Tonkin

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Tonkin

Tonkin (B?c K? in Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Vietnamese , formerly known under French colonization as Annamese , is the national language and official language language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of the Vietnamese people , who constitute 86% of Demographics of Vietnam, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese, most of whom live in the United States....
), also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is the northernmost part of Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by People's Republic of China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east....
, south of China

China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
's Yunnan

Yunnan

is a political divisions of China of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately 394,000 square kilometers ....
and Guangxi

Guangxi

This article is about a region of China. For the sociological concept, see Guanxi.Guangxi is a Zhuang people autonomous region of China of the People's Republic of China....
Provinces, east of northern Laos

Laos

Laos , officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and People's Republic of China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west....
, and west of the Gulf of Tonkin

Gulf of Tonkin

The Gulf of Tonkin, in Vietnamese language: V?nh B?c B? or in Chinese language: Beibu Wan is an arm of the South China Sea. Covering an area of 126,250 km?, the gulf borders Vietnam on the northwest, west and southwest....
. Locally, it is known as B?c K?, meaning "Northern Region".

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Tonkin'

Start a new discussion about 'Tonkin'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Tonkin (B?c K? in Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Vietnam

China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
's Yunnan

Yunnan

is a political divisions of China of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately 394,000 square kilometers ....
and Guangxi

Guangxi

Laos

Gulf of Tonkin

Red River Delta

File:VietnamRedRiverDeltamap.pngThe Red River Delta is the flat plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries joining in the Thai Binh River in northern Vietnam....
of the Red River

Red River (Vietnam)

The Red River, also known as the Hong - Red, Song Cai, Song Ca - Mother River , or Yuan River , is a river that flows from southwestern China through northern Vietnam to the Gulf of Tonkin....
, Tonkin is rich in rice

Rice

Rice is a staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in tropical Latin America, and East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, making it the second-most consumed cereal grain, after maize....
production.

The term derives from Ðông Kinh, a former name of Hanoi

Hanoi

Hanoi , estimated population 3,398,889 , is the Capital of Vietnam. From 1010 until 1802, with a few brief interruptions, it was the political centre of an independent Vietnam....
, which was the capital of Vietnam since the 7th century. (The name means "eastern capital", and is identical in meaning and written form in Chinese characters to that of Tokyo

Tokyo

, officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan of Japan and located on the eastern side of the main island Honshu. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the Tokyo City in the eastern part of the prefecture, and total over 8 million people....
.)

History

The area was called Van Lang

Van Lang

Van Lang was the first nation of the ancient Vietnamese people, founded in 3rd millennium BC and existing until 258 BC. It was ruled by the H?ng B?ng Dynasty....
by Vietnamese ancestors at around 2000-100 BCE. Evidence of the earliest established society other than the Ðông Son culture

Dong Son culture

File:DrumFromSongDaVietnamDongSonIICultureMid1stMilleniumBCEBronze.jpgThe ??ng Son culture was a prehistoric Bronze Age culture that was centered at the Geography of Vietnam#Red River Delta of northern Vietnam Vietnam....
in Northern Vietnam was found in C? Loa, the ancient city situated near present-day Hà N?i. According to Vietnamese myths the first Vietnamese peoples descended from the Dragon Lord L?c Long Quân and the Immortal Fairy Âu Co

Au Co

?u Co , according to the creation myth of the Vietnamese people, was an Immortality mountain fairy who married Lac Long Quan , and bore an egg sac that hatched a hundred children known collectively as Yue , ancestors to the Vietnamese people....
. L?c Long Quân and Âu Co had 100 sons before they decided to part ways. 50 of the children went with their mother to the mountains, and the other 50 went with their father to the sea. The eldest son became the first in a line of earliest Vietnamese kings, collectively known as the Hùng kings (Hùng Vuong

Hung Vuong

H?ng Vuong was the first king of Van Lang or L?c Vi?t . H?ng Vuong as the title of a line of kings and the Van Lang kingdom are attested in the Chinese sources.....
or the H?ng Bàng Dynasty

H?ng Bàng Dynasty

The H?ng B?ng Dynasty, also known as the L?c Dynasty, is a dynasty that supposedly ruled in Vietnam for over 2000 years, until the third century BC....
). The Hùng kings called the country, which was then located on the Red River delta in present-day northern Vietnam, Van Lang. The people of Van Lang were referred to as the L?c Vi?t.

Tonkin (French colony)

France assumed sovereignty over all of Vietnam after the Sino-French War

Sino-French War

The Sino-French War was a limited conflict fought between August 1884 and April 1885 to decide whether France should replace China in control of Tonkin ....
(1884-1885). The French colonial government then divided Vietnam into three different administrative territories. They named the territories: Tonkin (in the north), Annam

Annam (French Colony)

Annam was a France protectorate encompassing the central region of Vietnam. The word is Chinese for "pacified south." In colonial times, Vietnamese called Annam Trung K? ....
(in the center), and Cochinchina

Cochinchina

Cochinchina is a region encompassing the southern third of Vietnam whose principal city is Saigon. It was a French colony from 1864 to 1948. The later state of South Vietnam was created in 1954 by combining Cochinchina with southern Annam ....
(in the south). These territories were fairly arbitrary in their geographic extent. The vast majority of the Vietnamese regarded their country as a single land and fought for much of the next 90 years to achieve unification.