Heritage site
Choeung Ek
ជើងឯក
Choeung Ek (ជើងឯក) is a genocide memorial in Dangkao, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, built over the mass graves of a former orchard.[1][2] Officially the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, it is known as the Killing Fields, and in 2025 it became part of the UNESCO World Heritage property Cambodian Memorial Sites.[3][4]
History
Choeung Ek was a former orchard about 17 kilometers (11 miles) south of Phnom Penh. It had also served as a Chinese cemetery.[4][5] The Khmer Rouge used it as an execution and burial site. Wikipedia gives the years as 1977 to 1979, while other sources give the full period of Democratic Kampuchea (1975 to 1979).[1][4][2] Most victims were transported there from the Tuol Sleng detention center, also known as S-21, executed, and buried in mass graves.[1][6]
Choeung Ek was part of a wider system of Khmer Rouge repression that included the emptying of Cambodia's cities and the forced relocation of urban residents to agricultural work.[7] It is one of an estimated 500 killing fields in Cambodia.[8] The site was selected partly because its distance from Phnom Penh and surrounding trees offered privacy, while its existing use as a Chinese cemetery and orchard provided an established rural setting.[7]
Electricity enabled guards to illuminate the grounds at night and consult execution lists, while loudspeakers played revolutionary music over the surrounding area to cover the cries of the victims.[7][9] Prisoners were generally brought from Tuol Sleng in trucks at night before their names were checked against lists and they were taken in small groups to prepared pits.[7] To save bullets, guards were ordered to kill with pickaxes, hammers or machetes.[1][10] The victims included men, women, children and babies.[9]
Estimates of the number killed at Choeung Ek differ. Wikipedia and the International Center for Transitional Justice give up to or about 20,000, and History Hit and a Cambodian tour guide give about 17,000.[1][8][11][10] A study of remembrance at the two sites counts more than 12,000 people killed in the S-21 and Choeung Ek process.[12]
After the Khmer Rouge was toppled in 1979, mass graves were unearthed and thousands of remains were exhumed.[1][6] Accounts of the discovery differ: one says a villager found the site early in 1979, another that Vietnamese forces found the graves in 1980.[10][8] Officials from Kandal Province documented 8,985 exhumed people in 1979 or 1980, and History Hit gives more than 9,000 in 1980.[1][8][11] The remains were treated with chemicals so that they could be kept and shown in a memorial.[8]
The Vietnamese forces who took Phnom Penh decided to make Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng national memorials.[12] Cambodian ministerial and municipal authorities built the memorial in 1988, with explanations of the site's history.[8] The memorial also served to support the standing of the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea government.[1][12]
Choeung Ek was one of the sites investigated in Case 001 of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, in the proceedings against Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch. The tribunal, set up in 2006, brought new national and international attention to the site.[12]
Architecture and layout
The memorial stupa was built in 1988 and is identified as a Buddhist stupa standing 62 meters (203 feet) high.[7][10] It is a white structure of 17 stories in Khmer style, with a square base and a pointed roof.[10] The central stupa has glass panels and vertical tiers containing recovered skulls and bones arranged within the memorial structure.[5] It holds more than 5,000 skulls, arranged by age and sex, and many are shattered.[4][10]
The site covers about 20,000 square meters (5 acres).[10] The grounds include at least 129 identified mass graves, while 86 of them have been left untouched.[7] The mass graves varied considerably in size, including one grave that contained as many as 450 people.[7] Marked pits, simple signs, paths and wooden walkways guide visitors through the former orchard and cemetery landscape.[5] A century-old tree once held a loudspeaker, and visitors now leave bracelets at its base in remembrance. Another tree, the "children's tree," recalls the fate of the youngest prisoners.[10] A small interpretation space presents objects recovered from the site alongside archival photographs and testimonies from survivors and former guards.[13]
Significance and conservation
