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The Mekong Delta ((ベトナム語:Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long) "Nine Dragon river delta"), also known as the Western Region ((ベトナム語:Miền Tây)) is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea through a network of distributaries. The Mekong delta region encompasses a large portion of southwestern Vietnam of .〔(Mekong Delta ) on ARCBC (ASEAN Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation) site〕 The size of the area covered by water depends on the season. The Mekong Delta has been dubbed as a "biological treasure trove". Over 1,000 animal species were recorded between 1997 and 2007 and new species of plants, fish, lizards, and mammals has been discovered in previously unexplored areas, including the Laotian rock rat, thought to be extinct.〔Ashley Fantz, "(Mekong a 'treasure trove' of 1,000 newly discovered species )", CNN. December 16, 2008.〕 ==History== The Mekong Delta was likely inhabited long since prehistory; the empires of Funan and Chenla maintained a presence in the Mekong Delta for centuries. Archaeological discoveries at Óc Eo and other Funanese sites show that the area was an important part of the Funan kingdom, bustling with trading ports and canals as early as in the first century AD and extensive human settlement in the region may have gone back as far as the 4th century BC. Angkor Borei is a site in the Mekong Delta that existed between 400 BC-500 AD. This site had extensive maritime trade networks throughout Southeast Asia and with India, and is believed to have possibly been the ancient capital to the Kingdom of Funan.〔Stark, M., & Sovath, B. (2001). Recent research on emergent complexity in Cambodia's Mekong. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, 21(5), 85-98.〕 The region was known as ''Khmer Krom'' (lower Khmer, or lower Cambodia) to the Khmer Empire, which likely maintained settlements there centuries before its rise in the 11th and 12th centuries.〔"At the height of the Khmer Empire's economic and political strength, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, its rulers established and fostered the growth of Prey Nokor() It is possible that there already had been a settlement at this location in the Mekong marshes for some centuries, depending, as Prey Nokor did, on the handling of goods traded between the countries bordering the South China Sea and the interior provinces of the empire." 〕 The kingdom of Champa, though mainly based along the coast of modern Central Vietnam, is known to have expanded west into the Mekong Delta, seizing control of Prey Nokor (the precursor to modern-day Ho Chi Minh City) by the end of the 13th century.〔"Such a trading center was bound to be one of the prizes in the struggle for power that developed in the thirteenth century between the declining Khmer Empire and the expanding kingdom of Champa, and by the end of that century the Cham people had seized control of the town." 〕 Author Nghia M. Vo suggests that a Cham presence may indeed have existed in the area prior to Khmer occupation.〔"Saigon began as the Cham village of Baigaur, then became the Khmer Prey Nokor before being taken over by the Vietnamese and renamed Gia Dinh Thanh and then Saigon." 〕 Beginning in the 1620s, Khmer king Chey Chettha II (1618–1628) allowed the Vietnamese to settle in the area, and to set up a custom house at Prey Nokor, which they colloquially referred to as ''Sài Gòn''. The increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers which followed overwhelmed the Khmer kingdom—weakened as it was due to war with Thailand—and slowly Vietnamized the area. During the late 17th century, Mạc Cửu, a Chinese anti-Qing general, began to expand Vietnamese and Chinese settlements deeper into Khmer lands, and in 1691, Prey Nokor was occupied by the Vietnamese. Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyễn lords of Huế by sea in 1698 to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the area.〔The first settlers, http://www.hochiminhcity.gov.vn/eng〕 This act formally detached the Mekong Delta from Cambodia, placing the region firmly under Vietnamese administrative control. Cambodia was cut off from access to the South China Sea, and trade through the area was possible only with Vietnamese permission.〔 During the Tây Sơn wars and the subsequent Nguyễn Dynasty, Vietnam's boundaries were pushed as far as the Cape Cà Mau. In 1802 Nguyễn Ánh crowned himself emperor Gia Long and unified all the territories comprising modern Vietnam, including the Mekong Delta. Upon the conclusion of the Cochinchina Campaign in the 1860s, the area became Cochinchina, France's first colony in Vietnam, and later, part of French Indochina. Beginning during the French colonial period, the French patrolled and fought on the waterways of the Mekong Delta region with their ''Divisions navales d'assaut (Dinassaut)'', a tactic which lasted throughout the First Indochina War, and was later employed by the US Navy Mobile Riverine Force.〔(Dinassaut : French Riverine warfare in Indochina, 1945-1954 )〕 During the Vietnam War—also referred to as the Second Indochina War—the Delta region saw savage fighting between Viet Cong (NLF) guerrillas and units of the United States Navy's swift boats and hovercrafts (PACVs). Following independence from France, the Mekong Delta was part of the Republic of Vietnam and eventually the country of Vietnam. In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge regime attacked Vietnam in an attempt to reconquer the Delta region. This campaign precipitated the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and subsequent downfall of the Khmer Rouge. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「mekong delta」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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