Population
An estimated 85-90 percent of the
population lives in rural areas.
Ethnically the population consists of
about 90 percent Khmer, 5 percent each of
Chinese and Vietnamese and small numbers
of hill tribes (Chams and Burmese). Khmer is
the country's official language. It is spoken by
more than 95 percent of the population.
French, as a second Ian a is also spoken, mostly by older people.
English is more commonly spoken by the younger generation.
Cambodia's last national census was undertaken in i962. At that
time the population was 5.7 million. In 1992 the population was
estimated to be 9.0 million (52 percent women), giving a national
average population, density of 50 persons per km2. Currently, the
country has an estimated rate of population growth of between 2.5-
3.0 per-cent per annum (World Bank 1992). By Southeast Asian standards
this rate of population increase is high, and contrasts sharply with the
rate for Asia as a whole (1.85 percent in 1989/90).
The Cambodian population presents several
important features. First, due to the baby'
boom after 1979, it is a young population
with at least half (50% according to some
sources, more according to others) under 18
years of age now. Secondly, the proportion of
women in the adult population is high, 56%
of those who are 18 years old or more being
females. Also as a result of the war, there is a
rather high proportion of women-headed
household; at least 25% according to UNICEF.
Cambodia's urban population (10-15 percent
of the total) is principally located in two
centers: Phnom Penh and Battambang.
Phnom Penh has an estimated population of
1.0 million and an annual rate of growth of
3.5 percent. Regionally, the distribution of the
population is highly skewed towards:
(i) six provinces located in the central plains and
around the capital, which contain close to
60% of the total population;
(ii) the provinces of- Battambang and Banteay Meanchey
(previously part of Battambang) bordering Thailand in the west,
where over 10% of the total population resides; and
(iii) Svay Rieng province bordering Vietnam
in the southeast, With another 59'o
of the population.
In contrast,.
other provinces and in particular
Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri in the
north-east, which represent
between them over 13% of the
national territory but are not easily
accessible due to the lack of road
infrastructure., are very sparsely
populated (about 1% of the total
population). Thus 80-90% of the
population lives on., and derives its
income from, roughly 60,000 km2
of the country's lowland, or a third
of its total area.
Cambodia and Laos' populations are dwarfed
by those of Vietnam and Thailand, and
average population densities in the smaller
countries are much lower than in Vietnam.
Even the very densely populated areas in
Cambodia do not have such a concentration
of population as can be found in the Red
River and Mekong River Deltas in Vietnam.
The average population density of 50 persons
per km2, in turn, masks wide differences
among provinces ranging form 4 per km2 in
Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri to an average of
160 per kM2 in the central provinces, and
greater differences among districts,,
sometimes within the same province.
However, the average population density in
Battambang and Banteay Meanchey
provinces is lower (45 inhabitants per km2)
than the national average and contrasts with
236 per km2 in Kandal province around
Phnom Penh and 146 per km2 in Svay Rieng.
Table A. Population of Cambodia by Gender
1962 - 1993 (in million)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year Total Male Female
Population
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1962 5.7 - -
1970 6.8 - -
1981 6.7 3.1 3.6
1988 8.1 3.7 4.4
1989 8.3 3.8 4.5
1990 8.6 4.0 4.6
1991 8.8 4.1 4.7
1992 9.0 4.1 4.9
1993 9.3 4.3 5.0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table B. Population by Age Group and Gender, Cambodia: 1993
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AGE GROUP BOTH GENDER MALE FEMALE
NUMBER % NUMBER % NUMBER %
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 9,307,597 100.0 4,494,452 100.0 4,813,145 100.0
0-14 4,374,570 47.0 2,199,664 48.9 2,174,904 45.2
0- 4 1,768,443 19.0 896,600 19.9 87l,843 18.1
5-14 2,606,127 28.0 1,303,064 29.0 1,303,063 27.1
15-64 4,653,799 50.0 2,171,928 48.3 2,481,871 51.6
15-17 465,380 5.0 232,690 5.2 232,690 4.8
18-64 4,l88,419 45.0 l,939,238 43.1 2,249,181 46.7
65 and over 279,228 3.0 122,860 2.7 156,368 3.2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table C. Land Area, Population and Density by Province and Region: 1981 and 1993
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROVINCE LAND POPUAUON (IN THOUSAND) DENSITY(PERSON/Km2)
AND AREA
KEGION (IN/Km2) 1981 1993 1981 1993
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CAMBODIA 181,035* 6,682 9,307 37 51
