The afternoon before your first temple day
The Angkor National Museum is a modern museum in Siem Reap, opened in 2007, that explains the Khmer Empire through eight themed galleries of sculpture, inscriptions and artefacts. Highlights include the Gallery of 1,000 Buddha Images and galleries on Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. Tickets are $12 for adults, it opens daily from 8:30 am, and one to two hours is enough.
September 2026
Photo: Supanut Arunoprayote, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
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The Angkor National Museum in Siem Reap is a modern museum dedicated to the Khmer Empire, with eight galleries of sculpture, inscriptions and artefacts from Angkor and beyond. Opened in 2007, it sits on the road between the town and the temples. An hour or two here before your first temple day makes Angkor far easier to understand.
The building itself is calm and cool, laid out around a courtyard with long colonnades and a reflecting pool. Inside, the lighting is low and the pieces are given space. It is an easy, air-conditioned place to spend the hottest part of the day, and a welcome change of pace between early starts at the temples.
Angkor can be overwhelming. There are dozens of temples built over six centuries by different kings, for different gods, in different styles. Standing in front of a carved lintel without knowing what it shows is a little like reading a book in a language you do not speak.
The museum gives you the vocabulary. You learn who the great kings were, how Hinduism and Buddhism shaped the empire, what the main gods and stories look like in stone, and how the temples were planned and built. When you then walk into Angkor Wat or the Bayon, you recognise what you are looking at.
The museum also covers more than Angkor itself. Pieces come from temples across the old empire, from pre-Angkorian brick sanctuaries to the later Buddhist period, so it is a good introduction to sites further afield such as Koh Ker and Sambor Prei Kuk.
If you are exploring with a private guide, the museum is still worthwhile but less essential. If you are exploring on your own, it is close to required.
The galleries follow themes rather than a strict timeline. The visit begins with a short introductory film, then moves through the rooms in order. Several galleries also have short film or light presentations.
A striking room lined with small Buddha images in niches, with larger statues in the centre. Look for how the style of the face and robes changes over time.
Serene sandstone heads in the style of Jayavarman VII’s reign, with the same calm half-smile you will see on the towers of the Bayon.
Carved door lintels and gable fragments brought in from temples around the region, shown at eye level where you can study the detail.
Models and presentations that show the temple’s plan, its alignment with the sun and the meaning of its five towers.
Stone slabs carved in Sanskrit and Old Khmer, the main written sources for the history of the empire.
A light-hearted final room on the costumes and jewellery shown on temple walls. Great for teenagers.
| Opening hours | Every day. April to September, 8:30 am to 6:00 pm; October to March, 8:30 am to 6:30 pm |
|---|---|
| Adult ticket | $12 for foreign visitors |
| Children | Reduced rate for children; confirm locally |
| Angkor Pass | Not included; the museum has its own ticket |
| Audio guide | $5 in nine languages including English, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Spanish and Russian |
| Payment | Cash or credit card |
| Bags | Free locked deposit boxes for bags |
| Photography | Phone photos without flash are allowed; follow signs in individual galleries |
| Time needed | One to two hours |
The audio guide has around forty stops, written by curators and educators. It is well worth the small extra cost, especially if you do not have a guide with you. The museum also lends wheelchairs free of charge.
The museum is on Charles de Gaulle Boulevard, the main road from Siem Reap town towards the Angkor temples. From the Old Market or Pub Street it is a 5 to 10 minute tuk-tuk ride. PassApp and Grab both work in Siem Reap, and many hotels are within walking distance.
Because it is on the way to the temples, it is easy to drop in on the afternoon you arrive in Siem Reap, or at the end of a morning at the temples when the heat makes a break welcome.
Many of Angkor’s finest sculptures are not on site at all but in museums. Between them, the Angkor National Museum and the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh hold the best collections of Khmer art in the world. If you are visiting both cities, try to see both.
In Siem Reap, the museum pairs well with an afternoon at the Artisans Angkor workshops, where young Cambodians are trained in the stone carving and other crafts you have just seen in the galleries. After that, you are ready for Angkor Thom and the temples themselves.
We like to start our guests’ time in Siem Reap gently, with the museum on the first afternoon and the temples the next morning. It is part of our Siem Reap Slow Travel and Phnom Penh & Angkor Discovery journeys, and we can add it to any trip. Explore our heritage experiences or tell us how you like to travel.
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