The North-Eastern seaports and the seventeenth-century commercial system of tonkin as seen from Western sources

Abstract

One of the central questions which have been challenging historians in studying the foreign trade of seventeenth-century Tonkin is how to define the function of such places as Thang Long, Pho Hien, and Domea in the commercial system along the "Tonkin River". There have been several debates on this topic over the past few years and it appears that, places as Pho Hien and Domea has been exaggerated. Additionally, there have been misinterpretations of Western sources which consequently led to the misunderstanding of the commercial system in seventeenth-century Tonkin