North and South Vietnam

North and South Vietnam

The terms North and South Vietnam, rather than the geographically descriptive adjectives northern and southern, still hold distinct political connotations dating to the 1964 to 1975 period and the Vietnam War. The division of Vietnam had occurred as a result of the Geneva Accords of 1954, which drew a line between north and south corresponding approximately to the 17th parallel. Despite the agreement stating that this “should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary”, it did indeed create two de facto independent states, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north and the Republic of Vietnam in the south.

Although known as the 17th parallel, the line mainly followed the Ben Hai River, slightly to the south, with just a section of it following the line of latitude. There was also a 3-mile exclusion zone on either side, which corresponded to the famous, or infamous, DMZ; Demilitarized Zone.

The idea was to separate newly independent Vietnam into the Vietminh-dominated north and pro-Western south, with the intention of halting ongoing fighting and preventing Uncle Ho’s perceived communist expansion. (Ho Chi Minh actually declared independence on the 2nd September 1945 in the wake of WW2, although the French didn’t officially grant it until 1954 after their disastrous military defeat at Dien Bien Phu.) It is claimed that neither north or south Vietnam had sufficient control and resources to extend their sway much beyond this line. The Vietminh were, however, pushing for the 16th parallel, which would have represented a more geographically accurate split, although it would have placed the key cities of Hue and Danang firmly in the northern half. The 17th lies in Quang Tri Province, slightly north of Hue, hence, we assume the choice of the somewhat arbitrary line.

During the French administration, Indochina (so named as it was geographically and in many respects culturally between China and the Indian subcontinent) was actually divided into 5 regions: Laos, Cambodia, Tonkin, Annam and Cochin-china. Vietnam was thus governed as three distinct polities, so North, South and Centre rather than simply North and South Vietnam. Tonkin refers to the Red River Delta and Valley, the flat, rice-growing areas around Hanoi and the ring of mountains, also known as the Tonkinese Alps to the north. Annam is the narrow, central strip which includes Hue, Danang and Nha Trang as well as the Central Highlands along the border with Laos, while Cochin-china (Cochinchina) corresponds to the Mekong Delta and region around Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City).

Historically, this represents a much more accurate cultural and geopolitical division of the country than the 17th parallel. The Vietnamese people originate from the far north of the country and the Red River Delta, which is to say Tonkin. What the French termed Annam was, until the 17th century and the success of the Vietnamese ‘March to the South’, the Kingdom of Champa. This once great Southeast Asian civilisation, which at its height rivalled Angkor, existed for some 1500 years in the central coast and valleys of what is today Vietnam. The Cham people were Austronesian, their language related to Malay and until a late conversion to Islam, were for most of their history, Hindu. The far south of the country, home to the important early polity of Funan, was for many centuries part of the Khmer empire and to this day is still home to significant ethnic Khmer and Cham minorities.

Conflicts long before the 20th century had been couched in terms of a struggle between North and South Vietnam such as the centuries-long, on-off wars between the Dai Viet and Champa and the lengthy 19th century power struggle between the Nguyen dynasty and the Trinh lords but these were only north-south purely because Hue lay south of Tonkin and the Nguyen’s imperial capital, as well as major, ancient Cham cities, were all firmly in central Vietnam. South Vietnam, geographically and also to a large extent in earlier times, culturally, was a minor side show with more in common with Cambodia than the distant Red River Delta.

1000 years ago, south Vietnam, or south Dai Viet as the historical polity is known, wouldn’t have lain much further south than Thanh Hoa, or at a pinch, Vinh, while during the 18th-19th centuries the ‘south’ would have referred to Hue and Danang. It’s only in relatively recent times that one could realistically describe the Mekong Delta and Saigon as being South Vietnam.

Regardless of US, Chinese or Soviet agendas and whatever their conceptions of Vietnamese motivations were, the Vietnam War was simply to a large extent, the culmination of nam tiến , the centuries-old ‘March to the South’.

Note that the extraordinary site of the Vinh Moc Tunnels, as well as the Hien Luong Bridge, are included in both our World Heritage Sites of Vietnam and Hanoi to Saigon, small group Vietnam tours.