I - Plain 25,069 3,6l3 5,0l8 144 200
Region
Phnom Penh 267 329 691 1,232 2,588
Kandal 3,591 720 893 201 249
Kompong 9,799 1,070 1,417 109 145
Chham
Svay Rieng 2,966 292 442 98 149
Prey Veng 4,883 672 900 138 184
Takeo 3,563 530 675 149 189
II - Tonle Sap 67,668 1,971 2,668 29 39
Region
Kompong Thom 13,8l4 379 498 27 36
Siem Reap/ Odar 15,271 477 589 31 39
Meanchey
Banteay 91937 - 414 - 42
Meanchey
Battambang 10,433 719 574 69 55
Pursat 12,692 175 270 14 21
Kompong 5,521 221 323 40 59
Chhnang
III - Coastal 17,237 432 670 25 39
Region
Sihanoukville 868 53 144 61 131
Kampot 5,209 354 482 68 93
Koh Kong 11,160 25 74 2 7
IV - Plateau 68,06l 666 951 10 14
and Mountain
Region
Kompong Speu 7,017 340 494 48 70
Preah Vihear 13,788 69 92 5 7
Stung Treng 11,092 39 71 4 6
Ratanak Kiri 10,782 45 67 4 6
Mondul Kiri 14,288 16 23 1 2
Kratie 11,094 157 204 14 18
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: * Including 3,000 km2of Tonle Sap Area
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOCIAL INDICATORS
The social sector picture in Cambodia
has improved since 1979, but the
country is still much behind its
neighbors in some of these aspects. Life
expectancy at birth has risen from 31 years in
1979 to 51 in 1992, equaling that of Laos and
the average of low-income countries, but still
much lower than in Vietnam (64) and
Thailand (69). The situation with respect to
infants and children under 5 is, however,
serious. Mortality rates for both groups (117
and 184 per thousand, respectively) are high
compared to other low-income countries,
including all three of Cambodia's immediate
neighbors.
There are sharp differences among estimates
of the adult literacy rate in Cambodia. The
Government states, and UNESCO and IFAD
agree., that about 709'o of the population is
literate. Significant strides have been made in
rehabilitating the education system, which
was entirely wiped cut between 1975 and
1979. IFAD reports that one in every four
Cambodians is now enrolled in some form of
schooling, formal or otherwise. The official
school enrollment rate in 1992 was 80%
overall, although it is much less in the rural
areas (as low as 30%) than in Phnom Penh or the
provincial centers. The differences in health and
sanitary conditions between urban and rural areas are
also very great. Only 50% of the rural population has
access to health services (80% in urban areas), 33% to safe
water (against 65% in the cities) and 8% to adequate
sanitation (819'o in urban areas).
ETHNIC COMPOSITION
The ethnic groups that constitute
Cambodian society possess a number
of economic and demographic
commonalities-for example, Chinese
merchants lived mainly in urban centers and
play middlemen in many economic cycles,
but they also preserve differences in their
social and cultural institutions. They were
concentrated mostly in central and in
southeastern Cambodia. The major
differences among these groups lie in social
organization, language, and religion. The
majority of the inhabitants of Cambodia are
settled in fairly permanent villages near the
major bodies of water in the Tonle Sap Basin-
Mekong Lowlands region. The contemporary
locations of major Khmer population centers
date back to antiquity according to
geographer Jacques Nepote. He points out
that contemporary Khmer Krom settlements
are located in the same areas as the ancient
site of Funan, and that the Khmer settlements
extending from Phnom Penh in a
southeastern direction are located where pre-
Angkorian archaeological sites are clustered.
The Khmer Loeu live in widely scattered
villages that are abandoned when the
cultivated land in the vicinity is exhausted.
The permanently settled Khmer and Cham
villages usually are located on or -near the
banks of a river or other bodies of water.
Cham villages usually are made up almost
entirely of Cham, but Khmer villages,
especially in central and in southeastern
Cambodia, typically include sizable Chinese
communities. In his study of the coastal
Chinese in Kampot Province and in Koh
Kong Province, French geographer Roland
Pourtier points out that the Chinese
dwellings and shops-usually in the same
structures are located at the center of the
town or village, while the I
THE KHMER HOUSEHOLD and FAMILY STRUCTURE
In the late 1980s, the nuclear family,
consisting of a husband and a wife
and their unmarried children,
probably continued to be the most important
kin group within Khmer society. The family is
the major unit of both production and
consumption. Within this unit are the
strongest emotional ties., the assurance of aid
in the event of trouble, economic cooperation
in labor, sharing of produce and income, and
contribution as a unit to ceremonial
obligations. A larger grouping, the personal
kindred that includes a nuclear family with
the children, grandchildren, grandparents,
uncles, aunts, first cousins, nephews, and
nieces, may be included in the household.
