over a radius of up to 80 km from Angkor Wat and grouped by direction:
  • North: Banteay Srei and Kbal Spean (37 and 45 km from Siem Reap), and the hilltop temple of Phnom Bok (25 km northeast) - can be combined with a visit to the Peam So Hoh Waterfall.
  • East: Banteay Samre (just east of the main complex) and Beng Mealea (80 km out) - Beng Mealea pairs well with a trip to Koh Ker.
  • South: Phnom Krom (12 km from Siem Reap) - easily combined with a boat trip on the Tonle Sap Lake.

Angkor was the capital of the Khmer Empire for roughly six centuries, and its monuments are a record in stone of one of Asia’s great civilisations. Scholars date the Angkor period to 802 CE, when Jayavarman II had himself proclaimed universal monarch on the sacred hill of Phnom Kulen and established the devaraja, or “god-king,” cult that would define Khmer kingship. His successors first ruled from Hariharalaya, near the Roluos temples east of Siem Reap, before the capital settled on the Angkor plain itself.

Temple-mountains and the god-king. Under the devaraja cult, each king who reigned long enough built three things: an ancestral temple, a great baray (reservoir) to water the rice plain, and a state temple-mountain to house the royal linga and bind the ruler to the gods. Indravarman I raised Preah Ko and Bakong at Roluos in the 880s; Yasovarman I then moved the capital to Angkor and founded Yasodharapura, the city that would remain the Khmer capital for some 500 years.

From Hindu to Buddhist. The two most celebrated monuments mark a change of faith. Angkor Wat, built by Suryavarman II in the early 12th century, was dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu and laid out as an earthly model of Mount Meru. A few decades later Jayavarman VII - a Buddhist king - rebuilt the capital as Angkor Thom and crowned it with the Bayon and its enigmatic stone faces. In the centuries that followed Angkor gradually turned to Theravada Buddhism, the religion Cambodians practise today. Much of what we know of daily life at its height comes from the Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, who spent a year at Angkor around 1296 and wrote The Customs of Cambodia.

Decline and abandonment. No single cause explains Angkor’s fall. Strain on its vast irrigation network, the spread of Theravada Buddhism (whose temples were built of perishable wood rather than sandstone), and above all intensifying war with the rising Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya all played a part. After repeated conflict the Khmer court abandoned Angkor around 1431 and moved south toward Phnom Penh, and later Longvek and Oudong. Even the name Siem Reap - “Siam Defeated” - recalls these wars.

Never truly lost. Angkor Wat itself was never wholly abandoned: Buddhist monks kept it as a place of worship, and it drew Portuguese and Spanish visitors in the 16th century. Western fascination took hold after the French naturalist Henri Mouhot described the ruins around 1860, and French scholars began the long work of clearing and restoration that continues today under Cambodia’s APSARA Authority and UNESCO World Heritage protection. Angkor remains a living symbol as much as a ruin - its silhouette sits at the centre of the Cambodian national flag, the only building to appear on any nation’s flag, and its temples are still active places of worship, with villages, monks and pilgrims woven into the park to this day.

Angkor (Angkor Archaeological Park) is accessed via Siem Reap. International and regional flights arrive at Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport (REP); from the airport it’s a short taxi or tuk‑tuk ride into Siem Reap town (roughly 10-20 minutes). Overland from Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, take National Highway 6 (NH6) north - the driving distance is roughly 310-320 km and the journey by private car or express bus (operators include Giant Ibis and Mekong Express) typically takes about 5-6 hours.

From central Siem Reap the Angkor park is about 5-7 km north of the town center. Most visitors go by tuk‑tuk or taxi (about 10-20 minutes), rent bicycles (20-40 minutes depending on pace), or hire a private car/guide for the day. Once inside the park, individual temples are spread out, so expect short walks from parking areas to temple entrances (several hundred meters up to a kilometer for some sites).

• Arrive before sunrise (around 5:00-5:30 in the dry season) to watch sunrise at Angkor Wat and to explore the main monuments in the cooler, quieter hours-many day-trip coach groups only arrive after first light.
• Buy your 1‑/3‑/7‑day Angkor pass at the official Angkor Ticket Office on the road into the park and bring your passport: the office prints your photo on the pass and guards check it at temple entrances.
• Avoid the biggest crowds by visiting Ta Prohm and the Bayon either right at opening or late afternoon; both attract large coach groups mid‑morning and early afternoon, so timing them outside that window makes for a far more peaceful visit.
• Don't skip the outer/lesser‑visited sites: Banteay Srei (north of the main loop) and outer‑circuit temples such as Preah Khan and Banteay Samre offer finer carving details and far fewer visitors-plan one afternoon for these if you have a multi‑day pass.