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