Category:Banteay Meanchey Province

Map Keys
	Large Prasats		Arogyasalas
	Large Ruins		Dharmasalas
	Medium Prasats		Ancient Bridges
	Medium Ruins		Ancient Cities
	Medium Tuols		Ancient Kilns
	Small Prasats		Ancient Quarries
	Small Ruins		Ancient Reservoirs
	Small Tuols		Ancient Villages
	Museums		Carvings
	Depositories		Other Structures
	Wats		Prehistoric Sites
	Neak Ta's		Unknown Sites
	Unconfirmed Sites

The broad, flat rice-growing plains of Banteay Meanchey Province clearly represented a valuable resource for Angkor and the majority of the modern-day province is relatively evenly strewn with sites covering a wide range of time periods. (The marshy southeastern area, close to the Tonle Sap, being the only exception.) The distribution would seem to indicate a series of substantial-sized settlements interspersed with smaller - village - shrines and reservoirs. Banteay Meanchey represented the easiest and most direct means of communication between the capital at Angkor and the important central Thai city of Lavodayapura, (Lopburi) and the rich lands of the Chao Phraya Valley and must have possessed important transport and trade routes

A cluster to the south, along what is now Highway 5, leads towards Battambang while another cluster on route 160 may correspond to settlements on a route via Bavel District to Pong Nam Ron in today's Chanthaburi Province. The latter featured an important port (listed as Boran Sathan Muang Paniat), during the 7th to 10th-century era and was the closest access to the Gulf of Thailand for Angkor as well as Sambor Prei Kuk.

What would otherwise have been one of the sparsest parts of the province - the remote far north - is filled by the province's most famous site, Banteay Chhmar. The siting of this vast Jayavarman VII complex is curious as it's probably the least fertile section of Banteay Meanchey and any route west is blocked by extensive mountain ranges just across the nearby Thai border.