Map of Vietnam showing the conquest of the South over 900 years
(Bắc Kỳ in
Vietnamese), also spelled
Tongkin,
Tonquin or
Tongking, is the northernmost part of
Vietnam, south of
China's
Yunnan and
Guangxi Provinces, east of northern
Laos, and west of the
Gulf of Tonkin. Locally, it is known as
Bắc Kỳ, meaning "Northern Region". Located on the fertile
delta of the
Red River, Tonkin is rich in
rice production.
The term derives from
Đông Kinh (
東京), a former name of
Hanoi, 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.)
History
The area was called
Văn Lang by Vietnamese ancestors at around 2000-100
BCE. Evidence of the earliest established society other than the
Đông Sơn culture in Northern Vietnam was found in
Cổ Loa, the ancient city situated near present-day Hà Nội. According to Vietnamese myths the first Vietnamese peoples descended from the Dragon Lord
Lạc Long Quân and the Immortal Fairy
Âu Cơ. Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ 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 Vương or the
Hồng Bàng Dynasty). The Hùng kings called the country, which was then located on the Red River delta in present-day northern Vietnam, Văn Lang. The people of Văn Lang were referred to as the Lạc Việt.
Tonkin (French colony)
France assumed sovereignty over all of Vietnam after the
Sino-French War (1884-1885). The French colonial government then divided Vietnam into three different administrative territories. They named the territories: Tonkin (in the north),
Annam (in the center), and
Cochinchina (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.
Category:Geography of VietnamCategory:Former colonies of FranceCategory:Former countries in history of Vietnambr:Tonkincs:Tonkinde:Tonkines:Tonkínfr:Tonkinko:통킹id:Tonkinit:Tonchinonl:Tonkin (gebied)ja:トンキンno:Tonkinpl:Tonkinpt:Tonkinru:Бакбо (район)sv:Tonkinvi:Bắc Kỳzh:東京 (越南)
