GEOGRAPHY

With a land of 181.035 square kilometers Cambodia is one of the smallest country in of Indochina peninsula. Most of the land area is arable for agriculture, especially lowland along sides of Mekong and Tonle Sap riverbank. The Country shares border, West and Southwest with Thailand, East and Southeast with Vietnam, the Northern with Lao PDR. The Cambodian coastline is 435 km long, close to the gulf of Thailand. The Country is known as the largest river fish products from the Tonle Sap (Great Lake), and Great Mekong River.

TOPOGRAPHY

Forests cover about half of the Cambodian territory; nevertheless the illegal loggings continue to decrease this surface. Water or swamps cover about 10% of the land, the remaining 40% of the country's territory is arable, even if not all cultivated nowadays.


The fertility of the alluvial plain, situated at the banks of the Mekong River explains that this region is still the most populated of the country. The constant flooding are used are an irrigation method and are ideal for the cultivation of rice, which is the main crop of the country. Most of the central plain is gently rolling land, while in the south the plain becomes flatter, below the capital city of Phnom Penh.

The northern part of Cambodia close to the Thai border is a sandstone escarpment that runs in an east-west direction for over 300 kilometers and ranges in height from 180 to 550 meters. The Southern land, close to the Gulf of Thailand, is the costal area of the country and had become a vital economic area with the installment of the only seaport of the country in Kompong Som (or Sihanoukville).

In the southeast of Cambodia lies a highland region formed by two mountains ranges; the first one is the granite Cardamom Mountains, which rise up to 1,500 Meters, the second is the Elephant mountains, which form a barrier between the lowlands of the central plain and the coastal region. In the northeast, another mountainous region, formed by the eastern highlands, and held by the hill tribes is still undeveloped compared to the rest of the country. These reach up to 900 meters.

THE MEKONG RIVER

With its source in China, the Mekong River flows down to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and finally to Vietnam. A 600 km stretch of the river crosses Cambodia from north to the south. At Phnom Penh the Mekong River divides into 4 branches: the Upper Mekong, the Lower Mekong, Tonle Sap and Tonle Bassac. During the wet season water flows from the Mekong to Tonle Sap, and during the dry season the water reverses direction and flows back to the Mekong and out to sea.

TONLE SAP LAKE

The Tonle Sap has abundant supplies of fresh water fish. For centuries the people of the Great Lake have been able to catch fish providing the Khmer people with their major source of sustenance. For keen bird-watchers, the aquatic habitat attracts thousand of birds, which flock to the wetlands before the rains begin in June. Fish species inhabiting the lake include carp, catfish (weighing up to 135kg), mussels, herring, climbing perch and gourami.
On the banks of the mighty Great Lake and Mekong Rivers, people have celebrated for over two hundred years the changing of the river's flow. During the rainy season the Tonle Sap River reverses direction, flooding the lake, and increasing its size almost tenfold, making it the largest body of fresh water in Southeast Asia.

During the flooding, water engulfs the surrounding forest, regulating agricultural production by ensuring that the countryside is covered with fresh, fertile silt for rice cultivation. The silt deposited by the Mekong River makes agriculture in Cambodia an important and high yielding activity.

The natural wonder of the Tonle Sap offers visitors an insight into the century-old traditions of riparian life and the natural splendor of the country. A half-day boat trip on the Great Lake, with its fishing villages and great views is a very popular excursion from Siem Reap.

CLIMATE

The Country's climate is close from other Countries in Southeast Asia; it is dominated by the monsoon, which are known as tropical wet and dry because of the distinctly marked seasonal difference. In summer, moisture-laden air of the southwest monsoon is drawn land ward from the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Thailand. The southwest monsoon brings the rainy season from mid May to mid-September or to early October, and the northeast monsoon that flows drier and cooler air lasts from early November to March and then hotter air prevails in April and early May.

Temperature are fairly uniform throughout the Tonle Sap Basin area, with only small variations from the average annual mean is about 25oC. The maximum mean is about 28oC and the minimum mean about 22oC. Maximum temperatures of higher than 32oC are common and just before the start of the rainy season they may rise to more than 38oC. Minimum temperatures rarely fall below 10oC. January is the coolest month and April is the warmest month.

Typhoons-tropical cyclones- that often devastated coastal Vietnam, rarely cause damages in Cambodia. The total annual rainfall average is between 100 and 150 centimeters, and the heaviest amounts fall in the southeast. Rainfall from April to September in the Tonle Sap Basin and Mekong low lands area averages 130 to 190 centimeters annually, but the amount varies considerably from year to year. The rainfalls around the rivers basin increase with elevation. It is heavier in the mountains along the coasts in the southwest, which receive from 250 to more than 500 centimeters of precipitation annually as southwest monsoon reaches the coast. This area is of the greatest rainfall, however. Drains mostly to the sea, only a small quantity goes into river flowing in the basin. The relative humidity unusually exceeds 90%. During the daytime in the dry season, humidity averages about 50% or slightly lower. But it may remain about 60% in the rain period.

FAUNA