Đàng Trong

Đàng Trong, also known as Nam Hà, was the region of Vietnam south of the Gianh River, under the lordship of the Nguyễn clan, and later expanded through Vietnamese southward expansion. It was bordered to the north by Đàng Ngoài, ruled by the Lê–Trịnh.
Throughout the 17th century and most of the 18th century, the Nguyễn lords, though claiming loyalty to the Lê emperors in Thăng Long, ruled Đàng Trong as a de facto independent kingdom. Nguyễn rulers titled themselves as Chúa instead of Vua until Lord Nguyễn Phúc Khoát officially claimed the title Vũ Vương in 1744.

Names

The terms Đàng Trong and Đàng Ngoài originated in the 1620s and were first recorded in the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum by Alexandre de Rhodes. Contemporary European sources referred to Đàng Trong as Cochinchina and its variants. Other foreigners also referred to it as the Kingdom of Quảng Nam after the Quảng Nam Governorate where the important harbor Hội An located, hence the Dutch term Quinam.