What’s the difference between Angkor and Angkor Wat?

Angkor and Angkor Wat

On our small group tours to Cambodia we often see, amongst first time visitors, a certain amount of predictable confusion between the names Angkor and Angkor Wat. They do, of course, refer to two different sites, so here’s a brief explanation on the differences between Angkor and Angkor Wat.

It can certainly be somewhat confusing for the uninitiated so, firstly, we need to point out that Angkor is not simply an abbreviation for Angkor Wat. When our Cambodia tour itineraries mention a visit to Angkor then the site that you will be visiting is what is officially termed the Angkor Historical Park, or sometimes Angkor Archaeological Park.  Although precise estimates do vary slightly, the Park covers a vast area of some 400 square kilometres to the north and east of Siem Reap, a provincial town in northwestern Cambodia. The site includes literally hundreds of ancient temples and structures corresponding to the series of  capitals of the Angkor Empire which were constructed by successive Khmer kings between the 9th and 14th centuries. (One solitary queen is recorded, Jayadevi, who is thought to have reigned in the latter part of the 7th and early years of the 8th centuries. Her capital lay to the northwest of what is today Siem Reap with her royal temple likely to have been what is today the rather ruined and remote site of Ak Yum.)

Different rulers generally aimed to impose themselves, and increase their prestige, by constructing their own cities or at least upgrading their predecessor’s capital, so new sites often adapted existing structures and/or overlapped previous incarnations. This goes some way to explaining the bewildering number of different temple sites. The entire site is known as Angkor and indeed the UNESCO listing simply names it Angkor as the World Heritage tag does, of course refer to the overall assemblage of ancient temples rather than the resulting Park itself.

The term Angkor is an Anglicisation of the Khmer word nokor, which in turn derives from the Sanskrit name nagara. Both mean city. Incidentally the Thai version, nakhon, is still widely used today as seen with cities and provinces such as Nakhon Si Thammarat, Nakhon Pathom, Nakhon Nayok etc and indeed the common Thai term for Angkor or Angkor Wat is Nakhon or Nakhon Wat. There are also still a number of nokors in Cambodia such as Nokor Bachey, (Bajay), in Kampong Cham Province while you will hear some Khmers referring to Nokor or Nokor Wat. Wat is widely used in Khmer, Lao and Thai and, of course, refers to a temple. Today this generally applies to a Buddhist monastery but can be employed for any religious structure and while a large number of late 12th century sanctuaries are Buddhist, the majority of monuments at Angkor, including Angkor Wat, began life as Hindu temples.

Angkor Wat therefore translates as Temple City but refers to just one of the hundreds of ancient sites in the region. Its main, central temple building is the largest in the Historical Park, the best-known and its silhouette and outline the most iconic. Indeed it is often cited as the World’s largest, single religious structure and even features on the Cambodian national flag. (Angkor, without the wat, gives its name to myriad hotels, restaurants and cafes while even the country’s best selling beer is named Angkor. So you can visit Angkor Wat at Angkor, stay in the Angkor Hotel and have dinner in an Angkor Restaurant while drinking a cold glass of Angkor.)

Whether Angkor Wat can be accurately described as a city as such is debatable and it is generally accepted to have been constructed as a mausoleum to King Suryavarman II. (c. 1113 to 1150.) The site was apparently dedicated to the god Vishnu – unusual as the majority of Hindu monuments at Angkor were Shivaite; both of which help to explain the also unusual western orientation of the structure. (Again, most sanctuaries face east.) West, as the direction of the setting sun, was associated with death – reflecting the mausoleum status – while Vishnu was considered to be the god of the west. (Indra was the god of the east which explains the proliferation of depictions of Indra above eastern doorways.)

The huge site you see today comprises the main temple itself and an enclosing wall with elaborate entrance gates or gopuras, beyond which is a surrounding moat.  The entire area, including the moat, covers some 2.1 square kilometres so huge for a temple but hardly large enough for an imperial capital. There were likely to have been outlying ‘suburbs’ for want of a better word, (see for example Kapilapura), but the majority of the buildings and habitations that filled the area between temple and outer wall were occupied by priests, temple workers, guards, royal dancing girls and administrative facilities.

The capital itself lay a short distance north at Angkor Thom. Thom means big or large in Khmer so simply ‘Big City’ and indeed, large as Angkor Wat is, Angkor Thom’s 9 square kilometres easily eclipses it. Although again, sprawling suburbs and outlying villages stretched for considerable distances in every direction, the walled central area would have corresponded to the city’s downtown and would have formed the commercial and administrative centre as well as including the royal palace complex.  The city, known at the time as Yasodharapura, (in honour of its early 10th century founder King Yasovarman I), was protected by an 8 metre high wall with an enclosing 100m wide moat and featured 5 gates. (One for each of the cardinal directions although plus an additional ‘Victory Gate‘ to the east.)

Angkor Thom and its immediate vicinity formed the site of successive capitals from the time of Yasovarman up until the city’s final abandonment in the 15th century, including the reign of Angkor Wat’s founder Suryavarman II. As we said, it sometimes shifted a bit south or slightly east with, for instance, Yasovarman’s original city being centered around Phnom Bahkeng which lies a short distance south of Angkor Thom’s south gate and Jayavarman V’s and Rajendravarman II’s located slightly to the east in the area of what became the Eastern Baray.  The version of Angkor Thom we see today, including its renowned centrepiece royal temple of Bayon, dates from the late 12th, early 13th century reign of the Buddhist monarch Jayavarman VII.

So Angkor Wat is merely (actually, merely probably isn’t appropriate in association with Angkor Wat) the single giant religious structure we see south of Angkor Thom and, along with the numerous sanctuaries found within the latter’s walls such as Bayon, Baphuon, Phimeanakas et al is just one of hundreds of temples in the greater Angkor area.

While Angkor Wat is the best known and largest site, we’ve found on many of our Cambodia tours, that it isn’t necessarily everyone’s favourite. Bayon with its enigmatic and iconic faces if often up there as is Ta Phrom Temple with the famous sprawling roots while Preah Khan’s atmospheric labyrinth of shrines and corridors is often cited as a highlight. There are myriad additional temples, some of which receive almost no visitors but some of which make for tranquil and picturesque destinations (see our 10 lesser-visited Angkor temples post), while some of the largest and most impressive – including World Heritage Preah Vihear, Koh Ker and Banteay Chhmar – are not even in Siem Reap Province. They are Angkor-period temples but nowhere near Angkor, while the largest of all, dwarfing even Angkor Thom, is rarely visited Prasat Bakan, (or Preah Khan of Kampong Svay), in Preah Vihear Province.

To finish on a lighter note, we’ll draw your attention to one of Cambodia’s best-known and best-named bars, the long-standing Angkor What? on Siem Reap’s Pub Street where you can, of course, order yourself a pint of chilled Angkor after a steamy day at the temples.