Milestones for a social history of Phnom Penh: Cambodian elites in their capital in the colonial period (1863-1953)

In 1865, King Norodom of Cambodia established his new capital city on the location of a harbour, Phnom Penh. His court, following him from Oudong, then tied up with the cosmopolitan and commercial tradition of the kingdom, a tradition embodied by the community of merchants settled on this site also named “Four Faces”, catumukh, at the confluence of two rivers. By this decision, Cambodian royalty faced its conquest by France – its “protector” since 1863 – and demonstrated political and economic ability to be an attractive hub in the Mekong delta. This paper describes the settlement of the Cambodian high society in Phnom Penh and its real estate practices. While the Colonial State developed important building projects all along the 20th century and then shaped the urban landscape, the population kept the royal palace as a focus for their plan of housing in the city. If the French Résidence Supérieure competed with the palace in terms of political power, the Cambodian high society perpetuated the royal influence through the renewal of its social functions. Traders and merchants of foreign origins gathered in Phnom Penh were also invited to join by marriage the curial society which came from Oudong: those families then became powerful intermediaries between the royal family and French representatives, intermediations revealed by their spatializations in the capital city.