Choeung Ek (, ) is a site in Dangkao on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, that was used as a Killing Field between 1977 and 1979 by the Khmer Rouge to perpetrate the Cambodian genocide.
A former orchard situated about 17 kilometres (11 mi) south of the city centre, it was attached to the Tuol Sleng detention centre. The bodies of 8,895 victims were exhumed from the site after the fall of the Rouge, who would have been executed there—typically with pickaxes to conserve bullets—before being buried in mass graves. It is the best-known of the approximately 300 Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge regime collectively executed over one million people as part of their Cambodian genocide between 1975 and 1979, as has been called the "Auschwitz of Asia".
Background
Between 1975 and 1979, Cambodia was ruled by the Khmer Rouge headed by Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge sought to transform Cambodia into an agrarian socialist society, and one of their first acts were the emptying of Cambodia's cities where two million people became labourers on farms. Khmer Rouge soldiers targeted members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, and the educated among others as part of the Cambodian Genocide. As a result of poor conditions, starvation, disease and violence, around one quarter of Cambodia's population of 8 million died.
Use by the Khmer Rouge
left|thumb|Map of the camp at Choeung Ek.
The majority of those killed at Choeung Ek first went through the Tuol Seng prison and detention centre (S-21). In his testimony to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge operator of Tuol Seng Kang Kek Iew (Comrade Duch) stated that Choeung Ek was chosen as a site to bury victims away from Tuol Seng to mitigate the risk of the corpses causing a disease outbreak. Staff at the Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre have also stated that Choeung Ek was chosen due to its distance from the city centre of Phnom Penh, the abundance of trees which provided privacy and that it was already a cemetery used by the local Chinese community during the 1960s and early 1970s. Some of the headstones from when it was a Chinese cemetery still remain. It was also used by the Chinese community as an orchard for growing corn, rice and watermelons. The Khmer Rouge actively used the site between 1977 and 1979. Loudspeakers were also hung from trees to play revolutionary Khmer Rouge music to cover up any screaming or shouting. Women were also sometimes subject to rape before being killed.
On 3 May 2005, the Municipality of Phnom Penh announced that they had entered into a 30-year agreement with JC Royal Co. to develop the memorial at Choeung Ek. Since then, the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center has been managed by the JC Royal Company, a Japanese company also responsible for maintenance of the roads to the centre. Choeung Ek is a popular tourist attraction in Phnom Penh. In 2007, 300 to 400 people visited the site per day during the low season which increased to 400 to 600 people per day during the high season.
In 2025, the site was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as part of the Cambodian Memorial Sites.