The sight is located within Angkor. To prepare for your visit, read the AsiaExplorers Angkor Travel Guide for useful information. Visitors to Angkor stay at the town of Siem Reap. If you are looking for budget accommodation in Siem Reap, use the Cambodia Budget Accommodation Guide to find a place to stay.
Late 12th Century (circa 1181AD)
by King Jayavarman VII
Angkor Thom means
"Great City"
Angkor Thom, the capital of Jayavarman VII, the greatest ancient Khmer king, is an ancient Khmer city just north of Angkor Wat. The dimensions of Angkor Thom is simply mind boggling. It is a square piece of walled up area measuring a massive 360 acres (9 sq km!) and surrounded by a gigantic moat. Each side of Angkor Thom is three kilometres long. The moat surrounding the outer wall is 100 metres wide. But what makes the first sight of Angkor Thom so awesome are the causeways.
There are five entrances into Angkor Thom, four in each cardinal direction, north, south, east and west, while the fifth, called the Victory Gate, leads eastwards from the Angkor Thom Royal Palace grounds. Each of these used to have a causeway leading towards it, but today only the south gate has water under it.
I was privileged to visit all the five gateways into Angkor Thom. If you are coming from Angkor Wat, your first sight of Angkor Thom will be the South Gate. It's the one closest to Siem Reap. The gate consists of a stone causeway that leads to a huge archway.
Angkor Thom Causeway, with the South Gopura in front
Angkor Thom Demons, in a scene from Churning the Ocean of Milk
The causeway is lined with stone figures. Count them. There are 54 stone Devas, or gods, on the left, and 54 stone Asuras, or demons, on the right. They are tugging on a naga. This awesome spectacle is a stone representation of the ancient Hindu creation myth, Churning of the Ocean of Milk, which is also depicted in Angkor Wat, while a very modern version is also seen in the Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport. I have to say that the Khmer versions at Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom are way more spectacular than that at Suvarnabhumi.
Which are the gods and which the demons? The gods have almond-shaped eyes, while the demons are grimacing and wearing conical helmets. If you observe them carefully, you will notice that they are pulling something. That something is a huge snake, or naga, with nine heads opened up like a fan.
The causeway takes you to a huge archway, called a gopura. It towers 23 metres (75 feet) high, and crowned with four massive stone faces, each facing a cardinal direction. At the base, on both sides of the gate are stone three-headed elephants. Their trunks are plucking lotus flowers - as though from the moat itself. The elephant is Erawan, also called Airavata in Khmer. It is a motif that you would come across repeatedly in Khmer and Thai religious designs. The Hindu god Indra sits at the centre of the elephant with his wives, each on each side.
As you walked though that huge archway, you are entering Angkor Thom, the city of King Jayavarman VII. Although many other Khmer kings built within Angkor Thom, it was Jayavarman VII who created it, around 1181, after he defeated the Cham kingdom. Jayavarman VII is recognised as the most prolific builder in Angkor history. Many of the temples in Angkor were built by him, but not Angkor Wat.
Angkor Thom is located to the northwest of Angkor Wat. By area, Angkor Thom is bigger than Angkor Wat; the difference is Angkor Thom consists of a collection of ancient ruins whereas Angkor Wat is one single massive building. Angkor Thom includes many temples, terraces, as well as the royal palace - of which what remains are the walls and the royal ponds - all within a perfectly square area, bounded by high walls, and punctuated by the five entrance gateways, called Gopuras. It is indeed, as its name imply, a great ancient city.
At the time that Angkor Thom was built, it was grander than any city in Europe. According to historians, Angkor Thom must have supported a population exceeding one million, making it bigger than the total population of London and Paris combined, at its time.
There is so much still to describe of Angkor Thom and the ruins within in, so I shall break them into different pages. From here, you can visit the different gates simply by clicking on the thumbnails listed below.
Click thumbnail to visit the Gateways into Angkor Thom.
South Gate
Victory Gate
North Gate
East Gate
West Gate
There are many ruins within Angkor Thom. I have visited the majority of them, and listed them here, so that you can explore from the convenience of your desktop.
Click thumbnail to visit the various ruins within Angkor Thom.
Angkor Thom is one big area within which are many more significant temple ruins. The three main directions that you can enter Angkor Thom is from the south, east and north. The main entrance to Angkor Thom is its South Gate, located 1.7km north of the main entrance to Angkor Wat. The eastern approach to Angkor Thom is via the Victory Gate (the East Gate appears to reach a dead end, in comparison). The Victory Gate is 1km west of Ta Keo. From the north, Angkor Thom is 1.6km from Preah Khan.
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