Angkor Wat at Siem Reap Cambodia

Angkor Wat [5.5 kilometres (3.4 mi) north of the modern town of Siem Reap] (Khmer: អង្គរវត្ត or "Capital Temple") is a temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world, with the site measuring 162.6 hectares (1,626,000 sq meters). Angkor Wat originally constructed as a Hindu temple for the Khmer Empire, gradually transforming into a Buddhist temple toward the end of the 12th century. Angkor Wat was built by the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura (Khmer: យសោធរបុរៈ, present-day Angkor), the capital of the Khmer Empire.

Angkor Wat is dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu who is one of the three principal gods in the Hindu pantheon (Shiva and Brahma are the others).

According to legend, the construction of Angkor Wat was ordered by Indra to act as a palace for his son Precha Ket Mealea. According to the 13th century Chinese traveler Daguan Zhou, it was believed by some that the temple was constructed in a single night by a divine architect.

The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; Angkor, meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ), which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (Devanāgarī: नगर).The Khmer word for "temple grounds", also derived from Sanskrit vāṭa (Devanāgarī: वाट), meaning "enclosure".

Since the 1990s, Angkor Wat has become a major tourist destination. In 1992, Angkor Wat was listed in UNESCO's World Heritage in Danger (later removed in 2004).