City · The Khmer empire of Jayavarman VII · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Angkor Thom

Khmer seat, the capital.

The walled city is three kilometres square inside a laterite wall and a wide moat (board), with five gates carrying face towers and the Bayon and its face towers at the centre. The inscriptions still call the capital Yasodharapura; the name Angkor Thom (the great city) is later. Jayavarman VII is old, aged about seventy-eight by inference, and he has been king for eighteen years.

The Cham fleet took the capital in 1177; the king rebuilt it after 1181, and a wall and gates as a defence against another sack is a common reading. The Bayon, the Buddhist state temple at the centre, has no dated inscription: art history puts it after 1191 and its building across the 1190s to the 1210s, so on 1 January 1200 it is under way. The campaign board says the outer gallery is being carved with the war against the Cham.

The older monuments inside the walls (the Baphuon of the 11th century, Phimeanakas) are kept up. The city draws on the fish of the Tonle Sap landed at Phnom Krom, the sandstone of Kulen, the rice of the Battambang plain and the endowed servants of the great foundations. The Khmer capital is the greatest city in Southeast Asia at this date; no figure of its people is given by any source we read.

Who holds it

Name
Jayavarman VII, through his court (see the king's record)
Title
King of Angkor (lord of the city)
Since
not known
Born
not known
Family
not known
Confidence
high for the king, medium for the building programme

English Wikipedia (Jayavarman VII; Bayon; Angkor), French Wikipedia (Jayavarman VII), Higham, Jacques and Lafond; the campaign board for the layout.

Lord in 1200

Jayavarman VII, through his court (see the king's record)

Overlord

None: this is the capital of the empire.

What the town holds

Rebuilt by Jayavarman VII after the Cham sack of 1177 and his coronation in 1181.

Allies and rivals

The Brahmin and Buddhist courts, the foundations of Ta Prohm (1186) and Preah Khan (1191).

How things stand that morning

At the height of its building; the Bayon under way, the walls standing (probably), the hospital chapels and rest houses in service. Nothing is dated to 1199 or 1200.

Wealth

Rice, fish, the endowed villages of the foundations (stele claims), river and road tolls (no figure).

Military

The king's guard, the officers' households and levies; the army's position in the Cham war is not known.

Threats

  • The old king's death (about 1218, range 1218 to 1220) and a disputed succession
  • Another Cham raid by water (the 1177 precedent)

Council

No town council. The court: the king, the queens' households, the chief priest Hrishikesha and the royal guru, the ministers and officers.

Communities

Khmer; Brahmin and Buddhist clergy; the endowed servants of the foundations (the stele of Ta Prohm of 1186 gives 79,365 people and 3,140 villages, the stele of Preah Khan of 1191 a total of its own that we did not re-read: the king's claims, not counts); traders from China, India, Cham and Malay lands (not documented for 1200).

Fairs and markets

None known for 1200 (Zhou Daguan describes a daily market only in 1296).

Militia

The king's guard and levies from the endowed villages; no numbers.

Walls and castle

Laterite wall about 3 km on a side and a wide moat; gates with face towers; the Bayon at the centre. The wall has no dated inscription.

Trade and crafts

Fish, rice, salt, iron, sandstone, laterite, forest goods; the royal workshops (not located).

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. 1203A Khmer army takes Vijaya; Champa becomes a Khmer province.Depends on: The Cham war continuing and the king still strong. Stopped by: A truce, a Cham victory, or the king's incapacity.
  2. about 1218 (range 1218 to 1220)Jayavarman VII dies; Indravarman II succeeds.Depends on: Natural death of the old king. Stopped by: Nothing in play can stop it before it happens.

Places of note

  • The Bayon: Buddhist state temple, under way.
  • Baphuon: Hindu state temple of the 11th century.
  • Phimeanakas: Temple beside the royal palace enclosure.

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board entry angkor-thom-bayon: 'secure' and 'the Bayon is unfinished on 1 January'. Agreed, as 'under way'; no year is given for the Bayon.
  • The campaign board entry angkor-thom-bayon: 'the greatest city in Southeast Asia'. A comparison, not a count; no source we read gives a number.

Evidence: Monuments and stelae are firm; the building dates of the wall and the Bayon are art-historical.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: The tierra is the temple plain round the city and its barays.

Primary sources for Khmer empire

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • The Abridged History of Viet, Anonymous (attributed by some to Su Hy Nhan) (about 1377, probably as an abridgement of Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272). The oldest surviving Vietnamese history, a century older than the Complete Annals and in places fuller for the Ly dynasty, which fills its second and third books.
  • The Complete Annals of Dai Viet, Ngo Si Lien, drawing on Le Van Huu's Dai Viet su ky (1272) and Phan Phu Tien; continued by Pham Cong Tru and Le Hi (1479; printed 1697 in the standard Chinh Hoa edition). The main narrative source for Dai Viet in 1200, compiled in 1479 from Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272. Read online
  • The later Tai, Lao and Mon chronicles of the north, Ratanapanna (Jinakalamali); Bodhiramsi (Chamadevivamsa); anonymous monks and court scribes (the Chamadevivamsa about 1410; the Jinakalamali 1516 to 1528; the Chiang Mai Chronicle in its surviving form 1827; the Nithan Khun Borom 16th to 17th century). There is no text of 1200 for the Mon kingdom of Haripunjaya, the Tai muang of Ngoenyang (Chiang Saen), Chiang Rung, the Yom and Nan valleys, or the Lao middle Mekong.
  • History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
  • History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
  • Corpus of the Inscriptions of Campa (EFEO and ISAW), Various (the Cham kings and their officers), edited by Arlo Griffiths, Amandine Lepoutre, William Southworth and Thanh Phan (inscriptions of the 4th to 15th centuries; the online corpus from 2012). The online edition of the Cham inscriptions, with photographs, texts and translations, keyed to the C. numbers. Read online
  • The Inscriptions of Cambodia, Various (the Khmer kings and their officers), edited by George Coedes (inscriptions of the 6th to 14th centuries; edited 1937 to 1966). The Khmer empire of 1200 is known almost entirely from the great foundation stelae of Jayavarman VII (reigning from 1181), which Coedes edited: the Ta Prohm stele of 1186 (K. Read online
  • The Sanskrit inscriptions of Cambodia and Champa (ISCC), Various (Khmer and Cham kings), edited by Auguste Barth and Abel Bergaigne (inscriptions of the 7th to 12th centuries; edited 1885 to 1893). The founding edition of Khmer and Cham Sanskrit epigraphy, public domain and online, which Coedes's later corpus supersedes but does not replace. Read online

5 more in the sources library for Mainland Southeast Asia.

Sources and studies

  1. English Wikipedia, Angkor Thom
  2. English Wikipedia, Bayon
  3. English Wikipedia, Jayavarman VII
  4. French Wikipedia, Jayavarman VII
  5. Higham, The Civilization of Angkor (2001)
  6. Jacques and Lafond, The Khmer Empire (River Books, 2007)
  7. OMNIA board notes for the Khmer and Lao area (a lead, not a source)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.