COCHIN - 4 reference results
Cochin, Charles Nicolas, 1715-90, French engraver, designer, writer on art, and painter to the French court. His works, more than 1,500 in number, include historical subjects, such as the Marriage of the Dauphin, vignettes and frontispieces, book illustrations, and pencil and crayon portraits.
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Cochin China, Fr. Cochinchine, historic region (c.26,500 sq mi/68,600 sq km) of Vietnam, SE Asia. The capital and chief city was Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). Cochin China was bounded by Cambodia on the northwest and north, by the historic region of Annam on the northeast, by the South China Sea on the east and south, and by the Gulf of Thailand on the west. It included the rich Mekong delta, one of the world's great rice-growing regions, and, in the northeast, the southern spurs of the Annamese Cordillera, where rubber, coffee, tea, oil palm, and sugarcane plantations were established. Only the Plaine des Joncs [reed plain] and the mangrove-covered Ca Mau peninsula were not cultivated. Cochin China was originally part of the Khmer Empire. In the 17th cent. the Annamese (later called Vietnamese) gradually infiltrated through the mouths of the Mekong, increasing their commercial influence until they became masters of the region in the middle of the 18th cent. After the French occupied Saigon (1859), Annam ceded to France both E Cochin China (1862) and W Cochin China (1867). Unlike the other sections of Indochina, which were French protectorates under native rulers, Cochin China was administered by the French as a colony; thus, French influence was strongest there. After World War II the status of Cochin China became a major issue in the relations between France and Vietnam. Constituted (1946) as an independent republic within the Federation of Indochina, Cochin China was later (1949) permitted by the French to join with Annam and Tonkin in Vietnam. After 1954, when Vietnam was partitioned, Cochin China became the heartland of South Vietnam; it was later divided into several provinces.
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Licensed from Columbia University Press
Licensed from Columbia University Press
Cochin, former princely state, 1,493 sq mi (3,867 sq km), SW India, on the Arabian Sea. Now part of Kerala state, the region of Cochin has one of the highest population densities in India. Agriculture is the chief economic activity. Ernakulam was the former capital and Kochi, formerly Cochin (1991 pop. 1,140,605), the chief port. The finest port S of Mumbai, Kochi, with its naval base and shipbuilding industry, is the primary training center for the Indian Navy. After Vasco da Gama visited Kochi (1502), the Portuguese established a settlement. The Dutch captured it in 1663 and the British in 1795. In adjoining Mattancheri there is a small community of descendants of Jews expelled from Portugal in the 16th cent., thought to be the oldest Jewish enclave in India.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press
Licensed from Columbia University Press
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