Phnom Penh

About

Phnom Penh is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since 1865 and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its political, economic, industrial, and cultural centre. The city's name derives from Wat Phnom, a Buddhist temple, and Lady Penh, the city's founder. It sits at the confluence of the Tonlé Sap and Mekong rivers, and is the start of the Bassac River. It is also the seat of Cambodia's monarchy, based at the Royal Palace.

Summary excerpted from the Wikipedia article Phnom Penh, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text may be clipped or paraphrased to fit this page.

Why visit

Visit Phnom Penh for music, theater, and performance, religious and civic architecture, landscape, water, gardens, and nearby routes. In Phnom Penh, the strongest material is where museums, streets, religious buildings, markets, performance spaces, food, or nearby landscapes explain the surrounding region. A good itinerary should stay selective. For Phnom Penh, choose the anchor first; the cafe, market, church, gallery, or evening event should follow from that location. That restraint helps Phnom Penh feel like a place rather than a sequence of obligations. When Phnom Penh opens onto beaches, hills, rivers, gardens, or nearby towns, add them only when they sharpen the trip.

When to avoid

Do not visit Phnom Penh expecting every useful stop to be close together or easy to improvise. A route through Phnom Penh works best when opening days, transport, weather, and distance are treated as cultural logistics, not afterthoughts. In Phnom Penh, it is better to build a tight route than to rely on long transfers between secondary stops. If the main interest is one nearby site, it may be better to treat Phnom Penh as a base rather than the whole destination.

The next week in Phnom Penh

7-day forecast from Open-Meteo. UV badges flag days when sun protection matters (3 and above is moderate; 8 and above is risk territory for unprotected fair skin within 30 minutes).

Year-round climate

Monthly highs, lows, and rainfall (long-term averages, NASA POWER).

Airports near Phnom Penh

1 commercial airport within 100 km. Closest is Techo International Airport (KTI) at 22 km.

Getting around Phnom Penh

Public-transit operators within 8 km of the city center. Click through to each operator’s site for routes, fares, and tickets.

Operators and modes aggregated by TransitLand from individual transit-agency GTFS feeds. Route classifications (subway / tram / rail / bus / etc) come from each feed’s GTFS route_type codes.