The individual Khmer is surrounded by a
small inner circle of family and friends who
constitute his or her closest associates,, those
he would approach first for help. In rural
communities, neighbors-who are often also
kin-may be important, too, and much of
housebuilding and other heavy labor
intensive tasks are performed by groups of
neighbors. In rural Cambodia, the strongest
ties a Khmer may develop-besides those to
the nuclear family and to close friends-are
those to other members of the local
community. A strong feeling of pride-for the
village, for the district, and province-usually
characterizes Cambodian community life.
There is much sharing of religious life
through the local Buddhist temple, and there
are many cross-cutting kin relations within
the community.
Legally, the husband is the head of the Khmer
family, but the wife has considerable
authority, especially in family economics. The
husband is responsible for providing shelter
and food for his family; the wife is generally
in charge of the family budget, and she serves
as the major ethical and religious model for
the children, especially the daughters.
Ownership of property among the rural
Khmer was vested in the nuclear family.
Descent and inheritance is bilateral. Legal
children might inherit equally from their
parents. The division of property was
theoretically equal among siblings, but in
practice the oldest child might inherit more.
Each of the spouses might bring inherited
land into the family, and the family might
acquire joint land during the married life of
the couple. Each spouse was free to dispose of
his or her land as he or she chose. A will was
usually oral, although a written one was
preferred.
OTHERS ETHNIC GROUPS
THE CHAM
The Cham people in Cambodia descend
from refugees of the kingdom of
Champa, which once ruled much of
Vietnam between Gao Ha in the north and
Bien Hoa in the south. The Cambodian Cham
is divided into two groups, the orthodox and
the traditional-based on their religious
practices. The orthodox group, which makes
up about one-third of the -total number of
Cham in the country, were located mainly in
the Phnom Penh - Oudong area and in the
provinces of Takeo and Kampot. The
traditional Cham were scattered throughout
the midsection of the country in the provinces
of Battambang, Kompong Thom, Kompong
Cham, and Pursat. The Cham of both groups
typically live in villages inhabited only by
other Cham; the villages may be along the
shores of water courses, or they may be
inland. The inhabitants of the river villages
engage in fishing and in growing vegetables.
They trade fish to local Khmer for rice. The
women in these villages earn money by
weaving. The Cham who live inland support
themselves by various means, depending on
the village. Some villages specialize in metal
working; others raise fruit trees or vegetables.
The Cham also often serve as butchers of
cattle for their Khmer Buddhist neighbors
and are, in some areas, regarded as skillful
water buffalo and ram breeders.
THE KHMER LOEU
The Khmer Loeu are the non-Khmer
highland tribes in Cambodia. The
Khmer Loeu are found mainly in the
northeastern provinces of Ratanak Kiri, Stung
Treng, Mondul Kiri and Kratie. Most Khmer
Loeu live in scattered temporary villages that
have only a few hundred. inhabitants. These
villages usually are governed by a council of
local elders or by a village headman. The
Khmer Loeu cultivate a wide variety of
plants, but the main crop is dry or upland rice
grown by the slash-and-burn method.
Hunting, fishing, and gathering supplement
the cultivated vegetable foods in the Khmer
Loeu diet. Houses vary from huge
multifamily longhouses to small single-family
structures. They may be built close to the
ground or on stilts. The major Khmer Loeu
groups in Cambodia are the Kuy, Phnong,
Stieng, Brao, Pear, jarai, and Rade. All but the
last two speak Mon-Khmer languages. In the
late 1980s, about 160,000 Kuy lived in the
northern Cambodian provinces of Kampong
Thum, Preah Vihear, and Stoeng Treng as well
as in adjacent Thailand.
THE CHINESE
The Chinese in Cambodia formed the
country's largest ethnic minority. Sixty
percent of the Chinese were urban
dwellers engaged mainly in commerce; the
other 40 percent were rural residents working
as shopkeepers, as buyers and processors of
rice, palm sugar, fruit, and fish., and as
moneylenders. In 1963 William Willmott, an
expert on overseas Chinese communities,
estimated that 90 percent of the Chinese in
Cambodia were involved in commerce and
that 92 percent of those involved in commerce
in Cambodia were Chinese. In rural
Cambodia, the Chinese were moneylenders,
and they wielded considerable economic
power over the ethnic Khmer peasants
through usury. The Chinese in Cambodia
represented five major linguistic groups, the
largest of which was the Teochiu (accounting
for about 60 percent), followed by the
Cantonese (accounting for about 20 percent),
the Hokkien (accounting for about 7 percent),
and the Hakka and the Hainanese (each
accounting for about 4 percent). Those
belonging to certain Chinese linguistic groups
in Cambodia tended to gravitate to certain
occupations. The Teochiu, who made up
about 90 percent of the rural Chinese
population, ran village stores, controlled rural
credit and rice-marketing facilities, and grew
vegetables. In urban areas they were often
engaged in such enterprises as the import-
export business, the sale of pharmaceuticals,
and street peddling. The Cantonese, who
were the majority Chinese group before the
Teochiu migrations began in the late 1930s,
lived mainly in the city. Typically, the
Cantonese engaged in transportation and in
construction, for the most part as mechanics
or carpenters. The Hokkien community was
involved in import-export and in banking,
and it included some of the country's richest
Chinese. The Hainanese started out as pepper
growers in Kampot Province, where they
continued to dominate that business. Many
moved to Phnom Penh, where, in the late
1960s, they reportedly had a virtual
monopoly on the hotel and restaurant
business. They also often operated tailor
shops and haberdasheries. In Phnom Penh,
the newly-arrived Hakka were typically folk
dentists, sellers of traditional Chinese
medicines, and shoemakers.
