Asian Country
Cambodia
Country
landscape and capital
Cambodia is an south-east Asian country, slightly smaller than Victoria. Central plains are surrounded by densely forested mountains, the gulf (a large inlet of an ocean) of Thailand is to the south. The capital city of Cambodia is Phenom Penh. Fun fact: In the year 2008 Pheom Penh's population was 13,388,910 people.
Cambodia's major water sources are Mekong River and Tonle Sap (Great Lake)
Geography
Climate
The tropical climate combines a mixture of dry and wet season. Dry season goes from November-May and wet season goes from May-November. during wet season there are monsoonal or heavy rains. Rainfall variations can result in periodic droughts or floods
dry season
the skinny cows are trying to get what ever they can find to survive the dry season
wet season
people are trying to get to where they have to go in the heavy rain
the flag
this is the Cambodian flag
People
Population/Religion
A majority of cambodias 14.5 million people live in rural (found in or living in the country)
areas. The national language is khmer. Over 95% of cambodians are buddists. Under the Khmer Rouge(a political party) (1975-78)all religious practice was banned. In 1979 biddism was reinstated as the official religion.
Cutoms/Beliefs
In Khmer culture a person's head is believed to contain the person's soul therefore making it tabbo to touch or point one's feet at it. It is also considered to be extremely disrespectful to use the feet to point out a person, or to sit or sleep with the soles of the feet pointing at a person, as the feet are the lowest part of the body and are considered to be impure.
Language
The Cambodian language, more properly known as Khmer or the Mon-Khmer language, has played an important role in the development of many Southeast Asian languages. Modern Cambodian is spoken in present-day Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, and the widespread influence of the Old Khmer language in the time of the Khmer Empire’s reign is still evident in the region to this day.The word “Khmer” is used to refer not only to the official Cambodian language but also to the ethnic Cambodian population. Approximately 90 percent of Cambodia’s inhabitants are ethnic Khmer; the rest are mostly of Vietnamese or Chinese origin. A number of semi-nomadic tribal groups can also be found in the country.
History Highlights
The Khmer people were among the first inhabitants of South East Asia. They were also among the first in South East Asia to adopt religious ideas and political institutions from India and to establish centralized kingdoms comprising large territories. The earliest known kingdom in the area, Funan, flourished from around the first to the 6th century.
Economy
Agriculture, includes fishing and forestry, employs nearly 755 of the population. Rice and rubber are the man export crops. About 85% of cultivatable land is devoted to rice and since most villages are close to water source, fishing is and important skill. Income is supplemented by raising life stock and growing fruit and vegetables.
Education
education recovery has been a high priority, with six years of primary education compulsory. However, levels of girls especially in secondary school, is poor. Teaches wages are low meaning the quality of the education is generally poor.
heath
The quality of health in Cambodia is rising. As of 2010, the life expectancy is 60 years for males and 65 years for females, a major improvement since 1999 when the average life expectancy was 49.8 and 46.8 respectively.[1] The Royal Cambodian Government plans to increase the quality of healthcare in the country by raising awareness of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
Living Conditions
home for many Cambodians are a small dwelling on stilts made of wood or bamboo, which often houses multi-generational families. The staple diet is rice and fish, which is often the only source of protein. Most people live villages of 100-400 families.
Natural Resources
Metals and Minerals
In general, Cambodia's mineral resources appear to be limited. In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, however, exploration by Chinese experts in Kampong Thum Province disclosed commercially exploitable deposits of iron ore amounting to about 5.2 million tons.
Hydroelectric Power
The country's hydroelectric generating potential is considerable, especially from the swift current of the middle Mekong River where it flows through Stoeng Treng and Kracheh provinces. Other sites of minor importance are on rivers in the highlands of the northeastern and north-central parts of the country.
Petrol
In late 1969, the Cambodian government granted a permit to a French company to explore for petrol in the Gulf of Thailand. By 1972 none had been located, and exploration ceased when the Khmer Republic fell in 1975.
Forestry
Another natural resource is the forests, which cover approximately 70 percent of the country and which potentially constitute a second pillar of the economy in addition to the primary one, agriculture. A survey in the 1960s disclosed that Cambodia had more than 13 million hectares of forests that contained many species of tropical growth and trees but not teak or other valuable sources of hardwood.
Environmental Issues
illegal logging activities throughout the country and strip mining for gems in the western region along the border with Thailand have resulted in habitat loss and declining biodiversity (in particular, destruction of mangrove swamps threatens natural fisheries); soil erosion; in rural areas, most of the population does not have access to potable water; declining fish stocks because of illegal fishing and overfishing