Geography

The province is located at the valley of the river Mekong. Beside the Mekong River, the important water resouce is the Songkhram River.

History

The name Nakhon Phanom, meaning "city of mountains", was given to the city by King Rama I. It should be noted that there are actually no mountains in Nakhon Phanom itself; the limestone mountains are concentrated in the city of Thakhek of Laos, which is on the other side of the Mekong. Nakhon Phanom should then mean a city where you can see mountains.

The area was long settled by Lao people and belonged to the Lan Xang kingdom. Also after it came under the control of Ayutthaya the population stayed predominantly Lao.

Nakhon Phanom saw some of the most serious fighting between North Vietnamese insurgents and the US Army during the Vietnam War (or American War as the Vietnamese called it). During the 1960s, the province of Nakhon Phanom was divided into 131 amphoes. As 73 of them were said to be infiltrated by the Vietnamese communists, it was known as the "heartland of insurgency".

In 1967, almost all of the communists surrendered and towards the end of the Vietnam War, American forces retreated from Khorat and moved all their Indochinese military operations to Nakhon Phanom.

Another point of interest: Ho Chi Minh stayed at this city between 1928 to 1931, you can still visit his old house there.