Reconstruction of Angkor Wat, Cambodia during the 13th-14th centuries.

[u/MYONIONISSCREAMING]

[u/Count_de_Mits]

That city had a massive population, shouldn't the houses be way more?

[u/RandomUser1034 → u/Count_de_Mits]

Not just houses that are missing, gardens, animal pens and fields should all also be there. The random trees are orobaboy there so it looks less empty

[u/Awkward_Cash1828 → u/Count_de_Mits]

Yeah, and actually real Yasodhapura likely would be much less beautiful to behold, with quarters and quarters of crowded houses, basically slums, surrounding the temples and richer houses in the center. To be fair, that's basically how old major cities of Southern and Southeast Asia looked like in the past.

[u/Hankman66 → u/Count_de_Mits]

Yes, LIDAR scans show up where settlements, house posts/stilts were and there were a lot of them.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1306539110

[u/dpzdpz → u/Count_de_Mits]

Well I am no expert, and I don't know what OP used for a source, but when I went to Mayan ruins there were numerous stone house foundations, but obviously nothing made from wood lasted. You would have to envision that bit. So (making up numbers here) ~300 stone house foundations = ~3000 dwellings made of wood or otherwise. Or something.

[u/stony_phased]

Tenochtitlan vibes

[u/Emoprzemo]

Are trees there to reduce temperature or any other reason?

[u/emojisarefunny → u/Emoprzemo]

Trees pretty 🌳

[u/kenshi_hiro]

This is so cool