Koh Ker
Cambodia · Preah Vihear · 100 m
Description
Koh Ker (កោះកេរ្តិ៍) was the capital of the Khmer empire for barely thirteen years, from 928 to 941, when Jayavarman IV moved the court away from Angkor to this remote plain. Inscriptions call the city Lingapura. Its state temple, Prasat Thom, ends in a sandstone-faced pyramid of seven tiers that rises thirty-six metres from a base fifty-five metres wide, a form found nowhere else in Khmer architecture and quite unlike the temple-mountains of Angkor. More than twenty other monuments lie scattered through dry forest around it, among them the collapsed towers of Prasat Pram with trees rooted in their summits and the great rectangular reservoir called the Rahal. The site was mined and looted for decades and was cleared only in the 2000s. UNESCO inscribed it in 2023, and it still receives a small fraction of Angkor's visitors.
Length of stay
Recommended length of stay: 1 day
Travel season
Best time to visit: December – January
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May
- Jun
- Jul
- Aug
- Sep
- Oct
- Nov
- Dec
Highlights
- Prasat Thom Pyramid (UNESCO)
- Pyramid Summit Viewpoint
- Prasat Krahom
- Prasat Pram
- Rahal Reservoir
- Prasat Neang Khmau
- Prasat Damrei
- Prasat Chrap
- Prasat Leung
- Beng Mealea(Day trip)
- Prasat Balang
- Dry Forest Trails