Cat Tien National Park

Cat Tien National Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Bau Sau (Crocodile Lake)
Location	Việt Nam
Nearest city	Tan Phu
Coordinates	11°30′N 107°20′E / 11.500°N 107.333°E / 11.500; 107.333Coordinates: 11°30′N 107°20′E / 11.500°N 107.333°E / 11.500; 107.333
Area	720 km2 (280 sq mi)
Established	1992 (present extent)
Governing body	Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD)

Cát Tiên National Park (Vietnamese: Vườn quốc gia Cát Tiên) is a national park located in the south of Vietnam, approximately 150 km north of Ho Chi Minh City. It has an area of about 720 km² and protects one of the largest areas of lowland tropical forests left in Vietnam.

Cát Tiên national park was protected initially in 1978 as two sectors, Nam Cat Tien and Tay Cat Tien. Another sector, Cat Loc, was gazetted as a rhinoceros reserve in 1992 upon the discovery of a population of the Vietnamese Javan rhinoceros, an occasion that brought the park into the world's eye. The three areas were combined to form one park in 1998. Nam Cat Tien is contiguous with Vĩnh Cửu nature reserve thus providing an enlarged area for species to breed.

The park suffered historically during the Vietnam War when it was extensively sprayed with defoliant herbicides. However, substantial further damage was done by logging up until the 1990s. To this day these areas have extensive bamboo and grassland cover and trees have not yet grown back.

The Cát Tiên archaeological site is located just outside the park boundary on the northern bank of the Dong Nai river (between Cat Loc and Nam Cat Tien, facing in to the latter). Excavations carried out between 1994 and 2003 revealed a group of temples, belonging to a previously unknown Hindu civilization which probably inhabited the area between the 4th century and 9th centuries AD (possibly later). A large number of a number of gold, bronze, ceramic, coloured stone, and glass artefacts, are currently displayed in the Da Lat museum.

Cát Tiên National Park consists of seasonal tropical forests, grasslands and riparian areas. The forests are dominated by Dipterocarpaceae, Fabaceae and Lythraceae. Of the latter, Lagerstroemia spp. are common, especially L. calyculata and there are also spectacularly large specimen trees of Tetrameles nudiflora (Tetramelaceae). 40% of the park comprises bamboo woodland, with Bambusa balcooa, B. blumeana and B. procera; the remaining 10% consists of and grassland (often disused farmland) and wetlands: which include swamps and isolated wet meadows in un-drained patches of forest.