Hà Tiên is a old provincial city belong to former Kiên Giang province, Mekong Delta in Vietnam. Its area is 10,049 ha (100.49 km2; 38.80 sq mi) and the population as of 2019 is 81,576. The city borders Cambodia to the west. Hà Tiên is a tourist site of the region thanks to its beaches and landscapes.[1] After its dissolution on June 16th, Hà Tiên provincial city was divided into Hà Tiên ward and Tô Châu ward belong to An Giang province, Vietnam.
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[citation needed] 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, (Khmer: បន្ទាយមាស, Thai: บันทายมาศ; lit: “golden ramparts”), referred to the bamboo fortifications once used about the town. The town of Hà Tiên was originally known under the Khmer, name of Piem or Peam (Khmer: ពាម, Thai: เปียม, Chinese: 港口; 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 reached Cambodia, brought there by chance when a ship carrying Buddhaghosa was blown there by a storm in 415 AD.[2]
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