Editing Mekong (section)

==History==
[[File:1850 Perrot Map of Indo-Chine - Geographicus - Indochine-perrot-1825.jpg|left|thumb|19th century map showing the Mekong river as the "Mei-Kong" river]] 
The difficulty of navigating the river has meant that it has divided, rather than united, the people who live near it. The earliest known settlements date to 210 BCE, with [[Ban Chiang]] being an excellent example of early Iron Age culture. The earliest recorded civilization was the 1st century [[India]]nised-Khmer culture of [[Kingdom of Funan|Funan]], in the Mekong delta. Excavations at [[Oc Eo]], near modern [[An Giang]], have found coins from as far away as the [[Roman Empire]]. This was succeeded by the [[Khmer people|Khmer]] culture [[Chenla]] state around the 5th century. The [[Khmer empire]] of [[Angkor]] was the last great Indianized state in the region. From around the time of the fall of the Khmer empire, the Mekong was the front line between the emergent states of [[Thailand|Siam]] and Tonkin (North Vietnam), with Laos and Cambodia, then on the coast, torn between their influence.

The first European to encounter the Mekong was the [[Portugal|Portuguese]] [[António de Faria]] in 1540. A European map of 1563 depicts the river, although even by then little was known of the river upstream of the delta. European interest was sporadic: the [[Spain|Spanish]] and Portuguese mounted some missionary and trade expeditions, while the Dutch Gerrit van Wuysthoff led an expedition up the river as far as Vientiane in 1641–42.

The French invaded the region in the mid-19th century, capturing [[Saigon]] in 1861, and establishing a protectorate over Cambodia in 1863.
[[File:Mekongmembersangkor.jpg|thumb|left|Members of the [[Mekong expedition of 1866–1868]]]]

The first systematic European exploration began with the [[Mekong expedition of 1866–1868|French Mekong Expedition]] led by [[Ernest Doudard de Lagrée]] and [[Francis Garnier]], which ascended the river from its mouth to [[Yunnan]] between 1866 and 1868. Their chief finding was that the Mekong had too many falls and rapids to ever be useful for [[navigation]]. The river's source was found by [[Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov]] in 1900.

From 1893, the French extended their control of the river into Laos, establishing [[French Indochina]] by the first decade of the 20th century. This lasted until the [[First Indochina War|First]] and [[Vietnam War|Second]] Indochina Wars expelled French from its former colony and defeated US-supported governments.

During the wars in Indochina in the 1970s, a significant quantity of explosives (sometimes, entire barges loaded with military [[Artillery|ordnance]]) sank in the Cambodian section of the Mekong (as well as in the country's other waterways). Besides being a danger for fishermen, unexploded ordnance also creates problems for bridge and irrigation systems construction. As of 2013, Cambodian volunteers are being trained, with the support of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement within the [[Bureau of Political-Military Affairs|US State Department Bureau of Political-Military Affairs]], to conduct underwater explosive removal.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hruby |first1=Denise |title=Salvage Divers Venture Underwater to Find UXOs - The Cambodia Daily |url=https://english.cambodiadaily.com/news/salvage-divers-venture-underwater-to-find-uxos-8238/ |work=The Cambodia Daily |date=24 January 2013 }}</ref>

The many maps of the river basin produced throughout recorded history reflect the region's changing human geography and politics.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Romanos |first=Christoforos |url=https://surfdrive.surf.nl/files/index.php/s/LuWmXSpftRz6Z7p |title=Liquid Territories : configurations of geographic space in the cartographic projections of the Mekong River's catchment areas |publisher=Delft University of Technology |year=2023 |location=Delft |pages=325 |language=en}}</ref>

In 1995, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam established the [[Mekong River Commission]] (MRC) to manage and coordinate the use and care of the Mekong. In 1996 China and Myanmar became "dialogue partners" of the MRC and the six countries now work together in a cooperative framework. In 2000, the governments of China, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar signed a ''Agreement on Commercial Navigation on Lancang-Mekong River among the Governments of the People's Republic of China, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Union of Myanmar and the Kingdom of Thailand'' which is the mechanism for cooperation with regard to riverine trade on the upper stretches of the Mekong.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lazarus |first1=K. |last2=Dubeau |first2=P. |last3=Bambaradeniya |first3=C. |last4=Friend |first4=R. |last5=Sylavong |first5=L. |title=An Uncertain Future: Biodiversity and Livelihoods Along the Mekong River in Northern Lao PDR|chapter-url=https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2006-060.pdf |access-date=21 August 2019 |year=2006 |publisher=The World Conservation Union (IUCN) |location=Bangkok, Thailand and Gland, Switzerland |isbn=978-2-8317-0956-7 |pages=21–24 |chapter=Increasing pace of change}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.jcccn.org/images/rule/Agreement.pdf |title=Agreement on Commercial Navigation on Lancang-Mekong River among the Governments of the People's Republic of China, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Union of Myanmar and the Kingdom of Thailand |date=20 April 2000 |publisher=JCCN |access-date=21 August 2019 |archive-date=21 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190821103234/https://www.jcccn.org/images/rule/Agreement.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref>