This page was created by Michitake Aso.
Physical and Cultural Cartographies
Northern Vietnam in general, and the Red River Delta in particular, is considered the cradle of Vietnamese civilization. Lê Bá Thảo, a famous geographer of Vietnam, wrote in the 1990s of "the history of the conquest of the Red River delta" that created the "Red River civilization." (Thảo, Vietnam: The Country and Its Geographical Regions, 317). Vietnamese civilization has often been viewed in terms of its relationship to the Sinosphere.
The cartographic maps of the Red River from Le, Nguyen dynasty sources. Short and swift river, frequently floods. Dike network that helps irrigate, controls floods. [From Smith dissertation - analyze.]
Thảo continues that the delta is the result "of both the Red River and the Thái Bình river systems, but for reason of convenience and habit, the delta is named after the principal river system (the Red River)." (Thảo, Vietnam: The Country and Its Geographical Regions, 318).
Include Li Tana material on Gulf of Tonkin.
The following French colonial maps published in 1886 shows several things. First, French knowledge of the Red River Delta was limited. French conquest of the Nguyen imperial court, and control over central and northern Vietnam, was only completed in 1885. The blank area around the delta was unknown and simply left blank. Second, physical geography was of keen interest, hence the topographic map. Third, this was a commercial map, both in the sense that it was for sale and in the sense that it depicted the Red River Delta in French imperial geographies of commerce. The inset shows the links of the Red River Delta to the rest of Indochina, and eventually, France.
Current Landsat images reproduce images of the delta as a green, wedge-shaped space.
Two important urban centers in the Northern Vietnam are Hanoi, the current capital of Vietnam, and Thai Nguyen, an industrial center.
