Angkor period settlement of Dvijendrapura During the Angkor period, according to
R. C. Majumdar, Siem Reap was the site of a town called
Dvijendrapura, whose former site is probably marked by the old temple of
Prah Einkosei. An old stele inscription at Prah Einkosei, written in both
Sanskrit and
Old Khmer and dated to 890 and 892 of the
Shaka era (corresponding to 968 and 970 CE), records religious endowments made by the princess
Indralakṣmī (daughter of
Rājendravarman II) and her husband Divākara-bhaṭṭa in those two years, including an image of
Viṣṇu called Dvijendra and an
āśrama. They also founded a temple at a place called Madhuvana, which Majumdar identified with present-day
Prasat Komphus near
Phnom Sandak. A corresponding inscription at Prasat Komphus states that the temples at Dvijendrapura and Madhuvana were jointly endowed with a commonly shared property (
miśrabhoga) so that "the territories of the gods of Madhuvana and Dvijendrapura are joined together".
Post-Angkor period , 1907 The name "Siem Reap" can be translated to mean 'defeat of
Siam' (
siem in Khmer) and is commonly taken as a reference to an incident in the centuries-old conflict between the Siamese and Khmer kingdoms, although this is probably apocryphal. According to oral tradition, King Ang Chan (1516–1566) had named the town "Siem Reap" after he repulsed an army sent to invade Cambodia by the Thai king
Maha Chakkraphat in 1549. Scholars such as
Michael Vickery consider this derivation to be simply a modern folk etymology, and maintain that while the names Siem Reap and
Chenla, the old Chinese name for Cambodia, may perhaps be related, the actual origin of the name is unknown. ) The traditional tale claims that King Ang Chan of Cambodia tried to assert greater independence from Siam, which was then struggling internally. The Siamese king
Chairacha had been poisoned by his concubine, Lady Sri Sudachan, who had committed adultery with a commoner,
Worawongsathirat, while the king was away leading a campaign against the Kingdom of
Lan Na. Sudachan then placed her lover on the throne. The Thai nobility lured them outside the city on a royal
procession by barge to inspect a newly discovered white elephant. After killing the usurper, along with Sudachan and their new-born daughter, they invited
Prince Thianracha to leave the monkhood and assume the throne as King Maha Chakkraphat (1548–1569). With the Thais distracted by internal problems, King Ang Chan attacked. He seized the Siamese city of
Prachinburi in 1549, sacking the city and making slaves of its inhabitants. Only then did he learn that the succession had been settled and that Maha Chakkraphat was the new ruler. Ang Chan immediately retreated to Cambodia, taking captives with him. King Maha Chakkraphat was furious over the unprovoked attack, but Burma had also chosen to invade through
Three Pagodas Pass. The Burmese army posed a much more serious threat, as it captured
Kanchanaburi and
Suphanburi. It then appeared before Ayutthaya itself. The Thai army managed to defeat the Burmese, who quickly retreated through the pass. Maha Chakkraphat's thoughts then turned to Cambodia. Not only had Ang Chan attacked and looted Prachinburi, turning its people into slaves, but he also refused to give Maha Chakkraphat a white elephant he had requested, rejecting even this token of submission to Siam. Maha Chakkraphat ordered Prince Ong, the governor of
Sawankhalok, to lead an expedition to punish Ang Chan and recover the Thai captives. The rival armies met, and Ang Chan killed Prince Ong with a lucky musket shot from an elephant's back. The leaderless Thai army fled, and Ang Chan allegedly captured more than 10,000 Siamese soldiers. To celebrate his great victory, King Ang Chan supposedly named the battleground "Siem Reap", meaning 'the total defeat of Siam'. In reality, surviving historic sources make this derivation appear unlikely, since they date the decline of
Angkor to more than a century before this, when a military expedition from Ayutthaya captured and sacked Angkor Wat, which began a long period of
vassal rule over Cambodia. The 1431 capture coincided with the decline of Angkor, though the reasons behind its abandonment are not clear. They may have included environmental changes and failings of the Khmer infrastructure. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, infighting among the Khmer nobility led to periodic intervention and domination by both of Cambodia's more powerful neighbors, Vietnam and Siam. Siem Reap, along with
Battambang (Phra Tabong) and
Sisophon, major cities in northwest Cambodia, was under Siamese administration and the provinces were collectively known as
Inner Cambodia from 1795 until 1907, when they were ceded to
French Indochina.
"Re-discovery" of Angkor Siem Reap was little more than a village when French explorers such as
Henri Mouhot "re-discovered" Angkor in the 19th century. However, European visitors had visited the temple ruins much earlier, including
António da Madalena in 1586. In 1901, the
École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) ('French School of the Far East') began a long association with
Angkor by funding an expedition into Siam to the
Bayon. The EFEO took responsibility for clearing and restoring the whole site. In the same year, the first Western tourists arrived in Angkor, a total of about 200 in just three months. Angkor had been "rescued" from the jungle and was assuming its place in the modern world. , built in the mid-1920s. With the acquisition of Angkor by the French in 1907 following a Franco-Siamese treaty, Siem Reap began to grow. The Grand Hotel d'Angkor opened in 1929 and the temples of Angkor became one of Asia's leading draws until the late-1960s, when civil war kept tourists away. In 1975, the population of Siem Reap, like all other Cambodian cities and towns, was driven into the countryside by the communist
Khmer Rouge. Siem Reap's recent history is colored by the horror of the Khmer Rouge regime. Since
Pol Pot's death in 1998, however, relative stability and a rejuvenated tourist industry have revived the city and province. Siem Reap now serves as a small gateway town to the world heritage site of Angkor Wat. In recent years, the city has regularly ranked in the top ten for "Best Destination" lists produced by entities such as TripAdvisor,
Wanderlust Magazine, and
Travel+Leisure. ==Economy==