The Phủ biên tạp lục (chữ Hán: 撫邊雜錄 Miscellaneous Chronicles of the Pacified Frontier 1776) is a 6 volume Chữ Nho geography by the Vietnamese Confucian scholar and encyclopaedist Lê Quý Đôn.
It is a detailed description of the Nguyễn dynasty's territories in Thuận Hóa and Quảng Nam provinces, and covers outlying areas such as the Spratly Islands and Paracel Islands. This text was written in the aftermath of the Trịnh regime's invasion of the long-autonomous Nguyễn territories, which took place in 1774. The Lê court sent Lê Quý Đôn into the newly captured territories to carry out a survey of its natural resources and economic potential, and this text is a result of his research. It represents one of the most important historical sources for understanding the geographical and historical conditions of central Việt Nam in the second half of the eighteenth century. The original Chinese text was translated into modern romanized Vietnamese (quốc ngữ) by the noted twentieth-century historian Đào Duy Anh.
References
- Anh Tuá̂n Hoàng Silk for Silver: Dutch-Vietnamese Relations, 1637-1700 2007 - Page 281 "Lê Quý Đôn, Phủ biên tạp lục (Hanoi: KHXH, "
- Erica J. Peters Appetites and Aspirations in Vietnam: Food and Drink in the Long 19th Century 2011- Page 282 "Lê Quý Đôn. Toàn Tập: Tập I: Phủ biên tạp lục (Complete works, Vol. 1: Miscellaneous chronicles of the pacified frontier). Transl. from Chinese characters into quốc ngữ by Đào Duy Anh. Hanoi: NXB Khoa Học Xã Hội, 1977 ."