Cochinchina

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A former French colonial region in southern Vietnam ; a large, heavily feathered breed of domestic chicken originally developed in Asia
2. The historical territory in southern Vietnam once under French colonial rule ; a big, fluffy-feathered variety of domestic fowl
3. A region of southern Vietnam that was a French colony in the past ; a heavy-bodied chicken breed known for its dense plumage

Etymology: Cochinchina is a place name, and its history is mostly a story about a mistaken identity. In the sixteenth century, Portuguese traders and sailors reached the coast of what is now southern Vietnam and heard the name "Cochim" or "Cochin" used for places far away, linked to the Indian port of Kochi (Cochin). They applied the label "China" to a region that was actually part of the Vietnamese realm, and the name "Cochinchina" stuck in European maps and accounts. Its Vietnamese neighbours had no such name, and the region's own identity lay elsewhere. The name was then attached to the French colonial territory created after France took control of the southern provinces in the 1860s. The colony of Cochinchina, with Saigon as its capital, was formed in 1862 and became the core of French Indochina. Because the name had been used by Europeans for centuries, French administrators kept it for their new possession, even though it had nothing to do with China or with Kochi in India.