This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.”
by Zhiyi Wang
“Everyone gets lost in Phnom Penh,” commented a Cambodian friend when we were trying to pinpoint a location on Google Maps. He is from Battambang, which along with Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are Cambodia’s largest and most well-known cities. He moved to Phnom Penh for education a couple years ago and is currently studying civil engineering at university. Navigating the city is difficult, he told me. “Even people from Phnom Penh get lost, too.”
That is true. Relying solely on the map to navigate Phnom Penh is difficult. In most cases, the difficulty lies in the mismatch of the map (and the conceptual knowledge it provides) with the real-life practices of residents and their local knowledge of places. In Phnom Penh, like in other places, people spontaneously create their own connections with urban places through practices, despite official efforts to integrate these places into a monolithic and symbolic city.
The French played a critical role in the formation of the conceptual city of Phnom Penh. We can easily identify the colonial imagination from the French plan of the Phnom Penh city during the Protectorate period (1863-1953).
It divided Phnom Penh into districts of different ethnic groups based on colonial racism, districts which are no longer in use today. But it also gave Phnom Penh a grid system that has a deeper and more profound influence on Phnom Penh’s urban landscape today. By design, Phnom Penh’s urban roads are numbered. Those with odd numbers run north to south, with street numbers increasing from east to west. Similarly, even-numbered streets run east to west, with numbers increasing from north to south. However, there exist diagonal streets that cannot follow either of the rules above. Furthermore, street numbers do not follow one another one-by-one. Many numbers are simply missing, while others, although numerically close to each other, can be several kilometers away.[1]
After Cambodia gained independence in 1953, the newly independent nation set out its own nationalist campaign, including giving new names to the roads in the capital. The French once named the streets after French celebrities, but these names were soon replaced with new ones after the newly independent nation entered the rapidly developing years of Sangkum Reastr Niyum (1955-1970).[2]
Following independence, streets derived their names from a number of sources. Some streets were named after honorable local Cambodians, including past kings and people with titles.[3] Foreign national heroes were also selected for some main arteries, such as Mao Tse Toung (street 245), Josep Broz Tito (street 214), and Jawaharlal Nehru (street 215).[4] Some other streets bear the trace of the country’s diplomatic history—some roads were named after countries of the Sino-Soviet bloc, with whom Cambodia had a close relationship due to its neutrality policy at that time—such as Russian Federation Boulevard (110, which used to be called USSR), Poland Republic Boulevard (169), and Czech Republic Boulevard (163).[5]
The street names make up a main part of the city map, where we see the official layout of the urban space through a bird’s-eye view. However, as De Certeau once warned us, “It’s hard to be down when you’re above”.[6] The totalizing eye is able to see but is not sufficient to make connections with the city. Despite this historical and cultural symbolism, places named after the original landscape and natural resources reveal the traces of a much older and spontaneous connection between people and place.
We can still sense the relationship between people and their environments through some of the district names in Phnom Penh. For example, Boeng Keng Kang (បឹងកេងកង), one of the most popular districts among foreigners in Phnom Penh, literally means “lake of hornbills” in Khmer. It is said this place used to be home to hornbills, and I had an encounter with these beautiful birds in the area. Another popular area, the newly developed Tuol Kork (ទួលគោក) district, refers to “hill of dryland,” indicating the geographical characteristics of the place. This conventional knowledge of places was integrated into the names people used to call them, and later on adopted by the local governments. Now when we look at the administrative division of Phnom Penh, we can easily recognize them through terms like “បឹង(boeng),” lakes, “ស្ទឹង(steung),” rivers, “ទួល(tuol),” hills, etc.
The official terminology of administrative regions divides Phnom Penh into three levels: fourteen sections (ខណ្ឌ, Khan), subdivided into 105 quarters/districts (សង្កាត់, Sangkat), and further into 953 villages (ភូមិ, Phum). [7] However, these terms are usually used in formal situations; in daily life, people more often use the term ម្តុំ (/m’dong/). ម្តុំ, which roughly translates to “district,” does not belong to the official terminology of administration, but is widely used and flexible in range. It can refer to formal sections or quarters/districts, for example, ម្តុំទួលគោក, which is a Khan, and also ម្តុំបឹងត្របែក, which is a Sangkat, literally “lake of guava.” It can also refer to a small area that has a specific landmark. For instance, if you say ម្តុំ Calmette, people will recognize that you are talking about the proximity of the Calmette hospital, well-known for its French roots and expertise.
Landmarks remain an essential way to navigate the city for longtime residents of Phnom Penh. Everyone knows the famous landmarks, such as hospitals, the wats (temples), the schools, and the markets—and now the malls. But everyone also creates their own mental map of landmarks, especially in their direct surroundings. Potentially, they will guide the way by saying things like “turn right when you see that noodles seller,” “go straight until that hair salon,” or “go along the stinky canal.”
