The Central Highlands (, or ), South Central Highlands (), or Western Highlands (), is a geocultural subregion located in Vietnam's South Central region.
The subregion contains parts of provinces: Đắk Lắk, Gia Lai, Quảng Ngãi, and Lâm Đồng,"Quốc hội thông qua Nghị quyết về việc sắp xếp đơn vị hành chính cấp tỉnh, từ ngày 12/6, cả nước còn 34 tỉnh, thành phố". National Assembly of Vietnam (in Vietnamese). 2025-06-12. Archived from the original on 2025-06-12. Retrieved 2025-11-30 and prior to 2025 consisted of provinces Đắk Nông, Lâm Đồng, Đắk Lắk, Gia Lai, and Kon Tum.
Geography
The Central Highlands are a series of plateaus bordering the lower part of Laos and northeastern Cambodia, namely Kon Tum Plateau at 500 m, Kon Plông Plateau, Kon Hà Nừng Plateau, Pleiku Plateau at 800 m, Mdrak Plateau at approximately 500 m, Đắk Lắk Plateau at around 800 m, Mơ Nông Plateau with the height of about 800–1000 m, Lâm Viên Plateau of approximately 1500 m and Di Linh Plateau of about 900–1000 m. All of these plateaus are situated south of the Annamite Range.
The Central Highlands are mostly drained by tributaries of the Mekong. The Sesan or Tonlé San river drains the northern portion of the highlands, and the Srepok River the southern. A series of shorter rivers run from the eastern edge of the highlands to the Vietnamese coast.
Tây Nguyên can be divided into three subregions according to their deviation in topography and climate, namely: North Tây Nguyên (Bắc Tây Nguyên) (inclusive of Kon Tum and Gia Lai provinces), Middle Tây Nguyên (Trung Tây Nguyên) (covering provinces of Đắk Lắk and Đắk Nông), South Tây Nguyên (Nam Tây Nguyên) (Lâm Đồng). Trung Tây Nguyên has a lower altitude and therefore has a higher temperature than the other two subregions.
Provinces Đắk Lắk Gia Lai Lâm Đồng (before were Lâm Đồng and Đắk Nông) Quảng Ngãi (before was Kon Tum)
History
The native inhabitants of the Central Highlands, known as the Montagnards (Mountain peoples), are various peoples that mainly belonged to the two major Austroasiatic (Bahnaric) and Austronesian (Highland Chamic) ethnolinguistic families. According to Peng et al. (2010) & Liu et al. (2020), Austronesian Chamic groups were well known of being seafarers with the original homeland of Taiwan, might have migrated to present-day Central Vietnam by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia around ~ 2,500 kya, while were making contact/or possibly absorbed the previously earlier Austroasiatic inhabitants (research shows shared high frequencies of AA-associated ancestry among Vietnam's Austronesian Chamic highlanders than Austronesian Chamic lowlanders which are more related with Taiwanese AN groups).
Throughout pre-modern history, the Central Highlands were not under the control of surrounding lowland classical kingdoms, thus much of prehistoric indigenous cultures were preserved. Highlands and mountains acted like barricades that curtailed much of the lowland influences on the Central Highlands people. The region falls into the geographical category described by James C. Scott as terra zomia, a huge mountainous landmass of Mainland Southeast Asia (including Southern China and Northeast India).
