The Tampuan (also spelled Tompuan or Tampuon) are an indigenous peoples living in northeast Cambodia. Numbering about 25,000, the Tampuan people live in the mountainous Southern and Western portions of the Cambodian province of Ratanakiri. They have their own language of the Mon–Khmer language family. Tampuans are often classified as both Khmer Loeu or montagnards, a designation given to all hilltribes in the former French Indochina.

Nearly all Tampuans are subsistence farmers, practicing a form of rotational slash and burn agriculture. The land surrounding the village is communally owned, with each village member planting on his designated section. When the nutrients on a particular plot of land are depleted, usually after two or three years, a new plot is cleared, burned, and prepared for planting. The previous plot is left to lie fallow for a period of years. The vast majority of Tampuans plant dry-land rice.

Text adapted from Wikipedia’s article on the Tampuan Peoples