The closely related Mon and Khmer peoples…

The closely related Mon and Khmer peoples had entered Southeast Asia along migration routes from southern China in the ninth century BCE.

The Khmer had settled in the Mekong River Valley, while the Mon had occupied the central plain and northern highlands of modern Thailand and large parts of Burma.

Taking advantage of Funan's decline in the sixth century CE, the Mon had begun to establish independent kingdoms, among them Dvaravati in the northern part of the area formerly controlled by Funan and farther north at Haripunjaya.

Meanwhile the Khmer had lain the foundation for their great empire of the ninth to fifteenth centuries CE.

This empire is centered at Angkor (near modern Siem Reap) in Cambodia.