Hà Tiên

Hà Tiên is a district-level town in Kiên Giang Province, Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Area: 8,851.5 ha, population (2002): 39,957. The town borders Cambodia to the west.

Hà Tiên is a popular tourist site of the region thanks to its beautiful beaches and landscapes.

History

A settlement and a port seem to have existed at the site of the present town of Hà Tiên from a very early period. Ptolemy's Geography identified a town there as Akadra and that it was the port for the Cambodian district of Pithonobaste - Banteay Meas, all this being part of the Kingdom of Funan. The local capital of this district, also called Banteay Meas, was not on the coast, but located about a day's journey up the Giang-thành river. The name Banteay Meas, meaning "golden ramparts" in Khmer, referred to the bamboo fortifications once used about the town. The town of Hà Tiên was originally known under the Khmer, name of ព឵ម Piem or Peam (also Pie, Pam, Bam), the Khmer for "port", "harbour" or "river mouth", while the Vietnamese called it Mang-Kham, from the Vietnamese term for the Khmers, "mang". It was through this port that Buddhism is said to have reach Cambodia, brought there by chance when a ship carrying Buddhaghosa was blown there by a storm in 415 AD. Buddhaghosa had with him the famous Emerald Buddha statue, for many centuries thereafter a state treasure of Cambodia and later Laos, until it was carried away by Thai invaders to be placed at its present location in the Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok.