The name Tonkin, written "東京" in chữ Hán characters and Đông Kinh in the Vietnamese alphabet, means "eastern capital", and is the former toponym for Hanoi, the present capital of Vietnam. It is not to be confused with Tokyo, which is also written "東京" and also means "eastern capital". During the French colonial era, the northern region of today’s Vietnam was called Tonkin.
Bắc Bộ is the native Vietnamese name of Tonkin. The bay's Vietnamese and Chinese names – Vịnh Bắc Bộ and Běibù Wān, respectively – both mean "Northern Bay".
The Gulf of Tonkin is a relatively shallow portion of the Pacific Ocean; the majority of the gulf's ocean floor is less than 75 metres (246 ft) in depth, and no part of the gulf is submerged in more than 100 metres (330 ft) of water.[1]
On 4 August 1964, United States PresidentLyndon B. Johnson claimed that North Vietnamese forces had twice attacked American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.[2] Known today as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, this event spawned the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 7 August 1964, ultimately leading to open war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. It furthermore foreshadowed the major escalation of the Vietnam War in South Vietnam, which began with the landing of US regular combat troops at Da Nang in 1965.
Cooke, Nola; Li, Tana; Anderson, James A., eds. (2011). The Tongking Gulf Through History. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN978-0812243369.
Churchman, Catherine (2016). The People Between the Rivers: The Rise and Fall of a Bronze Drum Culture, 200–750 CE. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN978-1442258600.