Kampong Chhnang Airport

Kampong Chhnang airport, in Kampong Chhnang province in central Cambodia, is an unfinished military airfield built during the Khmer Rouge period of the late 1970s. Constructed with Chinese assistance, it was intended as a major air base, but its lasting notoriety comes from how it was built: through the forced labour of large numbers of people, including soldiers and workers regarded as suspect by the regime. Under brutal conditions of overwork, starvation and violence, many labourers died or were executed, and the airfield stands as a site directly bound up with the atrocities of that era.

Because of this history of forced labour and mass death, the abandoned runway and structures carry a grim reputation, and visitors sometimes describe the emptiness of the place as unsettling. Any such impressions are subjective and rooted in the site's documented suffering; they should be treated with restraint and never allowed to overshadow the reality of what happened here.

The airfield's significance is historical and memorial: it is physical evidence of the Khmer Rouge's use of forced labour and of the fate of those compelled to build it. As with other sites of that period, its value lies in remembrance and in the sober lessons it holds about a catastrophic chapter in Cambodia's past.

The airfield is a largely abandoned and partly military-associated site rather than a developed tourist attraction; there is no formal museum, ticketing or visitor programme, and portions of the area may fall under military control or be off-limits. Its accessibility is uncertain and can depend on local permission.

As a place tied to forced labour and mass death, it deserves to be approached with gravity and respect rather than as a curiosity. Visitors should heed any restrictions, avoid entering controlled or unsafe areas, and treat the site as one of remembrance. It lies in Kampong Chhnang province, reached by road from the provincial town.