The Map Behind the Preah Vihear Border Conflict

Detail from a series of French maps published 1905-1909 depicting the boundary between Siam and French Indochina.
Wikimedia Commons

On the Geographical magazine website, Tim Marshall explains how a 1907 topographical map fuels a current-day border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand. And without any imagery of the map at all (right). It’s about the lands around the Preah Vihear temple; the temple itself was assigned to Cambodia in a 1953 ruling. (And not to be confused with Preah Vihear the province or Preah Vihear the provincial capital, which is some distance from. A reference map would have helped, honestly.)