The Greatest UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Wonders in Cambodia
6 places · updated 6 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the greatest UNESCO-listed archaeological wonders in Cambodia are Angkor Wat, Bayon and Preah Vihear Temple. The list covers 6 UNESCO-listed archaeological wonders. Last updated 6 October 2026.
Cambodia's ancient monuments trace the rise of the Khmer world over some seven centuries, from the brick sanctuaries of the first kingdoms to the sandstone temple-mountains of Angkor. Khmer kings built each temple as a model of the cosmos, with towers standing for the peaks of Mount Meru and moats for the surrounding ocean, and they built on a scale few ancient societies matched. UNESCO has recognised not only Angkor but the capitals that came before and between, so the listed sites show the whole arc of the empire rather than its peak alone.
Angkor Wat, built for Suryavarman II in the 12th century and dedicated to Vishnu, is the largest religious monument on Earth and appears on the national flag. A short walk north, the Bayon at the heart of Angkor Thom bristles with towers carved with serene stone faces, raised under Jayavarman VII. Banteay Srei, small and built of pink sandstone, holds the finest carving of the Angkor period, commissioned by courtiers rather than a king.
Further afield, Preah Vihear climbs a clifftop of the Dângrêk Mountains in a chain of gateways ending at a sheer edge above the plain. Koh Ker, briefly the royal capital in the 10th century, is dominated by a seven-tiered pyramid rising from the forest. Sambor Prei Kuk, older still, preserves octagonal brick towers of Isanapura, capital of the pre-Angkorian kingdom of Chenla in the 7th century.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Angkor Wat | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 2 | Bayon | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 3 | Preah Vihear Temple | Temple | ✓ |
| 4 | Koh Ker | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 5 | Banteay Srei | Temple | ✓ |
| 6 | Sambor Prei Kuk | Archaeological site | ✓ |
01 Angkor Wat
Cambodia · 5.4 km from Siem Reap13.412° N 103.867° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by The_5ifth from Pixabay Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument on Earth and the one building every Cambodian knows. It appears on the national flag. King Suryavarman II commissioned it in the first half of the 12th century as the state temple of his capital, Yaśodharapura, and dedicated it to Vishnu. It was most likely also intended as his mausoleum.
Did you know? The temple was built from an estimated five to ten million sandstone blocks, the heaviest weighing about 1.5 tonnes.
02 Bayon
Cambodia · 8.3 km from Siem Reap13.441° N 103.859° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by patrickmoretti06 from Pixabay The Bayon stands at the exact centre of Angkor Thom, the walled capital built by King Jayavarman VII at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century, and it is the temple of faces. Its towers carry more than two hundred giant stone faces, smiling calmly in every direction: often read as the compassionate bodhisattva Lokeshvara, as the king himself, or as both.
Did you know? The name Bayon dates only from 1880, when French scholar Étienne Aymonier coined it, guessing it echoed Vaijayanta, the celestial palace of the god Indra.
03 Preah Vihear Temple
Cambodia14.391° N 104.680° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
PsamatheM · CC BY-SA 4.0 Preah Vihear is a temple built on the edge of the world as the Khmer knew it. It stands on a promontory of the Dângrêk Mountains where the escarpment breaks off in a sheer cliff some 525 metres above the Cambodian plain, and from the last terrace the land below stretches away to the horizon — a view that makes the setting as much a part of the monument as its stones.
Did you know? A stele inscribed around 1120 records that the royal guru Divakarapandita gave the temple a golden dancing Shiva and lined its floor with bronze plates.
04 Koh Ker
Cambodia13.783° N 104.533° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
PsamatheM · CC BY-SA 4.0 Rising out of the forest of northern Cambodia, the seven-tiered pyramid of Prang at Koh Ker stands 36 metres high on a base about 62 metres square, a stepped mountain of stone that once carried a colossal linga at its summit. For a brief and extraordinary moment in the 10th century this remote site was the capital of the Khmer Empire.
Did you know? An inscription records that the linga crowning the great pyramid stood roughly four and a half metres tall and that raising it caused great difficulty.
05 Banteay Srei
Cambodia · 28.4 km from Siem Reap13.599° N 103.963° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by DEZALB from Pixabay Banteay Srei is a small temple with an outsized reputation. Set in the countryside about 25 kilometres northeast of the main Angkor group, it was consecrated in 967, and unlike almost every other major monument of Angkor it was not built by a king but by two courtiers in the service of Rajendravarman II, Yajnavaraha and Vishnukumara.
Did you know? Its exact consecration date, 22 April 967, is known from a foundation stela found only in 1936; scholars had assumed the rich carving meant a later date.
06 Sambor Prei Kuk
Cambodia · 23.7 km from Kampong Thom12.867° N 105.040° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
PsamatheM · CC BY-SA 4.0 Sambor Prei Kuk is a forest of brick temples, scattered among the trees of central Cambodia, that predates Angkor by several centuries. Under its ancient name, Isanapura, it was the capital of the Chenla kingdom, and many of its sanctuaries were built in the 7th century. Octagonal brick towers stand among the trees, decorated with carved foliage, lion figures and rows of animals.
Did you know? Its ten octagonal temples are considered the oldest of their kind in Southeast Asia and have no known direct Indian precedent.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the greatest UNESCO-listed archaeological wonders in Cambodia?
- On our list, Angkor Wat ranks first, followed by Bayon and Preah Vihear Temple.
- Who built Angkor Wat?
- Angkor Wat was built in the first half of the 12th century for King Suryavarman II, as a temple to Vishnu and probably his funerary monument. It later became a Buddhist shrine and has never been entirely abandoned.
- Whose faces are carved on the towers of the Bayon?
- The identity of the faces is debated. They are often thought to represent the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, possibly with the features of King Jayavarman VII, who built the temple.
- Which Cambodian temples are older than Angkor?
- Sambor Prei Kuk is the best-known pre-Angkorian site: its brick temples were built in the 7th century as the capital of the Chenla kingdom, centuries before Angkor.
- How many UNESCO-listed archaeological wonders are on this list in Cambodia?
- The list covers 6 UNESCO-listed archaeological wonders.