The Southward movement of Vietnamese people was also the process of establishing and organizing the management and exploitation of new land during the monarchical period. The Nguyen Cochinchina continued this tradition with a massive expansion to the south, in the regions of Thuan Hoa and Quang Nam. They gradually established authority in the South and Central regions and, at the same time, proceeded to the West, in the Central Highlands along the Truong Son mountain range. To achieve this, what kind of policies did the Nguyen issue and how they were implemented to manage and protect the territory of the Central Highlands in general and the Thuan Quang mountainous region in particular? This article, through several historical sources, initially gives answers to those questions by examining the management of the mountainous areas of Thuan Hoa and Quang Nam during the Nguyen Cochinchina.
