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The Ancient Metropolis Of Angkor

Posted by: Nate Berg

15 August 2007 - 5:00am

New research is showing that the ancient Cambodian city of Angkor was once a sprawling and intricately irrigated metropolis of nearly one million people.

"The ancient Khmer city of Angkor in Cambodia was the largest preindustrial metropolis in the world, with a population near 1 million and an urban sprawl that stretched over an area similar to modern-day Los Angeles, researchers reported Monday."

"The city's spread over an area of more than 115 square miles was made possible by a sophisticated technology for managing and harvesting water for use during the dry season -- including diverting a major river through the heart of the city."

"But that reliance on water led to the city's collapse in the 1500s as overpopulation and deforestation filled the canals with sediment, overwhelming the city's ability to maintain the system, according to the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Full Story: Angkor was a city ahead of its time
Source: The Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2007
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Ankgor Correction

Submitted by Charles Siegel on Wed, 08/15/2007 - 11:55.

Note that the article corrects a statement in the Planetizen summary:

Correction: "The article also gave the area of the city as 115 square miles. It is 1,350 square miles"

That means that the density was about 1 person per acre, which presumably means that people who lived in this city raised much of their own food.

It also means that it probably would have been impossible to get across the city in a single day, with the transportation that existed at the time.

So it sounds a bit like a hybrid of urban economy (with high density to allow more trade) and rural economy (with low density to allow self-sufficiency in food).

Charles Siegel

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