Cambodia is a nation in Southeast Asia with a long southern coast on the Gulf of Thailand. Cambodia shares borders with Vietnam to the east, Laos to the north, and Thailand to the west.

Between the 11th and 14th centuries, present-day Cambodia was encompassed by the powerful Khmer Empire which ruled much of Southeast Asia from its capital at Angkor. Today, the haunting ruins of Angkor Wat, located just outside the town of Siem Reap, are Cambodia's most revered attraction and a World Heritage Site. In the 20th century Cambodia remained part of the French colony of French Indochina until it achieved national independence in 1953. Its government destabilized as a result of the Vietnam War, the nation fell under the control of the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, engaged in a campaign of genocide and murder of intellectuals and urban-dwellers from which Cambodia has never fully recovered. Today, Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in the world, although foreign investment and tourism has been increasing steadily since the 1990s.