Mộc Châu

Mộc Châu ə̰ʔwk˨˩:ʨəw˧˧is a ward of Sơn La province in the Northern Midlands and Mountains region of Vietnam.

History

Middle Ages

Its name Mộc-châu in Kinh language is originated from ''Mueang Mol'' (Mường Mỗi, means "barbarianland") in the Black Tai language. This word is used to refer to the Xá ethnic groups, who are the ancient owners of the territory. After being expelled from Mộc Châu, they transformed into Mường people.

During the Lý–Trần dynasties, the land where Mộc Châu is now the Southern part of Đà Giang province (Đà-giang đạo) of the Annamese Empire, although it was still completely independent in reality. A leader was well known in Annamese history called as Trịnh Giốc Mật.

Previously, the strip of land from Mộc Châu to Mai Châu was once considered one and had no official name. Until the end of the Early Lê dynasty, or the XVII century, this area was divided into three parts : Mộc Châu belonged to Black Tai leaders (Taydam), and Mai Châu for the White Tai ones (Taykhao), in addition to a few of villages in the Southernmost became the part of Xam Neua (Muang Phuan kingdom). The situation like this was almost kept until the Nguyễn dynasty completely weakened by the pressure of the French colonialists.

XX century

During the French colonial period, Mộc Châu's leadership clans were recognized by the French government in Indochina with limited autonomy within the Tai Federation. They were allowed to have their own flags and guards. Currently, the Sơn La Provincial Museum still stores some black flags with embroidered white snakes, which are symbols of the land.

In the 1952 Nasan campaign ("cassava field" in Tai language), Mộc Châu was used by Vietminh forces as a military supply center to quickly cut off the "stomach" of the French armies ( CEFEO) in the Northwest region.

XXI century

On November 14, 2023, the National Assembly Standing Committee of Vietnam issued the Resolution 1280/NQ-UBTVQH15 on the arrangement of district and commune administrative units in Sơn La province in the period of 2023–2025. Accordingly, officially establishing Mộc-châu Town (thị xã Mộc Châu) on the basis of the entire natural area is 1,072.09 km2 and the population size is 148,259 people of old Mộc-châu Rural District. Regarding affiliated administrative units, Mộc-châu Town has 15 commune-level administrative units, including 8 wards and 7 communes. On November 25, Sơn La Provincial People's Committee held a press conference and reached agreement that it would hold the ''Ceremony to announce the establishment of Mộc-châu Town on January 18, 2025''.

On April 16, 2025, to meet the criteria of the ''Plan to arrange and merge administrative units in Vietnam 2024–2025'' by the Government of Vietnam, the Sơn La Provincial People's Committee convened an extended conference. The result of the conference was a Resolution on the dissolution of all district level administrative units in the whole province, followed by another Resolution on the merger of communes– wards and the establishment of new communes–wards with their new names.

According to the political document officially published for the press, Mộc Châu Town was also dissolved. Its entire area and demography have been divided to four wards Mộc Châu, Mộc Sơn, Vân Sơn, Thảo Nguyên for affiliation of Sơn La City, and four communes Đoàn Kết, Lóng Sập, Chiềng Sơn, Tân Yên for affiliation of Sơn La Province. Accordingly, Mộc-châu WardNhân dân Sơn La biểu quyết phương án sắp xếp tổ chức đơn vị hành chính cấp xã
/ref> (phường Mộc Châu) has been established based on the consolidation of Chiềng Hắc commune and former wards Mộc Lỵ and Mường Sang. This new administrative unit inherits most of the cultural and historical heritage of the former town.

Culture

The name of Mộc-châu (Mueang-mol) has been mentioned in the famous epics '' Táy pú xớc'' and ''Quắm tố mướng'' of White Tai people about XVII century.

According to the middle-ages legend, Mộc Châu is the venue that used to take place a horse race to divide the border line between the Black Tai people and the Xá ethnic groups. The Tai men used a newly born horse to participate in the competition, and as a result, they won to chase the Xá people to step back to Hòa Bình province. Currently, grass horse racing is an annual festival held on every Lunar New Year.

Mộc Châu is popular with Vietnamese and international tourists for its hill tribes such as White & Black Thai People and Muong People, the green tea hills, Mộc Châu milk, the natural landscape of Giải Yếm waterfalls, Hill Pine and Orchid Garden flowers.

This commune-level administrative units takes five hours driving, with a distance of from Hà Nội to Sơn La City.

Geography

Mộc Châu Ward (Phường Mộc-châu) is 200 kilometers from the capital of Hanoi. As of 2019 it had a population of 114,460. The ward covers an area of 1,081.66 km², ranking 1st among wards of Sơn La province.

Moc Chau belongs to the highland landscape class in the horizontal classification system of Vietnamese landscape, with characteristics of climate, ecology and human life.

Moc Chau is distributed on the terrain with an average elevation of more than 1,050 m above the sea level. The annual average temperature of Moc Chau is 18.7 °C, it has cool climate due to lying between the Đà River (northeast) and Mã River (southwest). These two river systems act as two natural air conditioning systems. At the same time, Moc Chau has a high climate division along the belt, so it has both the characteristics of the subtropical and temperate highland climate, which is very convenient for developing tourism for the whole year.

Climate

Landspaces

File:Moc-chau-tea-doi-2094890 960 720.jpg
File:Thacdaiyem.jpg
File:Mộc Châu District, Vietnam (Unsplash).jpg

See also

* Mai Châu
* Ba Vì

Notes and references

Notes

References

Further reading

Bibliography

*George Coedes. ''The Making of South East Asia'', 2nd ed. University of California Press, 1983.
* Trần Ngọc Thêm. ''Cơ sở văn hóa Việt Nam'' (The Foundation of Vietnamese Culture), 504 pages. Publishing by Nhà xuất bản Đại học Tổng hợp TPHCM. Saigon, Vietnam, 1995.
* Li Tana (2011). ''Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) in the Han period Tongking Gulf''. In Cooke, Nola ; Li Tana ; Anderson, James A. (eds.). The Tongking Gulf Through History. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 39–44. ISBN 9780812205022.
* Li Tana,
Towards an environmental history of the eastern Red River Delta, Vietnam, c.900–1400
', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 2014.
* Samuel Baron, Christoforo Borri, Olga Dror, Keith W. Taylor (2018). ''Views of Seventeenth-Century Vietnam : Christoforo Borri on Cochinchina and Samuel Baron on Tonkin''. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1-501-72090-1.

External links

The final stage of the journey of Mộc Châu to become the town
(vi)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moc Chau
Populated places in Sơn La province
County-level towns in Vietnam