The City of Angkor

Most people today wouldn’t be aware of the immensity of the city of Angkor, the capital of The Khmer Empire. At over 1,000 sq km, it would be equivalent of today’s modern cities and certainly one of the largest pre-industrial ever. 

To put into perspective, modern-day Tokyo, the largest city on earth is 2,194 sq kilometers, Los Angeles is 1,300 sq km, New York in the USA is about 780 sq 

The Victory Gate to Angkor Thom

km, London is 610 sq km, and Mumbai is just 157 sq km. 

While these cities today are large, it must be remembered that Angkor was already 1000 sq km a thousand years ago. At that time, most of these cities quoted were either hamlets or didn’t exist at all. The economics, logistics and lifestyles were vastly different then, and running a city that large without modern appliances would have a gargantuan  administrative job, and one that would have needed intellectual capital far higher than may be that of today!

As would be expected, there was a large water body created near the city, and many scholars put the reason for the demise of the city to the changes in the water supply. There were canals and roads in place even then, but perhaps their management wasn’t as good. Whatever it may be, what is left for us to see today is still very awe-inspiring, and not a little humbling. 

There are five gates to the city of Angkor Thom, which houses many of the other temples in a square form. The one shown here is the Victory Gate, where soldiers victorious in battle would enter the city; the other is the Gate of the Dead, for losing armies, and three others dot the four directions. 

The throbbing powerful dynamos that are the cities of today could well be like Angkor, a thousand years hence. Sobering, and inevitable, much as we would deny it.