Preah Vihear, an ancient, cliff-top temple that Cambodia and Thailand have sporadically fought over for more than a century, is proving to be a hit with Japanese tourists, who last year accounted for the largest number of foreign visitors there.

Of the 23,823 foreign tourists who visited the UNESCO World Heritage site in 2016, 8,306 were Japanese, according to Cambodia's state-run Preah Vihear Authority, which runs the off-the-beaten-track temple complex.

That is more than twice the number of Chinese, who came in second place at 3,563, followed by 2,658 French and 775 Thais — even though Japanese ranked only seventh in the number of foreigners visiting Cambodia last year, or 191,577 out of around 5 million.