Flag: Cambodia Emoji

The flag of Cambodia: two blue horizontal bands (top and bottom) flanking a wider red central band, with a white depiction of Angkor Wat in the center. Cambodia is one of only six countries in the world with a building on its national flag, and the only one where that building is a temple.

The colors carry specific meaning: blue represents liberty and cooperation, red symbolizes bravery and the nation, and white stands for religion (predominantly Theravada Buddhism). The Angkor Wat depiction has appeared on Cambodian flags since approximately 1850, surviving every regime change. That's the remarkable part: Cambodia has had more than nine different national flags since 1863 (French protectorate, Japanese occupation, Khmer Republic, Khmer Rouge, Vietnamese-backed state, UN transitional authority, restored monarchy), and Angkor Wat appeared on nearly every single one.

Cambodia's story is one of extremes. The Khmer Empire built the largest pre-industrial city in human history at Angkor (700,000-900,000 people in the 13th century). Then in the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge killed 1.7 million Cambodians, roughly 21% of the population. Today, the country is one of the fastest-growing economies in Southeast Asia, with 6% GDP growth in 2024.

🇰🇭 is used by the Cambodian diaspora (roughly 259,000 Cambodian Americans as of the 2020 census, with major communities in Long Beach, California and Lowell, Massachusetts) to express heritage pride. It appears during Khmer New Year (Choul Chnam Thmey, mid-April), Bon Om Touk (the Water Festival in November), and Cambodian Independence Day (November 9).

On TikTok, the #khmertiktok hashtag has grown into a thriving space for cultural content: Apsara dance tutorials, Cambodian cooking videos, and Khmer New Year celebrations. Travel influencers pair the flag with sunrise photos at Angkor Wat, making 🇰🇭🌅 one of the most recognizable flag-plus-scenery combos on Instagram.

Cambodia's flag tells a story of a country that never stopped putting Angkor Wat at its center, no matter who was in charge. The temple has appeared on the flag since around 1850, through French colonization, Japanese occupation, independence, a military coup, genocide, Vietnamese occupation, and finally restoration.

The current blue-red-blue triband was first adopted in 1948 when Cambodia gained semi-autonomy from France. It was abandoned after General Lon Nol's 1970 coup established the Khmer Republic (which used a blue flag with three white stars and a red canton containing Angkor Wat). The Khmer Rouge replaced that in 1975 with a plain red flag bearing a yellow silhouette of the temple. After Vietnam's 1979 invasion, the People's Republic of Kampuchea used a red flag with a five-towered yellow Angkor Wat.

The original 1948 design was finally restored in 1993, after the UN-supervised elections that ended decades of conflict. The restoration represented not just a flag change but the return of the constitutional monarchy under King Norodom Sihanouk.

The flag emoji 🇰🇭 was added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015 as part of the regional indicator sequence system. It's represented by the pair U+1F1F0 (Regional Indicator K) and U+1F1ED (Regional Indicator H), mapping to Cambodia's ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code "KH" (for the French name 'Cambodge' and the Khmer name 'Kampuchea').

1. 1863French protectorate adopts first flag with Angkor Wat depiction
2. 1948Current blue-red-blue triband adopted under semi-autonomous government
3. 1970Khmer Republic replaces flag after Lon Nol coup
4. 1975Khmer Rouge adopts red flag with yellow Angkor Wat silhouette
5. 1979Vietnamese-backed People's Republic uses five-towered yellow temple on red
6. 1993Original 1948 flag restored after UN-supervised elections↗
7. 2015🇰🇭 added to Emoji 1.0 via regional indicator sequences

In Cambodia itself, the flag is deeply tied to national identity and the monarchy. It's flown prominently during Khmer New Year, Independence Day (November 9), and at every temple and government building. The Angkor Wat depiction is not just a symbol: it's a statement that Cambodian civilization predates every regime that has tried to redefine the country.

For the Cambodian diaspora, the flag carries the weight of survival. In Long Beach, California (home to the largest Cambodian community outside of Cambodia, roughly 18,000 people), the flag flies over Cambodia Town, a neighborhood officially designated in 2007. In Lowell, Massachusetts, the Cambodian community makes up nearly 20% of the city's population, and the flag appears at the annual Cambodian Water Festival held on the Merrimack River.

In Southeast Asian geopolitics, the flag can appear in discussions about the Preah Vihear Temple dispute, a UNESCO World Heritage site on the Thai-Cambodian border that led to an armed standoff in 2008-2011 and a 2013 International Court of Justice ruling in Cambodia's favor.

• 📐
  162.6 hectares: Total area, more than double the second-largest religious structure
• 🛕
  1,000+ buildings: In the broader Angkor complex, including Bayon and Ta Prohm
• 📅
  1113-1150 CE: Built by King Suryavarman II, originally as a Hindu temple to Vishnu
• ✈️
  2.1 million visitors: In 2024, nearly recovering to 2019's pre-pandemic 2.2 million
• 🎫
  $37 per day: Single-day pass price since 2017, up from $20 (3-day pass: $62, 7-day: $72)
• 🌍
  UNESCO 1992: Inscribed as a World Heritage Site, catalyzing international restoration efforts

• •Angkor Wat is the world's largest religious structure at 162.6 hectares (402 acres), more than double the second-largest (Sri Ranganathasvamy Temple in India).
• •Cambodia's flag has changed at least 8 times since 1863, but Angkor Wat has appeared on nearly every version regardless of regime.
• •Medieval Angkor was the world's largest pre-industrial city, home to 700,000-900,000 people in the 13th century, comparable to ancient Rome at its peak.
• •Long Beach, California has the largest Cambodian community outside of Cambodia itself, with roughly 18,000 residents of Cambodian descent.
• •Cambodia has the youngest population in Southeast Asia, with a median age of around 26. Most of the population was born after the Khmer Rouge era.
• •Fish amok (amok trei), Cambodia's national dish, dates back to the Khmer Empire as food for royal subjects.
• •The Royal Ballet of Cambodia was nearly destroyed by the Khmer Rouge but was proclaimed a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003.

• •Tomb Raider (2001): Angelina Jolie filmed at Ta Prohm temple in Angkor, sparking a massive tourism boom. She later adopted a Cambodian son, Maddox, and became a Cambodian citizen in 2005.
• •The Killing Fields (1984): Roland Joffe's film about journalist Sydney Schanberg and translator Dith Pran during the Khmer Rouge. Haing S. Ngor, a real genocide survivor with no acting experience, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
• •Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations: Bourdain's Cambodia episodes brought Cambodian street food (especially fish amok and fried tarantulas) to global audiences and credited the country as 'one of the great undiscovered food destinations.'

• •🇰🇭 is a regional indicator sequence: U+1F1F0 (K) + U+1F1ED (H). On platforms without flag support it renders as 'KH'.
• •Cambodia's ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code is KH (from Kampuchea), not CA (Canada) or CM (Cameroon).
• •Angkor Wat is encoded as a regular glyph, not an emoji. The temple on the flag is part of the flag's bitmap rendering, not a separate character.

See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.