n.
Country, Southeast Asia.
Area: 69,898 sq mi (181,036 sq km). Population (2002 est.): 13,414,000. Capital: Phnom Penh . The vast majority of the population belongs to the Mon-Khmer ethnic group. Language: Khmer (official). Religion: Buddhism (official). Currency: riel. The landscape is dominated by large central plains; the Dangrek Mountains rise along the northern border. Cambodia lies largely in the basin of the Mekong River ; the large lake Tonle Sap is in its western part. Much of the country is tropical rainforest. It is one of the world's poorest countries. Agriculture employs about three-fourths of the workforce. Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy with one legislative house; its chief of state is the king, and its head of government is a prime minister. In the early centuries AD the area was under Hindu and to a lesser extent Buddhist influence. The Khmer state gradually spread in the early 7th century and reached its height under Jayavarman II and his successors in the 9th12th centuries, when it ruled the Mekong valley and the tributary Shan states and built Angkor . Buddhism was widely adopted in the 13th century, and the writing system changed from Sanskrit to Pali . From the 13th century it was attacked by Annam and Siamese city-states and was alternately a province of one or the other. It became a French protectorate in 1863. It was occupied by the Japanese in World War II and became independent in 1954. Its borders were the scene of fighting in the Vietnam War from 1961, and in 1970 its northeastern and eastern areas were occupied by the North Vietnamese and penetrated by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. A bombing campaign in Cambodia by U.S. warplanes alienated much of the population, enabling the communist Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot to seize power in 1975. Their regime of terror resulted in the deaths of some 1.5 million Cambodians. Vietnam invaded in 1979 and drove the Khmer Rouge into the western hinterlands, but it was unable to effect reconstruction of the country, and Cambodian infighting continued. A peace accord was reached by most Cambodian factions under UN auspices in 1991. Elections were held in 1993, and Norodom Sihanouk was restored to the monarchy. Civil and military unrest continued, culminating, in 1997, in a coup by Hun Sen that consolidated his position as prime minister. Hun Sen's party won legislative elections in 1998, returning him to the premiership; also that year, Cambodia became part of ASEAN .