Situated on the Indochina peninsula, Cambodia is bordered by Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, with its south-western coast looking out over the Gulf of Thailand. Around 75 per cent of the country is made up of the lowlands of the Mekong and the Tonle Sap Basin. The Cardamom and Elephant mountain ranges to the south-west and the Dangrek Mountains in the north rim these low plains where the majority of the population lives, engaging in rice growing, fishing and forestry.

Of the country's 21 provinces, the eastern provinces of Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri are the wildest, with lush forests that are home to elusive populations of tigers, leopards and elephants as well as various hill tribes. The higher land in the north-east merges into the central highlands of southern Vietnam.

Cambodia's main river, the Mekong, runs diagonally across the country right across the central basin which contains the enormous Tonle Sap Lake and several sizeable tributaries to both the lake and mighty Mekong. During the monsoon season the force of the swollen Mekong River backs up one of the Tonle Sap's drainage rivers, forcing the water flow to reverse and so swell the lake to twice its original size. The floating villages thus find themselves moving several miles while the traditional stilted houses of lakeside inhabitants are moved back to accommodate the new water levels until the end of the rainy season.

In the south, Cambodia has some of the region's least explored beaches. The islands just off the coast contain the best of the country's coastal scenery.

Cambodia has an area of 181,035 square kilometres (69,898 sq mi), sharing an 800 kilometre (500 mi) border with Thailand in the north and west, a 541 kilometre (336 mi) border with Laos in the northeast, and a 1,228 kilometre (763 mi) border with Vietnam in the east and southeast. It has 443 kilometres (275 mi) of coastline along the Gulf of Thailand.

Oriented around the capital Phnom Penh and the famous temple site of Angkor the tourist trail in Cambodia is becoming increasingly well-trodden. But that has done nothing to diminish the wonder that visitors to the country experience. The Angkor temple quite literally takes your breath away. The entire site covers over one hundred square kilometres, and is packed with traditional Khmer structures that survived numerous invasions (by Thais and Vietnamese), bombings (by the US) and the destructive reign of the Khmer Rouge.