During the early fifteenth century, the northern part of Central Highlands (around present-day An Khê) had a dubious ruler named Śrī Gajarāja (King of the Elephants) with the title "The great king of the Montagnards of Madhyamagrāma" ("big village"), who was a vassal of Cham king Indravarman VI (r. 1400–1441) in the lowland.Griffiths et al. (2012) The inscriptions of Campā at the Museum of Cham sculpture in Đà Nẵng / Văn khắc Chămpa tại bảo tàng điêu khắc Chăm – Đà Nẵng, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City Publishing House (published in collaboration with EFEO and the Center for Vietnamese and Southeast Asian Studies, Hồ Chí Minh City). Despite geographic barriers, the Cham extensively used the Highlands as their resources backyard to provide medieval commodities. They also built several temples in the Highlands, for example, the temple of Yang Prong (in Đắk Lắk province) constructed by king Simhavarman III (r. 1288–1307). It is evident that Chamic-speaking peoples of the lowlands had engaged direct contacts and trade with the peoples of the Central Highlands for a long time before Kinh Vietnamese colonialism, resulting in mutual linguistic borrowings in both colloquial languages and cultural similarities.
Ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh) people arrived in the Central Highlands after France annexed the area into Vietnam in 1889.Lê Đình Chi. Người Thượng Miền Nam Việt Nam. Gardena, CA: Văn Mới, 2006. p. 401-449 The Vietnamese now outnumber the indigenous Degars after state-sponsored settlement directed by both the government of the Republic of Vietnam and the current Communist government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The Montagnards have fought against and resisted all Vietnamese settlers, from the anti-Communist South Vietnamese government, the Viet Cong, to the Communist government of unified Vietnam.
The Champa state and Chams in the lowlands were traditional suzerains whom the Montagnards in the highlands acknowledged as their lords, while autonomy was held by the Montagnards. After 1945, concept of "Nam tiến" and the southward expansion was celebrated by Vietnamese scholars. The Pays Montagnard du Sud-Indochinois was the name of the Central Highlands from 1946 under French Indochina.
Up until French rule, the Central Highlands was almost never entered by the Vietnamese since they viewed it as a savage (Moi) populated area with fierce animals like tigers, "poisoned water" and "evil malevolent spirits". The Vietnamese expressed interest in the land after the French transformed it into a profitable plantation area to grow crops on, in addition to the natural resources from the forests, minerals and rich earth and realization of its crucial geographical importance.
An insurgency was waged by Montagnards in FULRO against South Vietnam and then unified Communist Vietnam. A settlement program of ethnic Kinh Vietnamese by the government of the Republic of Vietnam was implemented and now a Kinh majority predominates in the highland areas. After mass demonstrations and protests during 2001 and 2004 by ethnic hill tribe minorities against the communist government, foreigners were banned from the Central Highlands for a period of time.
Ethnic groups
Below is a list of officially recognized ethnic groups in Vietnam that are indigenous to the Central Highlands and nearby areas. They speak Austroasiatic languages of the Katuic and Bahnaric, as well as Chamic languages (which belong to the Austronesian language family). Population statistics are from the 2009 Vietnam Population Census.
Katuic speakers Bru (2009 population: 74,506): Quảng Trị Province Cơ Tu (2009 population: 61,588): Da Nang Tà Ôi (2009 population: 43,886): Huế and Quảng Trị Province Bahnaric speakers West Bahnaric Brâu (2009 population: 397): Quảng Ngãi province East Bahnaric Co (2009 population: 33,817): Quảng Ngãi Province North Bahnaric Xơ Đăng (2009 population: 169,501): Quảng Ngãi province and Da Nang Hrê (2009 population: 127,420): Quảng Ngãi Province Rơ Măm (2009 population: 436): Quảng Ngãi province Central Bahnaric Ba Na (2009 population: 227,716): Gia Lai Province and Quảng Ngãi province Giẻ Triêng (2009 population: 50,962): Quảng Ngãi province and Da Nang South Bahnaric Chơ Ro (2009 population: 26,855): Đồng Nai Province Cờ Ho (2009 population: 166,112): Lâm Đồng Province Mạ (2009 population: 41,405): Lâm Đồng Province X’Tiêng (2009 population: 85,436): Đồng Nai province Mnông (2009 population: 102,741): Đắk Lắk Province and Lâm Đồng province Chamic speakers Chăm (2009 population: 161,729): Khánh Hòa province and Lâm Đồng province Chu Ru (2009 population: 19,314): Lâm Đồng Province Ê Đê (2009 population: 331,194): Đắk Lắk Province Gia Rai (2009 population: 411,275): Gia Lai Province Ra Glai (2009 population: 122,245): Khánh Hòa Province
