Qualla: Đắk Lắk Province

Đắk Lắk Province: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chánh, CC BY 3.0. For a hundred and twenty-one years, Đắk Lắk was a province defined by the sea it did not have. It was red basalt six hundred metres up, reached by switchback roads from the coast, growing things the lowlands could not and speaking languages the lowlands did not. Then on 12 June 2025 the National Assembly passed Resolution 202/2025/QH15, folding neighbouring Phú Yên into it as part of the reform that cut Vietnam's 63 provinces to 34 and abolished the district tier of government outright. A province named after a freshwater lake now runs from the Cambodian border to the South China Sea, with a second airport at Tuy Hòa and 3.35 million people spread across 18,096 square kilometres.

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Image: Chánh | CC BY 3.0

Đắk Lắk Province: The Lake in the Name

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Đỗ Tuấn Hưng, CC BY-SA 3.0. Đắk Lắk means Lak Lake, and it means it in Mnong, a Mon-Khmer language - dak for water, Lak for the lake itself. The word is a genuine cousin of the Vietnamese nước, which is a small reminder of how deep the linguistic braiding runs in this part of the country. What the name does...

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Image: Đỗ Tuấn Hưng | CC BY-SA 3.0

Đắk Lắk Province: Champa, Then Everyone Else

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ml31415, CC BY-SA 3.0. The plateau belonged to the Kingdom of Champa until Vietnam conquered and annexed Champa in the fifteenth century, after which the highlands sat under Vietnamese authority in name more than in fact. In 1540 a noble named Bùi Tá Hán was appointed to direct ethnic Vietnamese settle...

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Image: Ml31415 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Đắk Lắk Province: Gongs and the Deities Inside Them

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Y Kpia Mlo, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 25 November 2005 UNESCO proclaimed the Space of Gong Culture a Masterpiece of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity - a tradition shared across Quảng Ngãi, Gia Lai, Đắk Lắk and Lâm Đồng by the Rade, Jarai, Bahnar, Mạ and Koho peoples. The gongs are not decorative. Each instrumen...

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Image: Y Kpia Mlo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Đắk Lắk Province: Bảo Đại's Hill

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 4.0. About fifty-five kilometres south of Buôn Ma Thuột, Lak Lake sits at five hundred metres, covering roughly 6.2 square kilometres - the largest natural freshwater lake in the Central Highlands and the second largest in Vietnam. The Mnong who live around it tell of ancestors settli...

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Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 4.0

Đắk Lắk Province: A Century of Redrawn Lines

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dotuanhungdaklak, CC BY-SA 3.0. The province was created on 22 November 1904 under the Annam protectorate, dissolved into Kon Tum in February 1913, and reconstituted in July 1923. It has been rearranged repeatedly ever since - five constituent units by 1931, a reshuffle in 1958, Quảng Đức province split off in ...

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Image: Dotuanhungdaklak | CC BY-SA 3.0