Sa Dec

Sa Dec (Vietnamese: Sa Đéc) is a city in Đồng Tháp Province in the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam. It is a river port and agricultural and industrial trading center. During the Vietnam War, it was the site of an American Swift Boat base.

Before the nineteenth century, it was the capital of Dong Khau Dao, and it was known as one of the largest cities in the Mekong Delta.

Today, the town has a population of approximately 103,000. There are three industrial zones in this town, designated by the codes A, C1, and C. They attract a large number of businessmen from the Mekong Delta region.

The French writer Marguerite Duras lived in Sa Dec during a three to four year period between 1928 and 1932. Her mother ran a school on the corner of Hùng Vương and Hồ Xuân Hương, where a school still exists today. Duras met Huynh Thuy Le, the son of a wealthy Chinese family, and the two became involved in a love affair that became the basis for Duras's 1984 Prix Goncourt-winning novel, The Lover. The house of Huynh Thuy Le, at 255A Nguyen Hue Street, for many years an office for a government agency, is now (2009) open to the public, with guides offering tours in French, English and Vietnamese.