Yasodharapura, or Angkor, was indeed a vast city. As the capital of the Khmer Empire, it was a testament to the Khmer’s ingenuity and mastery of the elements. The scale of the city and the kinds of monuments that were able to be built there can be explained by the relationship to water that had been cultivated over hundreds if not thousands of years.

Angkor has been called a ‘hydraulic city’, one based upon a complex system of canals and reservoirs that supplied water for the foundation of the agrarian Khmer economy. The seasons in Cambodia are of the ‘monsoon Asia’ variety, broadly speaking this means it is extremely wet for half of the year and extremely hot and dry for the other. Creating a system capable of storing enough water to keep growing crops like rice all year round was the basis of an agricultural system capable of eventually supporting around one million inhabitants of Angkor. This allowed for large parts of this huge population to engage in the kinds of building projects that the city remains known for today, however these stone temples represent just a skeleton of the massive ‘low-density urban sprawl’ that made up the city as it was at its height. One might not just have walked across the city but rowed a small canoe through its network of canals. Likewise, most homes had their own or a shared pond that could be used to cool down throughout the day.

Because of the water management system and the benefits of being able to produce a great surplus of rice, not only could a large population be sustained but also attracting trade from societies in greater Southeast Asia, India and China. Zhou Daguan, a Chinese diplomat who visited Angkor in the 13th century, much of what we know about society in the city is based on his accounts that he published as The Customs of Cambodia. Here he describes a trip to a local market which gives us a little flavour as to what life might have been like:

The local people who know how to trade are all women. So when a Chinese goes to this country, the first thing he must do is take in a woman, partly in a view to profiting from her trading abilities.

There is a market every day from around six in the morning until midday. There are no stalls, only a kind of tumbleweed mat laid out on the ground, each mat in its usual place. I gather there is also a rental fee to be paid to officials.

Small market transactions are paid for with rice or other grain and Chinese goods. The ones next up in size are paid for with cloth. Large transactions are done with gold and silver. In years gone by local people were completely naïve, and when they saw a Chinese they treated him with great respect and awe, addressing him as a Buddha and falling prostrate and kowtowing when they saw him. Lately, though, as more Chinese have gone there, there have been people who have cheated and slighted them.

It was also must have been an impressive sight to behold and aside from the massively impressive architecture of monuments like the Bayon or Angkor Wat, the wealth of the empire was also conspicuous, here again is Zhou Daguan:

In the center of the capital is a gold tower, flanked by twenty or so stone towers and a hundred or so stone chambers. To the east of it is a golden bridge flanked by two gold lion, one on the left and one on the right. Eight gold Buddhas are laid out in a row at the lowest stone chambers.

About a li north of the gold tower there is a bronze tower. It is even taller than the gold tower, and an exquisite sight. At the foot there are, again, several dozen stone chambers.

About one li north further again there is the residence of the King. There is another gold tower in his sleeping quarters.

I suppose all this explains why from the start there have been merchant seamen who speak glowingly about rich, noble Cambodia.

We can also gather from his account, as well as archaeological analysis of the site, that religion figured prominently for the residents of the city. Outlying areas of the ‘low density urban sprawl’, would often be centred around temples of worship that also acted as taxation hubs for the residents. Again we see how an agrarian based economy flowed up through to the upper strata of the society, symbolised by the Devaraja, or universal monarch, who could reinforce their divine status by creating massive stone monuments or temple pyramids that projected their power for all to see.

I spend some time on this subject in the first few episodes of my podcast about Cambodian history titled 'In the Shadows of Utopia'. Visit www.shadowsofutopia.com for more information