Koh Rong is the island many people picture when they dream of Cambodia: kilometres of fine white sand, warm water in an incredible shade of turquoise, palm trees leaning over the sea and, after dark, the magical sight of bioluminescent plankton lighting up the water with blue flashes like stars. It's the biggest and liveliest of Cambodia's islands in the Gulf of Thailand, and it has a bit of everything: party beaches and empty beaches, backpacker bars and coves to switch off in, jungle to hike and reefs to dive.
Its character changes depending on where you are. The main pier area, Koh Touch, is the party hub: bars, hostels, music, travellers from all over the world and a young, noisy atmosphere, ideal if you're after nightlife. But you only need to go a little further, walking through the jungle to Long Beach (one of the most impressive beaches in Southeast Asia) or taking a boat to Sok San, Coconut or Lonely Beach, to find the other Koh Rong: quiet, wild and almost empty, with simple bungalows facing a picture-postcard sea.
This guide helps you navigate that double personality: which beach to choose for what you want, how to get there by ferry from Sihanoukville, how to see the bioluminescent plankton, where to sleep and eat, and how to combine Koh Rong with its quieter sister, Koh Rong Samloem. Whether you want to party until sunrise or do absolutely nothing by the sea, Koh Rong is one of the happiest stops on any trip through Cambodia.
For centuries, Koh Rong was just a handful of fishing villages (Koh Touch, Prek Svay, Deum Thkov and Sok San) whose people lived almost entirely from fishing. The island became part of Cambodia's administration under the French protectorate, set up by treaty in 1863. Under the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979), its small communities suffered forced labour and collectivisation, and for decades the island stayed isolated and barely developed, run by the Navy until 2000. Tourism only arrived in the 21st century: first a few backpackers, then a boom that turned it into the most popular island in the country. In 2008 a Cambodian consortium (the Royal Group) was granted a long-term concession with development plans, and in 2018 Cambodia's first marine national park was created around it. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Cambodia's coastline on the Gulf of Thailand: the colonial pepper towns, the port a king had built and the white-sand islands of the south.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Before the backpackers, the cocktail buckets and the beachfront bungalows arrived, Koh Rong was an island of fishermen and practically nothing else. For centuries, life on this large island in the Gulf of Thailand revolved around four villages —Koh Touch, Prek Svay, Deum Thkov and Sok San— whose inhabitants lived almost entirely on what they took from the sea. Wooden houses on stilts, fishing boats, nets drying in the sun: that was the picture of Koh Rong, completely untouched by tourism.
The island, mostly covered in mountainous jungle and surrounded by reefs, was a remote and self-sufficient place. Its now-famous beaches —Long Beach, Coconut, Lonely Beach— had no tourist names and no postcard value: they were simply part of the working and living environment of the fishing communities. The sea provided a living, and the rhythm was set by the tides, the winds and the seasons.
Geographically, Koh Rong always belonged to the orbit of the Kompong Som coast (today's Sihanoukville), although its isolation kept it in a world of its own. As French rule expanded across Indochina, the island was brought administratively into the protectorate of Cambodia, established by treaty in 1863. But for a long time, neither the colonial administration nor the political changes on the mainland did much to alter the simple life of its fishing villages.
The tragedy that devastated all of Cambodia also reached this remote island. When Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge seized power in April 1975 and set up the regime of Democratic Kampuchea, not even the small fishing communities of Koh Rong were safe from its policy of forced collectivisation and total control. Forced labour camps were set up on the island, and its population —men, women and children— was subjected to gruelling days of work in farming, fishing and other tasks, watched over by the regime's soldiers.
The Khmer Rouge regime, which ruled until January 1979, caused the deaths of around a quarter of the country's population through executions, hunger, disease and exhaustion. When it fell, after the Vietnamese invasion, Cambodia was plunged into years of civil war, occupation and recovery. For an island like Koh Rong, that meant decades more of isolation and stagnation.
In the years after the war, the island and its waters came under the control of the naval authority, which administered the area within a radius of several miles around Koh Rong from roughly 1979 to 2000. Resettlement and development were minimal during the 1980s: the country's priorities were stabilising the mainland and fighting the last Khmer Rouge holdouts. Only from 2000 onwards, with the management of fishing resources passing to the Department of Fisheries and the country finally at peace, did Koh Rong very slowly begin to open up to a different future.
Much of what makes Koh Rong special has to do with its nature, which was almost untouched until very recently. The island is large —the second biggest in Cambodia— and mostly mountainous and covered in tropical rainforest, with a coastline broken up into dozens of beaches, coves and peninsulas. That rugged terrain, with hardly any roads, is why even today you get around Koh Rong by walking forest trails or by boat, and why many of its beaches are still hard to reach and, as a result, quiet.
Around the island, the waters of the Gulf of Thailand are home to coral reefs and varied marine life, which efforts have been made to protect since the marine national park was created. And at night, in the darkest spots, the phenomenon that made Koh Rong famous worldwide appears: bioluminescent plankton, microorganisms that give off blue flashes when the water is stirred, turning a simple night swim into an almost unreal experience. It is not unique to the island, but it is rarely this accessible or this spectacular.
That wild beauty caught attention well beyond the backpacker crowd: the islands of the Koh Rong archipelago served as the setting for survival and adventure TV shows with large international audiences, which showed its beaches and jungle to millions of viewers around the world. That media exposure, together with travellers' word of mouth, helped put Koh Rong firmly on the global tourism map, for better (fame, income) and for worse (pressure on a fragile environment).
Koh Rong's tourism take-off is surprisingly recent. In the early years of the 21st century, the island was still a secret among adventurous backpackers who arrived on fishing boats from Sihanoukville, ready to sleep in basic huts with barely any electricity in exchange for having paradise beaches almost to themselves. Word of mouth did the rest: the fame of its white sand, turquoise water and magical bioluminescent plankton spread along the Southeast Asia travel trail.
A key milestone came in 2008, when a Cambodian conglomerate, the Royal Group, secured a long-term concession (a long lease) over the island and announced ambitious development plans, including a project to build an 'ecologically planned' resort. At the same time, better fast ferries from Sihanoukville made the island far more accessible, and tourism multiplied. Koh Touch, by the pier, turned into a loud backpacker and party hub, while the more remote beaches drew those looking for peace and quiet.
Growth brought prosperity, but also tensions: pressure on the environment, waste management, property speculation and the debate over how to develop the island without destroying what makes it special. In 2018, Cambodia's first marine national park was established around Koh Rong, an attempt to protect its reefs and marine life. The island, which became a commune in 2000 and gained city status in 2019, now faces the challenge of balancing its tourism explosion with the conservation of its beaches and nature. From forgotten fishing village to the country's tourism gem in barely two decades, Koh Rong sums up the dizzying speed with which Cambodia opened up to the world after decades of war and isolation.
