| Description |  |
Da Lat is the capital of Lâm Ðồng Province in Vietnam. The town is located 1500 m (4,920 ft) above sea level on the Langbiang Plateau in the southern parts of the Central Highlands (in Vietnamese - Tây Nguyên). According to a myth from the French colonial era, the name derives from the acronym of the Latin phrase 'Dat Aliis Laetitiam Aliis Temperiem' ("Giving Pleasure to Some, Freshness to Others"), which the French colonial government used in their official emblem of Ðà Lạt. In reality the name derives from the language of the local ethnic group Lạt and its original meaning is "Stream of the Lạt". In Vietnam, Ðà Lạt is a popular tourist destination - highly appreciated for its temperate climate, beautiful sights such as waterfalls and lakes and its abundance of flowers and vegetables. It is the location of the Novotel Da Lat (formerly Da Lat Hotel) and Sofitel Da Lat (formerly Da Lat Palace built in 1922). |
| Histoire | |
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During the 1890s, explorers in the area (including the noted bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin , protégé of the renowned French chemist Louis Pasteur), which was then part of the French territory of Cochinchina, asked the territorial governor to create a resort center in the highlands. The governor agreed, and, in 1907, the first hotel was built.
The French endowed the city with villas and boulevards, and its Swiss charms remain today. They also built boarding schools where children from the whole of Indochina were taught by French priests, nuns and expatriates. There were seminaries of Jesuit (such as Pius X Pontifical College) and other orders. The elite Vietnamese National Military Academy graduated its first class of future leaders in 1950. There was also an aviator school at Cam Ly airport.
During World War II, Ðà Lạt was the Capital of the Federation of Indochina, from 1939 1945.
In the mid-1950s, the Vietnamese Scout Association established their national training grounds at Dalat.
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalat
Text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License |
