Short answers, pulled from the story.
Cambodia gained independence from France on the 9th of November 1953, under King Norodom Sihanouk. France had maintained a protectorate over Cambodia since 1863, with a brief interruption during Japanese occupation from 1941 to 1945.
Estimates range from approximately one to three million people killed during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979; a commonly cited figure is two million, representing about a quarter of Cambodia's population at the time. The Cham Muslim minority was targeted with particular severity, with as much as half their population exterminated.
Angkor Wat is the most famous religious and architectural project of the Khmer Empire, which ruled from the 9th to the 15th centuries. The city of Angkor, where Angkor Wat stands, was determined by an international research team in 2007 to have been the largest pre-industrial city in the world, with an urban sprawl of 2,980 km2 and a potential population of up to one million people.
Hun Sen is a former Khmer Rouge commander who became Prime Minister of Cambodia in 1985 at age 33, making him one of the world's longest-serving heads of government. He consolidated power through a 1997 coup and was succeeded as Prime Minister by his son Hun Manet on the 22nd of August 2023, though Hun Sen remained president of the Cambodian People's Party and, after the 2024 Senate election, became president of the Senate.
The Tonle Sap is Southeast Asia's largest lake and Cambodia's ecological and agricultural heartland. It expands from about 2,590 km2 in the dry season to roughly 24,605 km2 during the rainy season, enabling the wet rice cultivation that feeds much of the population. Scientists have recorded 850 freshwater fish species in the lake area, and it was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1997.
Cambodia's primary forest cover fell from over 70% in 1969 to just 3.1% in 2007, representing one of the highest deforestation rates in the world. By 2020, total forest cover had declined from roughly 11,004,790 hectares in 1990 to about 8,068,370 hectares, with the annual deforestation rate running at 1.3% between 2010 and 2015.