Ordnance Survey – Great Britain's national mapping agency

New map unveils secrets of Angkor Wat

17 August 2007

An archipelago of ancient urban settlements around the great medieval temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia has been revealed, thanks to new detailed mapping technology.

NASA satellites were used to show that there were at least 74 temples and a number of complex irrigation systems around the former city.

As well as being home to its famous temple, Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire and flourished between the 9th and 14th centuries.

Published in the journal PNAS, the map increased the size of the known settlement by around 1 000 square kilometres.

It was produced by an international team of researchers from Cambodia, Australia and France, using ground surveys, airborne photography and ground-sensing radar from NASA’s AIRSAR flying laboratory. 

The research also revealed that the city had a self-destructive streak.

‘We saw signs that embankments had been breached and of ad hoc repairs to bridges and dams, suggesting that the system became unmanageable over time,’ Damian Evans of the University of Sydney and one of the authors of the paper and map told the A.F.P® news agency. ‘Angkor was extensive enough, and the agricultural exploitation intensive enough, to have created a number of very serious environmental problems,’ he added.

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