The Angkor civilization was the major regional power in Southeast Asia from the 9th-15th centuries CE. At its height in the 12th-13th centuries CE, it may have controlled a large portion of mainland Southeast Asia. Ancient empires are defined by their expansive tendencies, but more than a century of work at Angkor has not examined how this well-defined centre grew and created its provincial periphery. Studying change at the state’s edges – in provinces – offers insights on limits of state control and local agency in these regions. Our work focuses on a provincial centre, Prasat Baset, located 70 km SW of the Angkorian capital, and specifically how Angkorian state expansion impacted local communities. This region was incorporated into the Angkorian state in the 11th century CE through the construction of a sandstone temple (prasat), yet epigraphic evidence suggests complex and fluctuating relationships between this Battambang provincial zone and the capital through time. Our 2018-19 pilot fieldwork at Baset indicates its occupation began several centuries before its temple dedication and the Battambang region remained important after Angkor’s 15th century collapse. Our project seeks to understand what impacts Angkorian imperial intervention had on the Baset community and how this changed over time. Furthermore, can we relate these data to strategies of territorial vs. hegemonic imperial control? In this paper we discuss the preliminary results from our fieldwork and present hypotheses for our ongoing investigations. We argue that studying the state through its residential patterning holds insights about the nature of central state control over its provinces and seek to examine how this fluctuated through time as different leaders pursued a variety of expansionist strategies.