Listed by province, from north to south as well as west to east: Quảng Trị Province: Bru (Katuic), Tà Ôi (Katuic) Huế: Tà Ôi (Katuic) Da Nang: Cơ Tu (Katuic), Xơ Đăng (North Bahnaric), Giẻ Triêng (Central Bahnaric) Quảng Ngãi Province: Hrê (North Bahnaric), Co (East Bahnaric), Giẻ Triêng (Central Bahnaric), Ba Na (Central Bahnaric), Xơ Đăng (North Bahnaric), Rơ Măm (North Bahnaric), Brâu (West Bahnaric) Gia Lai Province: Gia Rai (Chamic), Ba Na (Central Bahnaric) Đắk Lắk Province: Ê Đê (Chamic), Mnông (South Bahnaric) Khánh Hòa Province: Ra Glai (Chamic), Chăm (Chamic) Lâm Đồng province: Mnông (South Bahnaric), Chu Ru (Chamic), Mạ (South Bahnaric), Cờ Ho (South Bahnaric), Chăm (Chamic) Đồng Nai Province: Chơ Ro (South Bahnaric), Xtiêng (South Bahnaric)
Culture Bahnar is the second ethnic group, after the Kinh people, to have their language written based on Latin script by French missionaries in 1861. The Ede people, then, had their writing system in 1923. The first known epic poetry Dam San was compiled and published in Paris, France, under the name Le Chanson de DamSan. The bilingual Ede-French edition was then released in 1933 by the French School of the Far East's magazine in Hanoi. In February 1949, a prehistoric lithophone named Ndut Lieng Krak was discovered in Dak Lak, which is now kept at the Museum of Mankind, Paris. The space of gong culture in the Central Highlands of Vietnam was recognized by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on 15 January 2005.
Economy, natural resources, society, and environment In comparison with other regions in Vietnam, the Central Highlands has to encounter great difficulties in socio-economic conditions such as the skilled labor shortage, poor infrastructure, possibilities of ethnic-group conflict in a small area and a low standard of living. This area, however, has many advantages in natural resources. The region is home to nearly 2 million hectares of fertile basalt, making up for 60% of the national basalt soil, which is very suitable for industrial crops such as coffee, cocoa, pepper, mulberry, and tea. Coffee is the most important industrial commodity of the Central Highlands. The current coffee area here is over 290 thousand hectares, accounting for 80% of the country's coffee area. Dak Lak is the province with the widest coffee area (170 thousand hectares) and Buon Ma Thuot coffee is famous for its high quality. The Central Highlands is also the second-largest rubber tree region after the Southeast, mainly in Gia Lai and Dak Lak. The Central Highlands is the most enormous mulberry and silkworm area in our country as well, the most in Bao Loc Lam Dong. This place has a consortium of the largest silk incubators exported in Vietnam.
Unequal land and resource allocation also spark many disputes. Previously, the government aimed to exploit the Central Highlands of Vietnam by establishing a system of state-owned agriculture and forestry farms (before 1993, there were major agricultural-forestry-industry Union Enterprises, which switched to central or provincial agriculture and forestry farms after the same year). In reality, these economic organizations control most of the Central Highlands’ land. In Dak Lak province, by 1985, three agricultural-forestry-industry Union Enterprises managed 1,058,000 hectares, which accounted for half of the province's area, plus 1,600,000 hectares of state-owned rubber tree growing area. In total, the state runs 90% of Dak Lak’s area, and 60% of Gia Lai’s. Overall, by 1985, 70% of the Central Highlands’ surface area was under the state's management. After 1993, although there was a shift in management mechanism, this number only decreased by 26%.