Cambodia
POPULATION 12,775,324
THERAVADA BUDDHIST 89 percent
MAHAYANA BUDDHIST 5 percent
MUSLIM 3 percent
OTHER 3 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
The Kingdom of Cambodia lies on the northeastern shore of the Gulf of Thailand in Southeast Asia and is bordered by Thailand to the west and northwest, Laos to the northeast, and Vietnam to the east and southeast. The greatest concentrations of population and economic activity are on the flood plains of the Mekong and Sab Rivers, which flow from Laos and the Tonle Sap lake, respectively, toward southern Vietnam and the South China Sea, merging in the vicinity of Phnom Penh. Some 75 percent of Cambodia's population is involved in agriculture, mostly in the cultivation of rice. Theravada Buddhism is the traditional religion of nearly all of the country's farmers. As in neighboring countries, however, Buddhism is mixed with spirit practice. Hindu-Brahmanist traditions, which preceded Theravada Buddhism, still capture the popular imagination and figure in court rituals as well as in healing practices and localized cults. The cataclysmic period from 1975 to 1979, when the country (then called Democratic Kampuchea) was controlled by the radical communist Khmer Rouge movement under Pol Pot, drastically transformed all aspects of Cambodian society, including religion, and the country is still recovering from its effects.
