Talk:Siege of Tourane

Image of Disembarkation at Da Nang

Can anyone shed any light on the provenance of the image claiming to show French troops disembarking at Da Nang in 1858? I ask because I have seen that image before in a French book on the Sino-French War, only there it claims to show French troops either at Thuan An in August 1883 or at Keelung in 1884 (I don't have the book to hand so I'm relying on my memory). I would have thought that the uniforms, particularly the pith helmets, were those of the 1880s, not the 1850s, so I'm doubtful that this is really an image of the landing at Da Nang in 1858.

Djwilms (talk) 01:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Anachronistic naming

The information I have from the official website of the city of Danang shows that the French only renamed the city to Tourane after they've taken administrative control (that is, after the siege described here)[1]. Before that, the port was known as "Cửa Hàn" (Mouth of the Han River). So using the name Tourane for this siege is no less anachronistic than "Da Nang". At least Da Nang has some currency. DHN (talk) 09:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the name Tourane was in common use by Europeans from at least the seventeenth century onwards, and was the name used by Alexandre de Rhodes in the mid-seventeenth century, by Pigneau de Behaine in the eighteenth century, and by all other early French pioneers in Vietnam. When I get home I'll consult Maps of Asia, a massive collection of European maps of Asia from the Middle Ages onwards, and see how early the name appears. It's certainly not anachronistic to use it for an event that took place as late as 1858. A more interesting question, in my opinion, is the origin of the European name, and I'll see whether the website you mention sheds any light on that.

Djwilms (talk) 01:13, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

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• Carte de Tourane (Đà Nẵng) 1859.jpg

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