- Time Period: Interwars Period
- Institution: Interwars
- Country: France
The Royal Order of Cambodia (គ្រឿងឥស្សរិយយសព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា; or Ordre royal du Cambodge) was a French colonial chivalric order in French Cambodia and is still in use in present-day Cambodia.
For French appointments, the recipient had to be at least 29 years old and enter the Order first as a knight, to be promoted to a higher grade after a certain period. In 1948 France ceased granting the order. Formally it remained a French colonial policy, but it was now only granted by the King of Cambodia.
On September 1, 1950 the (colonial) French medal system was reformed. The Order of the Star of Anjouan and the Order of the Black Star were formalized as French Overseas Orders. In 1955, Cambodia became independent. The order was approved by King Norodom Sihanouk during his government and also granted during his exile in Beijing. Even after the restoration of the Khmer dynasty, it remained the highest Cambodian distinction.
The Royal Order of Cambodia Design
The medal of the order comes in many different forms, as a slightly elongated silver or gold star surmounted by a Cambodian crown and with an image of the king’s crown and coat of arms in gold on a violet-blue background and surrounded by a red circle. The reverse of the medal is left rough. To promote the order if it was awarded by the French, the Cambodian crown was replaced with a European one surmounted by a small cross, and in the early years, the order was even awarded without any crown.
The central image on the star of the order is the same as the medal, though the crown is missing and the rays are usually smooth. The star is elongated, with the vertical rays longer than the horizontal rays. The regalia of Knights is in silver, whilst those of the higher grades are gold. The medal and star are equally for civilians and soldiers. The ribbon of the order was originally green with a red border, changing in 1899 to white with an orange border (in the same year the French government changed the colours of the ribbons of all five colonial orders), before reverting to the original black ribbon when it became a purely Cambodian order again.
