Phú Qu?c Thành ph? Phú Qu?c
Provincial city (Vietnam)
Phú Qu?c City
Seal
Phú Qu?c
Phú Qu?c Phú Qu?c
Coordinates: VN 10°14?N 103°57?E / 10.233°N 103.950°E / 10.233; 103.950Coordinates: VN 10°14?N 103°57?E / 10.233°N 103.950°E / 10.233; 103.950
Country	Vietnam
Province	Kiên Giang
Area
o Total	589.27 km2 (227.52 sq mi)
Population
o Total	179,480
o Density	305/km2 (790/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+7 (ICT)
Calling code	855
Website	phuquoc.kiengiang.gov.vn

Bãi Sao beach on Phú Qu?c island

Phú Qu?c (Vietnamese: [f? kk]) is the largest island in Vietnam. Phú Qu?c and nearby islands, along with the distant Th? Chu Islands, are part of Kiên Giang Province as Phú Qu?c City, the island has a total area of 574 km² (222 sq mi) and a permanent population of approximately 179480.^[1] Located in the Gulf of Thailand, the island city of Phú Qu?c includes the island proper and 21 smaller islets. Dng ?ông ward is located on the west coast, and is also the administrative and largest town on the island. The other ward is An Th?i on the southern tip of the island.

Its primary industries are fishing, agriculture, and a fast-growing tourism sector. Phú Qu?c has achieved fast economic growth due to its current tourism boom. Many infrastructure projects have been carried out, including several five-star hotels and resorts. Phú Qu?c International Airport is the hub connecting Phú Qu?c with mainland Vietnam and other international destinations.

From March 2014, Vietnam allowed all foreign tourists to visit Phú Qu?c visa-free for a period of up to 30 days.^[2][3] By 2017, the government of Vietnam planned to set up a Special Administrative Region which covered Phú Qu?c Island and peripheral islets and upgrade it to a provincial city with special administration.

The historical Phú Qu?c Prison was based here; the prison was built by French colonialists to detain captured Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers.

Geography

Phú Qu?c lies south of the Cambodian coast, south of Kampot, and 40 km (25 mi) west of Hà Tiên, the nearest coastal town in Vietnam. Roughly triangular in shape the island is 50 kilometres (31 mi) long from north to south and 25 kilometres (16 mi) from east to west at its widest. It is also located 17 nautical miles from Krong Kampot, 62 nautical miles (115 km; 71 mi) from R?ch Giá and nearly 290 nautical miles (540 km; 330 mi) from Laem Chabang, Thailand. A mountainous ridge known as "99 Peaks" runs the length of Phú Qu?c, with Chúa Mountain being the tallest at 603 metres (1,978 ft).

Phú Qu?c Island is mainly composed of sedimentary rocks from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic age, including heterogeneous conglomerate composition, layering thick, quartz pebbles, silica, limestone, rhyolite and felsite. The Mesozoic rocks are classified in Phú Qu?c Formation (K pq). The Cenozoic sediments are classified in formations of Long Toàn (middle - upper Pleistocene), Long M? (upper Pleistocene), H?u Giang (lower - middle Holocene), upper Holocene sediments, and undivided Quaternary (Q).^[4]

Administrative units

The city of Phu Quoc is officially divided into nine district-level sub-divisions, including two urban districts (Dng ?ông, An Th?i) and seven rural districts (Bãi Th?m, C?a C?n, C?a Dng, Dng T?, Gành D?u, Hàm Ninh, Th? Châu).

Economy

Fishing has historically been the dominant industry in Phú Qu?c

A traditional fish sauce factory in Phú Qu?c

Phú Qu?c is famous for its two traditional products: fish sauce and black pepper. The rich fishing grounds offshore provides the anchovy catch from which the prized sauce is made. As widely agreed among the Vietnamese people, the best fish sauce comes from Phú Qu?c. The island name is very coveted and abused in the fish sauce industry that local producers have been fighting for the protection of its appellation of origin.^[5] Pepper is cultivated everywhere on the island, especially at Gành D?u and C?a Dng communes.^[6] The pearl farming activity began more than 20 years ago when Australian and Japanese experts arrived to develop the industry with advanced technology. Some Vietnamese pearl farms were established at that time including Qu?c An.^[7]

