French Cochinchina Currency & Banknote Values

In 1802, after approximately 300 years of partition by feudal dynasties, the country now known as Vietnam was unified by Gia Long with the founding of the Nguyen dynasty. On 1 September 1858, French and Spanish troops began the Cochinchina campaign by invading Tourane (Da Nang), Vietnam, followed by the capture of Saigon in Cochinchina on 17 February 1859. On 5 June 1862, the Vietnamese government ceded the southern provinces of Biên Hòa, Gia Đinh, and Định Tường to became the colony known as French Cochinchina, with its capital in Saigon. The Pick cross-references in this chapter are from the French Indo-China chapter of the SCWPM; Krause does not treat French Cochinchina as a separate entity.