How long is the river bordering the two countries that once were home to the Hamangia culture, an ancient civilization that was assimilated into the Boian around 5250/5200 BC?
The Mekong (Cambodian Mekongk, Laotian Menam Khong, Vietnamese Song Tien Giang, Chinese Lancang Jiang) is the longest river in Southeast Asia and the seventh-longest in the world. It rises in southeastern Qinghai province of China and flows through the Tibet Autonomous Region and Yunnan before forming part of the border between Myanmar and China and then between Laos and Cambodia, and between Cambodia and Vietnam. It then drains into the South China Sea south of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
It is also a key waterway for agriculture and fishing, with a variety of food products and beverages produced along its length. The people of the Mekong basin are divided into two broad cultural groupings: the hill peoples of the Tibetan highlands who practice shifting cultivation and form small, kin-based communities, and the lowland peoples of Myanmar, Yunnan, and Laos who practice sedentary agriculture and have developed complex state societies. The inhabitants of the Mekong Basin speak languages from five different families: Tibeto-Burman (including the Yi, Hani, and Lisu of Yunnan), Austronesian, Mon-Khmer, and Hmong-Mien.
For the first 1,000 miles, the Mekong is turbulent with rapids and eddies, and it is sometimes referred to as the Red River of the North (Riviere Rouge du Nord) due to its clay soils and muddy banks and its reddish-brown silt-filled waters. But after that it becomes much calmer and wider as it passes through Malebo Pool, where the capitals of the Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo sit on opposite sides of the river.
