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Curzon
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Curzon

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January 20th, 2010

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The Geography of Vietnam Through History

Previously: Ethiopia – Poland – Armenia – Persia – Russia I – Russia II – Russia III – India – Britannia – Sweden – Saudi Arabia

Vietnam geography

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T. Greer
January 20, 2010
10:49 am
I am curious -- where is the kingdom of Funan?
McKellar
January 20, 2010
12:47 pm
The map makes it seem as if there is an historical divide between North and South Vietnam. How true is that? Is this two countries untied by empire (like British India), or one country split by Imperial influence (like the other countries on China's border: Korea, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Tibet)?
tdaxp
January 20, 2010
3:35 pm
I think the part about the Japanese maintaining French rule is incorrect. Barbara Tuchman wrote that the Japanese invaded Vichy Vietnam, and beheaded the French officials they found. "Asia for the Asians" did not have room for "neutral" Vichy France.
SJPONeill
January 20, 2010
6:34 pm
Was it not the US that maintained French rule post-WW2, reneging on understandings made with Ho Chi Minh, in a vain effort to bolster France in Europe? This lead directly to France's major butt-kicking in 1954 (not necessarily a bad thing!) and, ten years later, the major and tragic (for all involved) US involvement in that country.
T. Greer
January 21, 2010
2:40 am
@Mckellar:

There has traditionally been an ethno-linguistic divide between the Southern coast and the rest of the country. The North and the interior has usually been ruled by Khmers, Viets, and their ancestors, while the Southern coast has been the domain of Malayo-Polynesians.
ComingAnarchy.com » The Geography of Vietnam Through History | Drakz Free Online Service
January 21, 2010
4:01 am
[...] original here: ComingAnarchy.com » The Geography of Vietnam Through History Share and [...]
Aceface
January 21, 2010
12:42 pm
"Barbara Tuchman wrote that the Japanese invaded Vichy Vietnam, and beheaded the French officials they found. "Asia for the Asians" did not have room for "neutral" Vichy France."

Barbara Tuchman is indeed correct about there were multiple cases that Japannese DID beheaded some French colonial officials whom Kempeitai regarded as the resistance or those who had collaborated with anti-Japanese military activity.
But killing every single French officials they found is pretty absurd.Vichy France was considered as ally which is why French journalists could operate in Tokyo without being sent to internment camp until March 9 of 1945.
Curzon
January 21, 2010
8:09 pm
T. Greer: Funan was centered in Thailand and Cambodia, and no more identifiable than modern Vietnam than the Khmer Empire, and thus not included.

All: Referencing wikipedia, I quote...

During the Second World war, after the fall of France and establishment of the French State, the French had lost practical control in French Indochina to the Japanese, but Japan stayed in the background while giving the Vichy French administrators nominal control. This changed on 9 March 1945 when Japan officially took over. To gain the support of the Vietnamese people, Imperial Japan declared it would return sovereignty to Vietnam. Emperor Bảo Đại declared the treaty made with France in 1884 void. Trần Trọng Kim, a renowned historian and scholar, was chosen to lead the government as prime minister.


More importantly, the Japanese-backed "Empire of Vietnam" was when the key borders were established between the territories of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam that exist to this day. Previously, the territority had been split up, for administration purposes, into many more territories than those three countries.
McKellar
January 21, 2010
9:19 pm
@T. Greer: Thanks.