Phimeanakas stands inside the former Royal Palace compound at the centre of Angkor Thom, the walled capital of the Khmer Empire in present-day Siem Reap Province. It is easy to overlook among Angkor’s celebrated towers, yet its position gives it unusual historical weight. APSARA National Authority, the Cambodian agency responsible for the Angkor site, describes the palace enclosure as roughly 600 metres long and 250 metres wide. The temple occupied a religious core within a much larger royal landscape of residences, courtyards, ponds and administrative spaces.
The name is commonly rendered as “heavenly palace.” In its June 2026 Khmer-language account, APSARA explains the name through Sanskrit roots associated with a divine residence and the sky or space. That translation suits the temple’s rising form: a compact, tiered pyramid that evokes Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain at the centre of Hindu cosmology. The monument was not an isolated hilltop shrine. Its location in the palace compound links religious architecture with the daily and ceremonial world of Angkorian kings.