Cambodia was at that time a collection of small states. Between the 1st and the 8th century, Cambodia was ruled by Funan and then by the Chenla (a collection of competing kingdoms).

By 802 AD, Jayavarman II pronounced himself devaraja (god king) and brought Cambodia under his control. He was the beginning of the Angkorian period, when the great temples were built, and power was held until the 15th century, despite numerous periods of conflict and instability.

After the decline of Angkor, Khmer history was dominated by rivalry and fighting, and from 1600 onwards, Cambodia entered a kind of dark ages, with weak king after weak king paying tribute to China, Vietnam and Thailand, trying to save their own individual neck.

In 1864, Cambodia became a French protectorate, which it remained until 1953. The French did not put much effort into their backwater colony, and the period after this under King Sihanouk represented one of entrance into the wider world at the same time as one of increasing poverty for the marginalized. Sihanouk was later forced to play off several parties, including Chinese communists, Khmer nationalists, the Vietnamese, and the US involved heavily in Vietnam. He was overthrown by General Lon Nol of the right wing, and Cambodia plunged into civil war.

Things went from bad to worse, and Phnom Penh fell to the Cambodian revolutionaries, the Khmer Rouge. In one of the most brutal restructurings of society ever, this agrarian movement emptied the towns, set about re-educating the people, and mowed down enemies: as many as three million people may have died in this period.

The Vietnamese finally overcame the Khmer Rouge in 1979, and colonized Cambodia until 1989. The UN moved in, and attempted to stabilize the country, moving out in 1993. Since then, Cambodia has been a democracy, with periods of stability and periods of conflict alternating, as a population attempts to come to terms with its turbulent and all-too-recent past.