Dak Lak province is located in Central Highlands, the upper course of Serepok River and a part of Ba River. Its geographic coordinates are from 107°28'57" to 108°59'37" east longitude and from 12°9'45" to 13°25'06" north latitude with an average elevation about 400 - 800m. Dak Lak is 1,410km far from Ha Noi and 350km from Ho Chi Minh City.
- The East borders Khanh Hoa, Phu Yen provinces;
- The North borders Gia Lai province;
- The South borders Lam Dong, Dak Nong provinces;
- The West borders the Kingdom of Cambodia.
Dak Lak occupies an area of 13,125.37 square kilometers. In 2012, Dak Lak’s population was 1,796,666 people, and the provincial population density was over 137 people per square kilometer. In which, 432,458 people of the population was urbanised and 1,364,208 people living in rural areas. There were approximately 906,619 males and 890,047 females.
There are 47 ethnic minorities living in Dak Lak, of which the Kinh accounts for about 70%, and ethnic minority communities such as: Ede, M’nong, Thai, Tay, Nung, etc. account for 30 percent of the total population.
The population is unevenly distributed in the districts; populated areas mainly gather in Buon Ma Thuot city, townships, and districts along the National Highways No. 14, 26, 27 as Krong Buk, Krong Pak, Ea Kar, and Krong Ana. Districts with low population density are particularly difficult districts as Ea Sup, Buon Don, Lak, Krong Bong, M'Drak, and Ea H'leo, etc.
In addition to indigenous ethnic minority communities, there are a large number of inter-province migrant ethnic minority communities from northern and central of Viet Nam living in Dak Lak. Due to the free immigration, the population of Dak Lak has mechanical fluctuations in recent years that put great pressure on the province on solving residential land, productive land and social life issues as well as security and order and ecological environment.
In Dak Lak, there are many ethnic minorities co-existing with their own beautiful cultural characters, especially the traditional culture of the E De, M'Nong, Gia Rai ethnic groups.Their gong festival, buffalo-stabbing festival, elephant race together with the architecture of their stilt houses, communal houses, and their traditional musical instruments like gong sets, lithopone, T’rung… and the Central Highland epics are valuable tangible and intangible cultural heritages. Especially, the Space of Gong culture in the Central Highlands was recognized by the UNESCO as the Proclamation of Materpieces of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. They altogether create a rich and diversified culture for the province.
The E De ethnic group, whose language belongs to the Malay- Polynesian linguistic family, mainly resides in Northern and Southern districts: from Ea Hleo, Buon Ho to M’Drak and Buon Ma Thuot city.
The M’nong ethnic group who resides mainly in Southern districts and those along the South – West border uses a language which belongs to Mon-Khmer linguistic family.
* Dak Lak has 15 district-level administrative units including one city, one town and 13 districts; of which, there are 184 communal-level units including 152 communes, 20 wards and 12 townlets.
www.daklak.gov.vn
