Phnom Aural

Where is Phnom Aural?

Phnom Aural is part of the Cardamom Mountains.

You will find it in: Cambodia.

Summit: 12.033° N, 104.167° E

The story behind it

Thick rainforest covers the mountain from bottom to top, and the air under the trees is warm and heavy with moisture. Vines hang from the branches, huge leaves catch the light, and leeches wait on the wet ground for anything that walks past. The forest belongs to a large wildlife sanctuary where elephants, gibbons and hornbills still live, though they are shy and hard to spot. Streams come down in small waterfalls and fill the rivers of the plain below, which is why this green block matters for farms far away. How high the summit really is has never been settled, and the measurements differ by a few metres. Very few people climb it: there is no marked path, so groups walk for two or three days with villagers who know the way through the trees.

Find it on the globe

Phnom Aural is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.