Southern Vietnam in the context of "French Cochinchina"

The Vietnamese government often groups the various provinces and municipalities into three regions: Northern Vietnam, Central Vietnam, and Southern Vietnam. These regions can be further subdivided into eight subregions: Northeast Vietnam, Northwest Vietnam, the Red River Delta, the North Central Coast, the South Central Coast, the Central Highlands, Southeast Vietnam, and the Mekong River Delta. These regions are not always used, and alternative classifications are possible. Other classifications used can be: Northern, Central, Southern, and Mekong.

The Mekong or Mekong River (UK: /miːˈkɒŋ/ mee-KONG, US: /ˌmeɪˈkɔːŋ/ may-KAWNG) is a transboundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth-longest river and the third-longest in Asia with an estimated length of 4,909 km (3,050 mi) and a drainage area of 795,000 km (307,000 sq mi), discharging 475 km (114 cu mi) of water annually. From its headwaters in the Tibetan Plateau, the river runs through Southwest China (where it is officially called the Lancang River), Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and southern Vietnam. The extreme seasonal variations in flow and the presence of rapids and waterfalls in the Mekong make navigation difficult, though the river remains a major trade route between Tibet and Southeast Asia. The construction of hydroelectric dams along the Mekong in the 2000s through the 2020s has caused serious problems for the river's ecosystem, including the exacerbation of drought.

Cham (Cham: ꨌꩌ, Jawi: چم, Latin script: Cam) is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Austronesian family, spoken by the Chams of Southeast Asia. It is spoken primarily in the territory of the former Kingdom of Champa, which spanned modern Southern Vietnam, as well as in Cambodia by a significant population which descends from refugees that fled during the decline and fall of Champa. The Western variety is spoken by 220,000 people in Cambodia and 25,000 people in Vietnam. As for the Eastern variety, there are about 73,000 speakers in Vietnam, for a total of approximately 491,448 speakers.

Cham belongs to the Chamic languages, which are spoken in parts of mainland Southeast Asia, Indonesia's Aceh Province, and on the island of Hainan. Cham is the oldest-attested Austronesian language, with the Đông Yên Châu inscription being verifiably dated to the late 4th century AD. It has several dialects, with Eastern Cham (Phan Rang Cham; ꨌꩌ ꨚꨰ, Cam pai) and Western Cham (ꨌꩌ ꨚꨭꩉ, Cam pur) being the main ones. The Cham script, derived from the ancient Indic script, is still used for ceremonial and religious purposes.

Cochinchina or Cochin-China (/ˌkoʊtʃɪnˈtʃaɪnə/, UK also /ˌkɒtʃ-/; Vietnamese: Đàng Trong (17th–18th centuries), Việt Nam (1802–1831), Đại Nam (1831–1862), Nam Kỳ (1862–1945); Khmer: កូសាំងស៊ីន, romanized: Kosăngsin; French: Cochinchine; Chinese: 交趾支那; pinyin: Jiāozhǐ zhīnà) is a historical exonym for part of Vietnam, depending on the contexts, usually for Southern Vietnam. Sometimes it referred to the whole of Vietnam, but it was commonly used to refer to the region south of the Gianh River.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Vietnam was divided between the Trịnh lords to the north and the Nguyễn lords to the south. The two domains bordered each other on the Son River. The northern section was called Tonkin by Europeans, and the southern part, Đàng Trong, was called Cochinchina by most Europeans and Quinam by the Dutch.

Champa (Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ, چمڤا; Khmer: ចាម្ប៉ា; Vietnamese: Chiêm Thành 占城 or Chiêm Bà 占婆; modern Vietnamese Chăm Pa) was a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is present-day central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd century AD until 1832.

According to earliest historical references found in ancient sources, the first Cham polities were established around the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD, in the wake of Khu Liên's rebellion against the rule of China's Eastern Han dynasty, and lasted until when the final remaining principality of Champa was annexed by Emperor Minh Mạng of the Vietnamese Nguyễn dynasty as part of the expansionist Nam tiến policy. The kingdom was known variously as Nagaracampa (Sanskrit: नगरचम्प), Champa (ꨌꩌꨛꨩ) in modern Cham, and Châmpa (ចាម្ប៉ា) in the Khmer inscriptions, Chiêm Thành in Vietnamese, Campa in Malay, Zhànchéng (Mandarin: 占城) in Chinese records, and al-Ṣanf (Arabic: صَنْف) in Middle Eastern Muslim records.

Đông Nam Bộ (literally "Southeast region") is a region in Southern Vietnam. This region includes one municipality, Ho Chi Minh City; and five provinces: Đồng Nai, Bình Dương, Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province, Bình Phước and Tây Ninh. The two south central provinces Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận are sometimes seen as part of the Southeast region. This region is the most economically developed region in Vietnam. In 2006, this region contributed 148,000 billion VND (equal to $9.25 billion) out of 251,000 billion VND to the state budget. This region is also the most highly urbanized in the country with more than 50% people living in urban areas (while the equivalent figure for Vietnam is just 25%).

Caodaism is a Vietnamese monotheistic syncretic religion that retains many elements from Vietnamese folk religion such as ancestor worship, as well as "ethical precepts from Confucianism, occult practices from Taoism, theories of karma and rebirth from Buddhism, and a hierarchical organization from Catholicism". It was officially established in the city of Tây Ninh in Southern Vietnam in 1926.

The full name of the religion is Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ (chữ Hán: 大道三期普度 'The Great Faith [for the] Third Universal Redemption').

Hòa Hảo is a Vietnamese new religious movement. It is described either as a syncretistic folk religion or as a sect of Buddhism. It was founded in Cochinchina in 1939 by Huỳnh Phú Sổ (1920–47), who is regarded as a saint by its devotees. It is one of the major religions of Vietnam with between one million and eight million adherents, mostly in the Mekong Delta.

The religious philosophy of Hòa Hảo, which rose from the Miền Tây region of the Mekong Delta, is essentially Buddhist. It reforms and revises the older Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương tradition of the region, and possesses quasi-millenarian elements. Hòa Hảo is an amalgam of Buddhism, ancestor worship, animistic rites, elements of Confucian doctrine, and the White Lotus religion, transformed and adapted to the mores and customs of the peasants of the region. Coming from the remote edges of Southern Vietnam, it opposes urban life and prefers a communitarian lifestyle. Unlike orthodox Buddhism, Hòa Hảo eschews elaborate rituals and temples, maintains no monastic order, and teaches home practice. It also advocates that each devotee can have direct communion with the Buddha, and that inner faith is more important than external rites. Regular Hòa Hảo rites are limited to four prayers a day, while the devotees are to maintain the Three Fundamental Bonds and Five Constant Virtues.