THE VIETNAMESE
The Vietnamese community is scattered
throughout southeastern and central
Cambodia. They were concentrated in
Phnom Penh, and in Kandal, Prey Veng, and
Kompong Cham provinces. No dose cultural
or religious ties exist between Cambodia and
Vietnam. The Vietnamese fall within the
Chinese culture sphere, rather than within the
Indian, where the Thai and the Khmer
belong. The Vietnamese differ from the
Khmer in mode of dress, in kinship
organization, and in many other ways - for
example the Vietnamese are Mahayana
Buddhists while most of the Cambodians are
Theravada Buddhists. Although Vietnamese
lived in urban centers such as Phnom Penh, a
substantial number lived along the lower
Mekong and Bassac rivers as well as on the
shores of the Tonle Sap, where they engaged
in fishing.
LANGUAGES
The majority of Cambodians, even those
who are not ethnic Khmer, speak
Khmer, the official language of the
country. Ethnic Khmer living in Thailand, in
Vietnam, and in Laos speak dialects of Khmer
that are more or less intelligible to Khmer
speakers from Cambodia. Minority languages
include Vietnamese, Cham, several dialects of
Chinese, and the languages of the various hill
tribes. Khmer, in contrast to Vietnamese, Thai,
Lao, and Chinese, is nontonal. Native Khmer
words may be composed of one or two
syllables. Khmer is uninflected, but it has a
rich system of affixes, including infixes, for
derivation. Generally speaking, Khmer has
nouns, verbs, adverbs, and various kinds of
words called particles. The normal word
order is subject-verb-object. Khmer uses
Sanskrit and Pali roots much as English and
other West European languages use Latin and
Greek roots to derive new, especially
scientific, words. Khmer has also' borrowed
terms-especially financial, commercial, and
cooking terms-from Chinese, French, and
English as well. These latter borrowings have
been in the realm of material culture,
especially the names for items of modern
Western technology. The language has
symbols for thirty'-three consonants,, twenty-
,four dependent vowels, twelve independent
vowels, and several diacritics.
BUDDHISM
Theravada Buddhism is the religion of
virtually all of the ethnic Khmer,, who
constitute about 90 percent or more of
the Cambodian population. Buddhism
originated in what are now north India
andepal during the sixth century B.G.
Theravada Buddhism is a tolerant., non
prescriptive religion that does not require
belief in a supreme being. Its precepts require
that each individual take full responsibility
for his own actions and omissions. Buddhism
is based on three concepts: dharma (the
doctrine of the Buddha, his guide to right
actions and belief); karma (the belief that
one's life now and in future lives depends
upon one's own deeds and misdeeds and that
as an individual one is responsible for, and
rewarded on the basis of, the sum total of
one's acts and omissions in all one's
incarnations past and present); and sangha,
the ascetic community within which man can
improve his karma. The Buddhist salvation is
nirvana, a final extinction of one's self.
Nirvana may be attained by achieving good
karma through earning much merit and
avoiding misdeeds. A Buddhist's pilgrimage
through existence is a constant attempt to
distance himself or herself from the world
and finally to achieve complete detachment,
or nirvana. The fundamentals of Buddhist
doctrine are the Four Noble Truths: suffering
exists; craving (or desire) is the cause of
suffering; release from suffering c an be
achieved by stopping all desire; and
enhghtenment-buddhahood-can be attained
by following the Noble Eightfold Path (right
views, right intention, right speech, right
action, right livelihood, right effort, right
mindfulness, and right concentration), which
constitutes a middle way between sensuality
and ascetism. Enlightenment consists of
knowing these truths. The average layperson
cannot hope for nirvana after the end of this
life., but can-by complying, as best he or she is
able to, with the doctrine's rules of moral
conduct-hope to improve his or her karma
and thereby better his condition in the next
incarnation.