The history of Cambodia, a country in mainland Southeast Asia, can be traced back to Indian civilization. Detailed records of a political structure on the territory of what is now Cambodia first appear in Chinese annals in reference to Funan, a polity that encompassed the southernmost part of the Indochinese peninsula during the 1st to 6th centuries. Centered at the lower Mekong, Funan is noted as the oldest regional Hindu culture, which suggests prolonged socio-economic interaction with maritime trading partners of the Indosphere in the west. By the 6th century a civilization, called Chenla or Zhenla in Chinese annals, firmly replaced Funan, as it controlled larger, more undulating areas of Indochina and maintained more than a singular centre of power.

Chenla or Zhenla is the Chinese designation for the successor polity of the kingdom of Funan preceding the Khmer Empire that existed from around the late 6th to the early 9th century in Indochina. The name was still used in the 13th century by the Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, author of The Customs of Cambodia. It appears on the Mao Kun map. However, modern historiography applies the name exclusively to the period from the late 6th to the early 9th century. This period of Cambodian history is known by historians as the Pre-Angkor period. It is doubted whether Chenla ever existed as a unitary kingdom, or if this is a misconception by Chinese chroniclers. Most modern historians assert that "Chenla" was in fact just a series of loose and temporary confederations of principalities in the pre-Angkor period.