Completion of Angkor Wat

The Khmer king Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat in the first half of the 12th century, with the temple substantially complete by around 1150, as a state temple and eventual mausoleum dedicated originally to the Hindu god Vishnu before its later transformation into a Buddhist site. Covering roughly 162 hectares, it is the largest religious monument in the world, its central quincunx of towers, moat and concentric galleries encoding Hindu cosmology, with the temple's orientation to the west, unusual among Angkorian temples, long debated by scholars as evidence of its funerary function. Angkor Wat survived largely intact through the decline of the Khmer Empire because it never fully lost its religious use, and it became a defining symbol of Cambodian national identity, appearing on the country's flag.