Thổ Châu islands

Thổ Châu islands (Vietnamese: Quần đảo Thổ Châu) is an archipelago in the Gulf of Thailand. It constitutes fully as Thổ Châu Special Zone of An Giang Province (Vietnamese: Đặc khu Thổ Châu trực thuộc tỉnh An Giang) belonging to An Giang province in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam.

History

According to Đại Nam nhất thống địa dư chí, its name Thổ Châu was written as "土珠", which implies as a pearl in the middle of the sea. This way of calling has been assumed by the linguist Thiều Chửu to be similar to Pearl Harbor.

In the past, the archipelago was also known as Pulau Panjang (means "long island" in Malay language) or Pulo Panjang by navigators.

XX century

During the Republic of Vietnam regime, Thổ Châu Islands were under the administration of An Xuyên Province. However, the islands historically used to constitute a disputed territory between Kampouchea and Vietnam, both nations claiming them to be within their territorial waters.

On May 10, 1975, Khmer Rouge occupied Thổ Châu Island and abducted about five hundred civilians to Kampouchea, all of whom were massacred. From May 24 to May 27, 1975, Vietnamese forces attacked the occupiers and recaptured the island. In 1977, the Khmer Rouge raided Thổ Châu Island once again but were defeated.

On April 27, 1992, under the arrangement of the People's Committee of Kiên Giang Province, six families with about thirty people moved to Thổ Châu Island and settled there. On April 24, 1993, the Vietnamese government decided to establish Thổ Châu commune (xã Thổ Châu).

XXI century

On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 lost contact with ground while flying by Thổ Châu island.

According to the Statement on the basis of the territorial width in the Tonkin Gulf and a number of related documents, Thổ Châu is considered by the Vietnamese press as the farthest place to the West to determine the above sovereignty of Vietnam on the ocean.

On February 24, 2025, at the 32nd Session of the 10th People's Council of Kiên Giang province, the delegates participated in the vote to officially approve the resolution of the establishment of Thổ Châu island district (huyện đảo Thổ Châu), which was based on the whole natural area and population of the islands or former commune.

Geography

Thổ Châu island district is basically the whole area of Thổ Châu archipelago, not divided into commune-level administrative units like other localities.

It consist of the following eight islands : Thổ Châu with 13.95 square kilometres (5.39 sq mi), Hòn Cao, Hòn Cao Cát, Hòn Khô, Hòn Mô (or sometimes Hòn Cái Bàn), Hòn Nhạn, Hòn Từ and Hòn Xanh.

In particular, Hòn Nhạn is base point A1 on Vietnam's baseline.

Topography

Map including the Thổ Châu Islands (inset) (AMS, 1956).

Thổ Châu Island - the largest entity of the archipelago - was first proposed as a marine protected area in 1995. Subsequently, Asian Development Bank proposed the establishment of a marine protected areas over Thổ Châu Island with an area of 22,400 hectares (86 sq mi), of which land area is 1,190 ha (4.6 sq mi) and sea area is 21,210 ha (81.9 sq mi).

Demography

Currently, Thổ Châu has about 500 households with nearly 2,000 inhabitants, most of whom are border guards and navy personnel who chose to settle on the islands; the rest are immigrants. Local residents' livelihood is providing service to fishing boats, small craft production, farming, animal husbandry and fishing along the coast.

Notes and references

Notes

References

Sơn Nam, Nói về miền Nam (Talk about the South), publishing by Lá Bối, Saigon, 1967.
Sơn Nam, Văn minh miệt vườn (The Civilization of the Countryside), publishing by An Tiêm, Saigon, 1970.
Sơn Nam, Lịch sử khẩn hoang miền Nam (History of Reclamation in the South), publishing by Đông Phố, Saigon, 1973.
Sơn Nam, Cá tính miền Nam (The Personality of the South), publishing by Đông Phố, Saigon, 1974.
Sơn Nam, Đồng bằng sông Cửu Long - nét sinh hoạt xưa (The Mekong Delta and Its Old Lifestyle), publishing by Hochiminh-City Publishing House, Saigon, 1985.
Sơn Nam, Danh thắng miền Nam (Famous Landscapes of the South), publishing by Đồng Tháp P. H., Cao Lãnh, 1998.
Sơn Nam, Tiếp cận đồng bằng sông Cửu Long (Access to the Mekong Delta), publishing by Trẻ P. H., Saigon, 2000.
Trần Ngọc Thêm. Cơ sở văn hóa Việt Nam (The Foundation of Vietnamese Culture), 504 pages. Publishing by Nhà xuất bản Đại học Tổng hợp TPHCM. Saigon, Vietnam, 1995.
Trần Quốc Vượng, Tô Ngọc Thanh, Nguyễn Chí Bền, Lâm Mỹ Dung, Trần Thúy Anh. Cơ sở văn hóa Việt Nam (The Basis of Vietnamese Culture), 292 pages. Re-publishing by Nhà xuất bản Giáo Dục Việt Nam & Quảng Nam Printing Co-Ltd. Hanoi, Vietnam, 2006.
Tập bản đồ hành chính Việt Nam (Vietnamese administrative maps), Nhà xuất bản Tài nguyên – Môi trường và Bản đồ Việt Nam, Hà Nội, 2013.

English

George Coedes. The Making of South East Asia, 2nd ed. University of California Press, 1983.
Li Tana (2011). Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) in the Han period Tongking Gulf. In Cooke, Nola ; Li Tana ; Anderson, James A. (eds.). The Tongking Gulf Through History. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 39–44. ISBN 9780812205022.
Li Tana, Towards an environmental history of the eastern Red River Delta, Vietnam, c.900–1400, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 2014.
Samuel Baron, Christoforo Borri, Olga Dror, Keith W. Taylor (2018). Views of Seventeenth-Century Vietnam : Christoforo Borri on Cochinchina and Samuel Baron on Tonkin. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1-501-72090-1.

French

Cochinchine française : Excursions et reconnaissances (in French). Vol. 1. Imprimerie du Gouvernement. 1879. p. 59.
The Pol Pot Regime : Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. Vol. 1. Yale University Press. 2008. p. Tho Chau Island.

External links