The site commemorates victims of the Cambodian genocide.[1] In Khmer Buddhism, death by violent acts is viewed unfavorably because tradition states that the spirits of the dead may remain at the site and be prevented from reincarnation.[1] Survivors and relatives of victims hold remembrance rituals linked to the site.[12] A memorial ceremony is held at the stupa every year on May 9, attended by survivors, their relatives, officials and other Cambodians.[11][10]
Choeung Ek forms one component of the UNESCO serial property Cambodian Memorial Sites: From Centres of Repression to Places of Peace and Reflection, together with the former M-13 prison and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.[3] The property was inscribed on July 11, 2025, under Criterion (vi), as testimony to the crimes of the Khmer Rouge and to the resilience of Cambodian people. It was Cambodia's fifth World Heritage inscription, after Angkor, the Temple of Preah Vihear, Sambor Prei Kuk and Koh Ker.[3] UNESCO and Cambodia's Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts are implementing conservation, digitization, education and outreach initiatives across the three sites.[3] The management plan for 2024 to 2028 links site protection with sustainable tourism, community participation and heritage education.[3] On June 25, 2025, a new LED screen and a renovated video room opened at the center under the PEACE Project Phase II, with support from KOICA.[2]
Since the Municipality of Phnom Penh entered into a 30-year agreement with JC Royal Co. in 2005, the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center has been managed by the JC Royal Company, a Japanese company also responsible for maintenance of the roads to the center. The memorial was constructed by Cambodian authorities.[1][6] JC Royal set up a nonprofit to run the site, with the municipality approving all initiatives. It awarded scholarships to 30 students in 2005 and 2006 and to 120 in 2007 and 2008.[8] Some scholars, such as Brigitte Sion in 2011, have argued that government memorials such as Choeung Ek serve political standing and profit.[12] After heavy rainfall, small fragments of bone and clothing may surface, and site personnel collect them to prevent disturbance.[13][5]
Visiting
Choeung Ek is a popular tourist attraction in Phnom Penh. In 2007, 300 to 400 people visited the site per day during the low season, increasing to 400 to 600 people per day during the high season.[1][6] By 2009 it was one of the five or six most visited sites around Phnom Penh.[8] Admission usually includes an audio guide in several languages, with about 20 stops, and a visit takes about 1.5 to 2 hours.[10] The audio tour includes an account by a former guard.[11] Many visitors see Tuol Sleng first and Choeung Ek afterward.[10]
The site is open daily in daylight hours. Visitors are asked to cover shoulders and knees and to avoid smiling selfies.[10] Most sources put the site about 17 kilometers (11 miles) from central Phnom Penh, while History Hit and the International Center for Transitional Justice give about 10 kilometers (6 miles).[1][4][11][8] A road paved between 2004 and 2008 with Asian Development Bank funding made it about half an hour by tuk-tuk.[8] The journey takes about 45 minutes by tuk-tuk depending on traffic, and some shuttle buses serve the site.[10][11]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Wikipedia
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 UNESCO, From Remembrance to Resilience: Choeung Ek Genocidal Center (2025-06-26)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 UNESCO, UNESCO Congratulates Cambodia on the Inscription of Its ... (2025-07-11)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Ministry of Tourism, Cambodia, Choeung Ek killing field memorial
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 ad-hoc-news.de, Choeung Ek memorial stupa at Phnom Penh’s killing fields (2026-08-28)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 UNESCO
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Choeung Ek - Wikipedia (2002-09-13)
- ↑ 8.00 8.01 8.02 8.03 8.04 8.05 8.06 8.07 8.08 8.09 International Center for Transitional Justice, Cambodia's Legacy of Genocide at Choeung Ek (PDF, 2009)
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Trip.com, Travel Guide for Choeung Ek Genocidal Center (2025-11-29)
- ↑ 10.00 10.01 10.02 10.03 10.04 10.05 10.06 10.07 10.08 10.09 10.10 10.11 10.12 tour-cambodia.com, Choeung Ek killing fields: practical guide - Nomadays - Seripheap (2026-03-27)
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 History Hit, Choeung Ek Killing Fields - History and Facts (2020-11-24)
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 IRASEC, OpenEdition Books, Remembering the Dead of Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek (2013-01-17)
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 tour-cambodia.com, Choeung Ek killing fields: practical guide - Nomadays - Seripheap (2026-03-27)