Tourism plays an important role in the economy, with the beaches being the main attraction. Phú Qu?c was served by Phú Qu?c Airport with air links to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Tan Son Nhat International Airport, Hanoi (Noi Bai International Airport), R?ch Giá (R?ch Giá Airport) and Can Tho (Can Tho International Airport). Phú Qu?c Airport was closed and replaced by the new Phú Qu?c International Airport from December 2, 2012.^[8] Phú Qu?c is also linked with R?ch Giá and Hà Tiên by fast ferry hydrofoils.^[]

Air Mekong used to have its headquarters in An Th?i.^[9][10]

Many domestic and international projects related to tourism have been carried out, including the latest direct flights from Bangkok to Phú Qu?c by Bangkok Airways, which could make Phú Qu?c a new tourist hub in Southeast Asia.

With the combination of Vinpearl Phú Qu?c Resorts and the opening of the new Vinmec Phú Qu?c International Hospital in June 2015, Phú Qu?c will add an additional source of revenue to the local economy in terms of medical services, medical tourism, and medical education.^[11]

History

In the area of Dng ?ông town market

Phú Qu?c or (known to the Khmer as Koh Tral/Koh Trol, Khmer: ) was a fishing village until Western geopolitics began to impact it.

The French missionary Pigneau de Behaine used the island as a base during the 1760s and 1780s to shelter Nguy?n Ánh, who was hunted by the Tây S?n army.^[12]

The British envoy John Crawfurd en route to Siam from Singapore in 1822 made a stop at Phú Qu?c which he transcribed as Phu-kok in March. His entry is as follows:

The place which we had now visited is called by the Cochinchinese, Phu-kok, and by the Siamese Koh-dud... In the Kambojan language it is called Koh-trol... It is the largest island on the east coast of the Gulf of Siam, being by our reckoning not less than thirty-four miles in length. It is commonly bold high land, the highest hills rising to seven or eight hundred feet. A few spots here and there on the coasts only are inhabited, -the rest being, as usual, covered with a great forest, which we were told, contained abundance of deer, hogs, wild buffaloes, and oxen, but no leopards or tigers... The inhabitants of Phu-kok were described to us as amounting to four to five thousand, all of the true Cochinchinese race, with the exception of a few occasional Chinese sojourners. They grow no species of corn and their husbandry is confined to a few coarse fruits and esculent green vegetables and farinaceous roots..."^[13]

Western record in 1856 again mentioned the island: "... King Ang Duong (of Cambodia) apprise Mr. de Montigny, French envoy in visit to Bangkok, through the intermediary of Bishop Miche, his intention to yield Phu Quoc to France."^[14] Such a proposition aimed to create a military alliance with France to avoid the threat of Vietnam on Cambodia. The proposal did not receive an answer from the French.^[15] An 1856 publication by The Nautical Magazine describes Phu Quoc to still be part of Cambodia even though it was occupied by the Cochinchinese. The quote from the publication is:

The whole of the island is thickly wooded, and only the shore parts appear to be inhabited, principally by Cochinchinese, for although in the empire of Cambodia it has been seized upon by the unscrupulous inhabitants of Cancao."^[16]

While the war between Vietnam and France was about to begin, Ang Duong sent another letter, dated November 25, 1856, to Napoleon III to warn him on Cambodian claims on the lower Cochinchina region: the Cambodian king listed provinces and islands, including Phú Qu?c, as being parts of Vietnam for several years or decades (in the case of Saigon some 200 years). Ang Duong asked the French emperor to not annex any part of these territories because, as he wrote, despite this relatively long Vietnamese rule, they remained Cambodian lands. In 1867, Phú Qu?c's Vietnamese authorities pledged allegiance to French troops just conquering Hà Tiên.

