Topo maps of Viet Nam

In case anyone is looking for older landuse maps of Vietnam:

Library of Congress' collection goes back to the 1953 series that was

updated with (French) aerial photos from 1950-52.

National Archives: includes 1945-1965 aerial photographs on negatives in

cold storage facility with a catalogue avail in the Nat Arch map room. Of

most interest are some low-flying horizon shots of landscapes in Vietnam

that were flown as part of a 1945 US Army Aircorps mission called Wanda

III. I don't know much more than that about the mission and its history;

I suspect they were doing similar reconnaissance all over Southeast Asia

at the time. They also start with the 1954 collection.

UCLA: wins the prize for having the only accessible collection of

photocopied 1920's era 1/25.000 maps from Service Geographique de

l'Indochine SGI in the older 50cmx76cm sheets. These maps, mostly for the

deltas, were done from aerial photography and cadastral surveying (because

deltas are flat there's less distortion on the edges of an aerial photo

and its easier to apply to a flat map).

Also, if anyone out there is working with GIS and historic Vietnamese

data, I'd be curious to hear what sorts of historical cartography and

technical issues you have faced trying to overlay older maps with more

recent ones. I recently found a supply in Saigon of "pictomaps" from

1967 that actually combine orthophotos in a mosaic with the topo and grid

lines. I think they may be my most accurate layer for field outlines and

physical landmarks that have been registered to the more common UTM

coordinate system used now in mapping.

iF anyone has tips about where else I might find the oldest Cochinchina

delta maps, I'd be happy to hear from you. (I did visit Bibliotheque

Nationale and IGN in paris this summer with the oldest set there being the

1932 but missing some sheets.)

Cheers,

David Biggs

Seattle

Although I am not a specialist in this field of research, I have come

across information which might interest David in his search for

a clearer picture of "dinh", "tra^'n", "kho", etc.

_DDa.i Nam nha^'t tho^'ng chi'_ (vol. 5) indicates clearly

that the term " tra^'n " is used only for border provinces

(VN's southern borders changed, as we know, depending upon the time).

In the sections "Du+.ng dda(.t va` die^n ca'ch" (Founding and

history [of development/evolution] and "Tha`nh tri`" (citadels) of EACH

province, there are numerous interesting details.

- Le^ Quy' DDo^n's _Phu? bie^n ta.p lu.c_ (Hanoi: Nxb Khoa ho.c xa~ ho^.i,

1977, inluded in _LQD toa`n ta^.p_, vol. I), written some 225 years

ago, there are also sections discussing the area that later came to be known

as Cochinchina. For example, pp. 194-198 offers an account on

Dinh Phie^n tra^'n; pp.301-302 gives information on the price of rice

in Gia DDi.nh, etc.

Best,

VSi'nh