Kampong Chhnang Province

Kampong Chhnang exists because clay exists beneath the Golden Mountain. For over 1,500 years, potters in villages like Ondong Rossey have shaped vessels from the Krang Dei Meas deposits—a craft so defining that the province's name translates to "Port of Pottery." When Chinese envoy Zhou Taquan sailed toward Angkor Thom in 1296, he noted this river point selling ceramics, stoves, and earthenware. Nearly every household in the pottery villages still works clay today, though annual incomes often reach only $300.

The province's deeper identity lies in water. Positioned along the Tonlé Sap River, 30 kilometers south of the great lake, Kampong Chhnang feeds Cambodia from two directions: fishing from the lake's rich waters and rice from floodplains so fertile UNESCO designated them a biosphere reserve in 1997. Over 80% of the population depends on these twin harvests. The Kompong Luong floating village—houses, schools, markets bobbing on the water—embodies a way of life that rises and falls with the Tonlé Sap's seasonal pulse, the world's largest freshwater fishery that reverses direction twice yearly.

Today's economy adds textile factories to the ancient trades, but Kampong Chhnang remains defined by what geography provides: clay for pottery, water for fish, silt for rice. The same forces that made Zhou Taquan stop here in the 13th century still structure life in the 21st—a province whose identity was fixed when the first potter discovered the Golden Mountain's clay. By 2026, rising Tonlé Sap temperatures and upstream dams will test whether this 1,500-year equilibrium holds.