Dak Nong Geopark covers 4,760 km2 of 5 districts and 1 town, including Krong No, Cu Jut, Dak Mil, Dak Song, Dak G’long districts and Gia Nghia town.
Its history begins 140 millions years ago when an ocean was covering this area. Limestone, ammonites and various fossils are the silencious witness of this marine past. More recently, volcanoes were there. Their lava gives the basalt covering half of the area. About 10.000 years ago they were still active! This territory is also renowned as biggest volcanic cave system in Southeast Asia, inhabited by prehistoric people tens thousands of years ago.
Dak Nong is also known by the first findings in the world of a lithophone, created 3,000 years ago, by prehistoric people from basalt. One of the oldest mankind’s musical instruments. Along with the gongs, epics and other ethnic musical instruments, the sound of streams and waterfalls, of volcanic eruptions, the voices of birds and animals, the murmuring of the wind, and even, in the recent past, the violent clashes of weapons, the lithophone deserves to become the main tone of the Dak Nong Geopark. Come and visit Dak Nong Geopark – The Lands of sounds to experience the “Rhapsody of Fire and Water”, enjoy the “Wind of Changes Concerto”, and listen to the “Sounds of the Earth”.
Dak Nong is as well famous for its rich ethnic identity. Originally inhabited by three indigenous peoples (M’Nong, Ede and Ma), in the late 70s it has received numerous people from other provinces to become the homeland of more than 40 ethnic groups of Vietnam. Dak Nong as part of the “Central Highlands Gong Culture Space” was also recogbized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage.
