Kampuchea Krom is the region, known to Cambodians even today, covering the southernmost part of the historical Cambodia territory around the Mekong River delta. Kampuchea Krom lies to the south and southeast of present Cambodia roughly corresponds the current Vietnamese administrative regions of the Mekong Delta and the Southeast. “Krom” in Khmer means “below”. Thus “Kampuchea Krom” literally means “Lower Cambodia” implying the “southern” part of Cambodia. “Krom” here is used to distinguish from ‘central’ Cambodia, the modern day Cambodia. Even :fr:Cochinchine|Cochinchine is widely known under French colonization, Kampuchea Krom is still the preferred term used by Cambodians today. Khmer people belong to Kampuchea Krom are called Khmer Krom. Kampuchea Krom and Khmer Krom can be used interchangeably when they refer tothe people.
Administrative divisions
Kampuchea Krom consists of 21 provinces, 2 major islands. It was originally divided into only four provinces Daun Nay, Lung Haor, Moat Chrouk, and Peam. The Khmer names of the local divisions have been continually renamed by Vietnamese authorities. We can see some of the Vietnamese names imitate the sound of the original Khmer names such as Sa Đéc, Sóc Trăng, Trà Vinh, Bạc Liêu, Cà Mau, Mỹ Tho ; Đồng Nai etc. Some Vietnamese names were translated from the meaning of the original Khmer names such as Bến Tre, Bến Nghé.
Background
Evidence of archeological excavations suggests that Khmer people have lived in this region of Kampuchea Krom since as early as 1st century BCE. Throughout history, Kampuchea Krom can be referred to be part of different states of Cambodia from Nokor Phnom, to Chenla, to Khmer Empire. According to Vietnam History book, the territory of Kampuchea Krom around the lower plains of the Mekong River is rich in waterways and has many farmlands. Vietnamese first known to have encroached into Kampuchea Krom territory in the early 1600s at Baria and Daun Nay due to famine caused by nonfertile land in Annam and the war between Trinh and Nguyen. By the 1620s, Vietnamese’s “march to the south” began expanding south, by first conquered the Champa before continuing south bringing Vietnamese colonization into Kampuchea Krom. In 1623, when the Khmer Empire began to decline, at the request of Vietnamese missionary, King Chey Chettha of Cambodia allowed Annamese to settle in the south part of Cambodia, the area around Prey Nokor. In this regard, some foreign historians see this as ‘a conquer of Cambodian trading center with concealed motives’. In 1628, waves of Vietnamese immigrants flooded into the regions from Prey Nokor, Baria, and Daun Nay to the former Champa Kingdom. The institutionalization process of intrusion and takeover by Vietnamese of Prey Nokor and Kampuchea Krom territory, stressed by Chandler, took more than 2 hundred years, and to a large extent cut Cambodia off from gaining maritime access to the outside world, removed tens of thousands of Khmer ethnics from Cambodian jurisdiction. In 1953, Cambodians in Kampuchea Krom stood at some four hundred thousand, less than 10% of Vietnamese.
