<figcaption>Daknong geop­ark map</figcaption>

Dak Nong Glob­al Geop­ark is locat­ed in Dak Nong province, in the south­west­ern part of Vietnam’s Cen­tral High­lands at the merid­ion­al edge of the Truong Son moun­tain range (the Anna­mite Range). Extend­ing over the five dis­tricts of Kro­ng No, Cu Jut, Dak Mil, Dak Song, Dak G’Long and Gia Nghia town, the geop­ark is part of the majes­tic Mnong plateau with an aver­age ele­va­tion of 600 – 700m above sea lev­el; its high­est point, Ta Dung, is 1,982m above sea lev­el. On July 7, 2020, it was rec­og­nized by UNESCO as Vietnam’s third glob­al geop­ark after a lengthy cam­paign led by Mr Ngoc Bao’s team and the Provin­cial People’s Committee.

Dak Nong Geop­ark is dis­tinc­tive in terms of geo­log­i­cal fea­tures and geo­her­itage val­ue. Part of the Gond­wana ancient super­con­ti­nent 200 – 165 mil­lion years ago, the geop­ark was sub­merged in a pas­sive con­ti­nen­tal mar­gin sea rich in ammonite and bivalve fos­sils. Around 145 – 66 mil­lion years ago, this con­ti­nen­tal mar­gin became active due to plate col­li­sion, with red-bed sed­i­ments, erup­tive andesite-dacite-rhy­o­lite, and intru­sive gab­bro-dior­ite-gra­n­odi­or­ite-gran­ite rocks. In the last 16.5 mil­lion years, the ter­ri­to­ry was once more active with wide­spread, mul­ti-phase vol­canic activ­i­ties that caused a basalt cov­er to form over more than 50% of the geop­ark – cre­at­ing some of the world’s largest and best qual­i­ty baux­ite deposits and a num­ber of min­er­als such as sap­phires and oth­er semi-pre­cious stones. It also pro­duced fer­tile soil that has fed gen­er­a­tions of locals with indus­tri­al and fruit tree crops.

<img alt="Coffee plantations in Daknong" src="https://www.secretindochina.com/upload-images/programmes/daknong-unesco-geopark/TA-DUNG-I-1607333599.jpg" />
<figcaption>Cof­fee plan­ta­tions in Daknong</figcaption>

The geopark’s unique topog­ra­phy was shaped by young vol­canic activ­i­ty tens of thou­sands of years ago (Late Pleis­tocene-Holocene), result­ing in spec­tac­u­lar craters, majes­tic water­falls and one of South­east Asia’s most exten­sive sys­tem of mag­nif­i­cent vol­canic caves, which pre­his­toric peo­ple used as shel­ter around 6,000−10,000 years ago. Recent find­ings inside the caves includ­ed stone tools such as dish-shaped tools, short axes, blade-ground short axes, oval axes and blade-ground oval axes, flake tools, stone flakes, stone slabs, anvils, graters, pes­tles, hand-fit­ting sharp quartzite stones, and pieces of loess. Sci­en­tists also found pot­tery of var­i­ous thick­ness­es, most­ly fired at low tem­per­a­ture, with a crumbly tex­ture made of fine sandy loam with var­ied pat­terns such as dot-dash, dot­ted line, dashed line, and twist­ed rope.

<figcaption>Stone tools found in Daknong geopark</figcaption>

Dak Nong makes an ide­al trip from either Cat Tien Nation­al Park or Lak Lak in the for­mer Dac Lac leg­endary swamps. Dis­cov­er the vol­canic cave sys­tem in basalt rock in Dray Sap — Chu R’Luh, which the Japan Vol­canic Cave Asso­ci­a­tion recent­ly record­ed as the longest in South­east Asian in terms of scale, length, and unique­ness. Explore the region’s lux­u­ri­ant atmos­phere through soft-adven­ture or adven­ture expe­ri­ence mod­ules in Nam Nung Nature Reserve or Ta Dung Nation­al Park, rang­ing from half-day hik­ing or cycling in the direc­tion of iso­lat­ed water­falls to two-day, one-night trips to moun­tain peaks. Enter intact forests famed for their bio­di­ver­si­ty that har­bor many rare species list­ed in Viet­nam Red Book and the World’s Red Book: ele­phants, tigers, bison, pri­mates (notably the Fran­cois’ leaf mon­key, or the Black-shanked douc), and elu­sive birds (such as the Great Horn­bill and the Germain’s Pea­cock Pheas­ant). Sail along Ta Dung Lake, an enor­mous body of water dot­ted with green islands, and get to know the rich­ness of human life in the area that is home to around 416,000 peo­ple of 40 eth­nic groups, includ­ing two rec­og­nized by UNESCO as mas­ters of gong cul­ture (the Mnong, and the Cau Maa’ people)

<img alt="Former Cau Maa' village" src="https://www.secretindochina.com/upload-images/programmes/daknong-unesco-geopark/BITCH-MAA-1606211974.jpg" />
<figcaption>For­mer Cau Maa’ village</figcaption>