Qualla: Sangkae River

Sangkae River: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harald Hoyer from Schwerin, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0. Stand a three-metre pole upright in the Sangkae in March and most of it stays dry. Come back in September and you would need one more than twice as long. Measurements taken by Battambang's Department of Water Resources put the river's average depth at 2.35 metres in the dry season and 6.79 metres at the height of the rains - a river that effectively becomes a different river twice a year, and a province that has organised its farming, fishing and building around knowing exactly when the change comes. The Sangkae runs roughly 250 kilometres from the Cardamom foothills near the Thai border down through six districts and twenty-seven communes of Battambang province, and it does more work per kilometre than almost any waterway in Cambodia.

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Image: Harald Hoyer from Schwerin, Germany | CC BY-SA 2.0

Sangkae River: The City the River Made

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harald Hoyer from Schwerin, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0. Battambang exists because of this water. The settlement began as a fishing village on the Sangkae in the eleventh century, and for most of its history the river, not any road, was the way in and out. Siam annexed the region in 1795 and ran it as the capital of Inner Cambodia; by ...

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Image: Harald Hoyer from Schwerin, Germany | CC BY-SA 2.0

Sangkae River: Two Branches and a Great Lake

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marcin Białek, CC BY-SA 4.0. Five kilometres south of central Battambang, at Khwaeng pagoda, the river divides. The smaller fork swings east and passes through Sangkae village, six kilometres from the city centre, lending its name to Sangkae District. The main branch runs on into the Tonlé Sap floodplain abo...

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Image: Marcin Białek | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sangkae River: Arrow Traps and a Closed Season

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 333geek, CC BY-SA 3.0. Along the banks, fishing is done with nets and with arrow-shaped traps set into the current, funnelling fish into a chamber they cannot reverse out of - a design that costs almost nothing and works without an engine. The river also gives villages their route to the lake's far ric...

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Image: 333geek | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sangkae River: What Comes Downstream

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greenwich Photography, CC BY 2.0. Industry has settled along the lower river, and the river has been sending back reports. In 2021 the provincial authorities opened an investigation into suspected chemical pollution after dead fish were found downstream. Two years later one company was fined 500,000 US dollars fo...

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Image: Greenwich Photography | CC BY 2.0