10 Stunning Images And Things About Angkor Wat You Probably Didn't Know

Angkor Wat is the world's largest religious monument.

How big is it? 500 acres or 200 hectares.

It's proper name is "Prasat Angkor Wat." Angkor meaning City/Capital City and Wat meaning Temple grounds.

It was started by Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century and completed by Jayavarman VII who reigned in the late 12th to the early 13th century.

And it was built in the High Classical Style of Khmer Architecture.

Angkor Wat was designed to represent Mount Meru, a sacred mountain with 5 peaks and home to the Devas or deities in the HIndu mythology. Mount Meru is the center of all the physical, metaphysical, and spiritual universe in the Hindu-Buddhist cosmology.

In the 13th century, Angkor Wat transformed from being a Hindu temple to Theravada Buddhist use, which actually continues to this day.

Angkor Wat may be the largest but it isn't the only one nor the oldest temple-complex the area of the ancient Khmer Capital of Angkor.

In fact the region known as Angkor is home to over a thousand temples, flourishing from the 9th to the 15th centuries.

Angkor was a megacity that at one point became home to around one million people. It was the world's largest urbanized area of its time. In other words it was perhaps the biggest city before the industrial revolution.

And it is not only about beautiful temples. Angkor was also an ancient engineering marvel with an intricate and complicated water management system. Which is why it is no surprise that Angkor is one of the most important archeological site in Southeast Asia.