1930 map of French Indochina showing Koh de Phu quoc under the territory of the French protectorate of Cambodia

In 1939, Governor General of French Indochina, Jules Brévié, sent a letter to the Governor of Cochinchina about "the issue of the islands in the Gulf of Siam whose is a matter of controversy between Cambodia and Cochin-China". In this letter,"for administrative purposes", he drew a line which defined the border between the waters of Cambodia and Cochin-China: all the islands north of the line are under Cambodian sovereignty, all the islands south of the line are ruled by Cochin-China. ^[17] As a result, Phú Qu?c remained under Cochinchina administration. In 1949, Cochin-China became part of Vietnam, an Associated State in the French Union within the Indochinese Federation. After the Geneva Accords, in 1954, Cochinchina's sovereignty was handed over to Vietnam.

After Mainland China fell under the control of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, General Huang Chieh moved 33,000+ Republic of China Army soldiers mostly from Hunan Province to Vietnam and they were interned on Phú Qu?c. Later, the army moved to Taiwan in June 1953.^[18]

In 1964, then Head of State Prince Norodom Sihanouk proposed to the Vietnamese a map aimed at settling the issue. Cambodia offered to accept the colonial "Brévié Line" as the maritime boundary, thus abandoning its claim to Koh Trâl. That position of Cambodia was confirmed by maps given to the mission sent by the UN Security Council after the Chantrea incidents. On June 8, 1967, the Vietnamese issued a declaration that accepted the "Brévié Line" as the maritime border.

From 1953 to 1975, the island housed South Vietnam's largest prisoner camp (40,000 in 1973), known as Phú Qu?c Prison.^[19]

On May 1, 1975, a squad of Khmer Rouge soldiers raided and took Phú Qu?c, but Vietnam soon recaptured it. This was to be the first of a series of incursions and counter-incursions that would escalate to the Cambodian-Vietnamese War in 1979. Cambodia dropped its claims to Phú Qu?c in 1976.^[20] But the bone of contention involving the island between the governments of the two countries continued, as both have a historical claim to it and the surrounding waters. A July 1982 agreement between Vietnam and The People's Republic of Kampuchea ostensibly settled the dispute; however, the island is still the object of irredentist sentiments.^[21]

Climate

The island's monsoonal sub-equatorial climate is characterized by distinct rainy (April to November) and dry seasons (December to March). As is common in regions with this climate type, there is some rain even in the dry season. The annual rainfall is high, averaging 3,029 mm (9.938 ft). In the northern mountains up to 4,000 mm (13 ft) has been recorded. April and May are the hottest months, with temperatures reaching 35 °C (95 °F).

Protections

Phú Qu?c has both a terrestrial national park and a marine protection.

Phú Qu?c National Park was established in 2001 as an upgrade of a former conservation zone. The park covers 336.57 km² (129.95 sq mi) of the northern part of the island.^[23][24]

Phú Qu?c Marine Protected Area, or just Phú Qu?c MPA, was established in 2007 at the northern and southern end of the island and covers 187 km² (72 sq mi) of marine area. The sea around Phú Qu?c is one of the richest fishing grounds in all of Vietnam, and the aim of the protected area is to secure coral reef zones, seagrass beds, and mangrove forests, all key spawning and nursery grounds for aquatic species, including blue swimming crabs. Among the aquatic animals in the protected area are green turtle, leather back turtles, dolphin and dugong.^[25][26]

Plastic waste is a growing problem in Phú Qu?c, and the local community has organised clean-up efforts.^[27]

Gallery

• 

  Su?i Tranh Cascades

• 

  Phú Qu?c's sandy beaches

• 

  Fishermen's village

• 

  Bãi Sao beach

• 

  Shellfish for sale by the roadside

• 

  Phú Qu?c coastline

• 

  Phú Qu?c coastline

• 

  Fishing boat with its collection of basket boats (thuy?n thúng)

• 

  Manufacture of fish sauce

• 

  A beach in Phú Qu?c

• 

  A bridge on Dng ?ông river

• 

  Dng ?ông river's mouth

• 

  Hotel in Phú Qu?c

• 

  Hotel in Phú Qu?c

• 

  Dng ?ông market

• 

  Fish stalls at Dng ?ông market

• 

  Sùng H?ng pagoda

• 

  Bãi Sao beach

• 

  Dng ?ông river

• 

  Nguy?n Trung Tr?c's temple

See also

• Hà Tiên Islands

References

External links

• Travel Guide Phu Quoc Island
• Island Information & Video of Phu Quoc in Vietnam