Khmer Krom

Ethnic Khmer people of the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam

A ngo racing boat of the Khmer people in Vietnam, 2008. Photo: NamHyHoangPhong, CC BY 3.0

Community details
Khmer name	ខ្មែរក្រោម
Also known as	Khmer-Krom; Khmer Kampuchea Krom
Community type	Ethnic community
Country	Vietnam; Cambodia
Subjects	Community & Civic Life; History & Remembrance; Religion & Spiritual Life

The Khmer Krom (ខ្មែរក្រោម) are the ethnic Khmer people of the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam. In Khmer the region is called Kampuchea Krom (កម្ពុជាក្រោម). Vietnam officially counts them as the Khmer, one of the country's 54 ethnic groups. Advocates for the Khmer Krom write that Vietnam does not recognize them as an indigenous people, while the Vietnamese newspaper Nhân Dân calls them an indigenous ethnic minority.

History

Origins

Accounts of their origins differ. The Vietnamese newspaper Nhân Dân writes that the Khmer of Vietnam descend from people of Chenla who arrived in waves. In its account they were, with the Vietnamese and the Chinese, among the earliest peoples of the delta. The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), which advocates for the Khmer Krom, writes that they have lived in the delta without a break for thousands of years.

Vietnamese expansion

Shawn McHale, a historian at George Washington University, wrote that by the end of the 17th century the Vietnamese Nguyễn lords had reached Prey Nokor, the site of Saigon. In the 18th and 19th centuries they moved further into the delta. These were lands the Cambodian kings claimed, with a thin Khmer population.

McHale wrote that modern Vietnamese accounts treat 1757 as the year Cambodia gave up the delta. In his account a contender for the Cambodian throne traded away rights over outlying lands he did not hold, to win Vietnamese support. He added that Khmer resisted Vietnamese rule in parts of the delta well into the 19th century. Khmer of the delta, from Trà Vinh and Sóc Trăng to Vĩnh Long, An Giang, Kiên Giang and Hà Tiên, took part in the revolt that began in 1840, which lasted into 1843.

French rule

The Nguyễn court ceded three southern provinces to France in 1862 and three more in 1867. France ruled this region, Cochinchina, as a colony and made Cambodia a protectorate in 1863. Cambodia's claims to parts of the delta were left unsettled.

Under French rule, Vietnamese settlers moved into the delta in large numbers. McHale wrote that Khmer were probably the majority there in the early 19th century. By 1944 about 350,000 Khmer made up only 10 percent of the people of Cochinchina. Most lived in Trà Vinh (85,000), Sóc Trăng (80,000), Rạch Giá (65,000) and Châu Đốc (45,000).

Religious ties to Cambodia grew in this period. From the 1920s the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh trained Khmer Krom monks and sent printed Khmer materials to the delta. In 1944 the French placed the heads of the delta's Buddhist order under the spiritual authority of Cambodia's religious leaders, and more Khmer Krom went to Cambodia to study. Several figures in modern Cambodian politics had roots in the delta. The nationalist leader Son Ngoc Thanh came from Trà Vinh and worked at the Buddhist Institute.

1949 and after

McHale wrote that the First Indochina War (1945 to 1954) hardened hostility between Khmer and Vietnamese. On June 4, 1949, France awarded Cochinchina to the new State of Vietnam and turned down a long-standing Cambodian claim. The Khmer of the delta became a small minority in the new state.

UNPO writes that after Vietnam was reunified in 1975 the Khmer Krom faced policies of assimilation. In its account their farmland was collectivized, ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh) settlers were moved onto their land and the state promoted the Vietnamese language.

Population

Vietnam's census of April 1, 2019, counted 1,319,652 Khmer, and 76.5 percent of them lived in rural areas. UNPO gives a figure of about 1.2 million. Nhân Dân places them in three main areas of the delta. The first is an inland area, where they settled first. The second is the coast from Trà Vinh through Sóc Trăng to Bạc Liêu, and the third the mountains of the southwest border in An Giang and Kiên Giang. In 2026 An Giang province, enlarged by a merger with Kiên Giang, reported more than 399,000 Khmer among its nearly five million people.

Religion and daily life

Most Khmer Krom follow Theravada Buddhism, and a minority are Roman Catholic. The Wat is a place of worship and also a center for teaching the Khmer language and culture. Their festivals blend Buddhism with folk beliefs that carry Hindu elements. The two largest are Chol Chnam Thmay, the New Year, and Ok-ang Bok, a ceremony honoring the moon.

Families live in small hamlets called phum, grouped into self-governing villages called soc. Most farm wet rice, and many also fish, weave, make palm sugar and make pottery.

Wats in An Giang teach Khmer to children each summer. In the summer of 2026 the province's Wats ran 461 classes for grades one to five, with nearly 13,000 children and monks. Monks and achar (lay ritual leaders) teach most classes. The province pays teachers 30,000 Vietnamese dong for each lesson.

Status and rights

UNPO, whose member since 2001 is the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation, writes that Vietnam treats them as one of its 54 ethnic minorities and does not recognize them as an indigenous people. It also writes that Vietnam has refused to recognize Khmer Theravada Buddhism as an "authorised religion" and classes it as a religious organization. In its account Khmer Krom monks have had to join the state-backed Vietnam Buddhist Sangha. The federation seeks self-determination for the Khmer Krom and says it works through diplomacy and international law by peaceful means.

Nhân Dân describes the Khmer as an indigenous ethnic minority with a long history in the south, and as one of the nation's 54 ethnic groups. It writes that since 1975 the state has given special attention to education for the Khmer. An Giang's director of ethnic and religious affairs said in 2026 that the summer classes help keep the Khmer language and identity alive.

Human Rights Watch says it has documented serious abuses against the Khmer Krom by Vietnamese authorities, and in 2019 one of its officials called for Vietnam to give them a significant degree of autonomy. Michał Zaręba, a lecturer in Asian studies at the University of Łódź, set out to test the hypothesis that the Vietnamese government's stated policy of respect for cultural diversity and better living conditions for the Khmer had not been carried out. He wrote that the Khmer faced discrimination and kept a strong sense of identity through their traditions.

In Cambodia

Radio Free Asia wrote in 2022 that about one million Khmer Krom lived in Cambodia. In 2006 Cambodia's foreign ministry wrote to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that the government regards Khmer Krom as Khmer citizens. In 1992 the former king Norodom Sihanouk (នរោត្តម សីហនុ) said that Khmer Krom are fully Khmer under the law once they are within Cambodia's borders.

In 2022 a Khmer Krom rights association said that local officials did not automatically recognize Khmer Krom as Khmer, and that they met many obstacles in obtaining identity cards, family books and other papers. A spokesman for the Cambodian People's Party said that a permanent residence card for foreign immigrants did not apply to Khmer Krom. A Khmer Krom monk founded Wat Samekirainsey in Phnom Penh. The Canadian chapter of the federation told Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board in 2013 that the Wat served as a refuge and community center for Khmer Krom monks and lay people from the delta. A 2011 report by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said that some Khmer Krom in Cambodia, often monks, had difficulties with the authorities because of their political activism.

References