References can change over time. There used to be a Nokia shop at the intersection of Street 271 (or the inner ring road) and Street 2004, so people gave it the name “stop Nokia.” Stop is a special type of landmark in Phnom Penh. The term is the short form of “ភ្លើងស្តុប” (the traffic light), presumably transliterated into Khmer from the English word “stop.” In Phnom Penh, stops have official names, which are emblazoned on the traffic lights. But not all of them are referred to by their official names. Stop Nokia is officially stop Ou Baek K’am (អូរបែកក្អម, literally “break the clay pot”), the name of the Sangkat. However, the Nokia shop obviously made a more recognizable landmark. During Covid, the Nokia shop closed, and the location is now replaced by an ABA branch, a prominent private bank in Cambodia. The locals still recognize stop Nokia in their discussions, but if they sense someone might not know the place, they quickly refer to the current landmark, the new ABA branch.
Past landmarks can persist but will eventually fade as people cease to reference them. Landmarks embody the collective memory of Phnom Penh’s residents across generations, as the city never stopped evolving and is changing at unprecedented speed today. Elderly citizens sometimes still talk about these old landmarks, even though these places have long been replaced by something else. At other times, new connections between people and the place are created through new stories, which will one day become history in the future. Place names, therefore, are not only spatial references, but also bear historical significance, and are weaved into the social fabric of the population.[8]
Let’s return to the map, since it is the critical element of a change on the way. Over the past decade or so, the pattern of urban mobility in Phnom Penh has undergone great changes. Since the introduction of Indian-produced, three-wheel auto-rickshaws and ride-hailing apps around 2017, that vehicle has replaced the motorcycle taxi (motodop) and remorque (the traditional Khmer tuktuk, consisting of a trailer attached to a motorbike), to become the most popular form of paratransit in Phnom Penh and other Cambodian cities. The two dominant ride-hailing apps, PassApp and Grab, have built-in maps that help both drivers and passengers locate and navigate their routes. While previously motodop and remorque drivers had to remember all the roads, big and small, in the city, today paratransit drivers can simply follow the directions on their smart phones to reach their destinations.
App-supported mobility platforms also facilitate deliveries. While many former motodop drivers transitioned to operating auto-rickshaws, some joined the rapidly growing delivery sector. During pandemic lockdowns, these delivery services became essential for many residents to receive daily supplies.
Digital maps allow people, especially the younger generation, to freely explore the city of Phnom Penh, as well as other cities and places in the country (and abroad). Although not being taught to read maps in school, they have learned the skill through using smartphone apps such as Google Maps. Compared to traditional paper maps, digital maps make navigation easier and more efficient, as the users can locate themselves with GPS and search for routes when they need to go somewhere unfamiliar. As Phnom Penh gets bigger and places keep reinventing themselves, existing knowledge of the city requires continuous updates, and maps help fill this gap.
But this is not to say that the map will completely replace the traditional relationship between people and place. Instead, people keep living in their cities through embodied experiences and tangible connections. You do not have to be either down or above; why not be both? For the motorbike-dependent majority of Phnom Penh residents, navigating the city, even with the map, can still be an adventure. But it is not a bad idea to get lost in the city now and then, preparing for encounters with secret fascinations not to be found on the map. And then, through these new connections, everyone will continue to add new territories on their mental maps.
Zhiyi Wang is a PhD Candidate in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Riverside, with a focus on Cambodia. Her dissertation examines the planning and integration of public transportation in urban Phnom Penh.
Featured image (at top): Phnom Penh traffic in front of Wat Tuol Tom Poung on Mau Tse Toung Boulevard (245). Photo by author.
[1] For further reading, “The Twisted History of Phnom Penh Street Names,” Phnom Penh Post, December 9, 2011, https://phnompenhpost.com/7days/twisted-history-phnom-penh-street-names?token=655c03a0313e2af41f68d0a58be085c457c89ce1a4c1f.
[2] People’s Socialist Community, a national political movement founded by Sihanouk, saw rapid development and prosperity of Cambodia immediately after independence. The period ended as the then Prime Minister Lon Nol led a military coup to overthrow Sihanouk in 1970.
[3] Commonly seen titles include ព្រះ(preah) “sacred,” សម្តេច (samdach) “lord,” which are used before kings’ names, and ឧកញ៉ា(oknha), which refers to envoys appointed by the king in premodern times, but since the reestablishment of monarchy in 1993, it is given exclusively to non-royalty civilians for their (monetary) contribution to the country and the royal government.
[4] Mao Tse Toung (1893-1976), also spelled as Mao Zedong, is the founder of the People’s Republic of China and the first Chairman of the PRC. Josep Broz Tito (1892-1980) led Yugoslavia to liberation and served as its prime minister and president until his death. Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) is an Indian nationalist movement leader and the first prime minister after it gained independence. Both Tito and Nehru are among the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement during Cold War years.
[5] Michael Leifer, “Cambodia and Her Neighbours,” Pacific Affairs 34, no. 4 (Winter, 1961-1962), 364.
[6] Michel De Certeau, “Walking in the City,” in The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977) [Reproduced in The Cultural Studies Reader, Simon During, ed.], 157.
[7] See https://db.ncdd.gov.kh/gazetteer/view/index.castle. “Village” here does not refer to the rural, but one tier of Cambodian administrative division.
[8] Keith H. Basso, “Wisdom Sits in Places: Notes on a Western Apache Landscape,” in Senses of Place, ed. Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1996), 57.
