Located in the Gulf of Thailand, just 12km south of the (now) Cambodian coast, the mountainous and densely forested island Phú Quốc (known as Koh Trol in Khmer) now belongs to Vietnam, but was and is a bone of contention between the governments of Cambodia and Vietnam. In the early 17th century, it was a desolate area, where Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants earned their living from sea cucumbers. In 1869, the French occupied it to set up rubber and coconut plantations. Anyway, in the late 19th and early 20th century less than 1,000 people resided on island, mostly distributed among small fishing communities, and even at the end of WWII the population was still less than 5,000. In 1949, after China fell under the control of the Communist Party, more then 33,000 Republic of China Army soldiers came in Phú Quốc, but they went to Taiwan in 1953. During the Vietnam War, the island housed South Vietnam's largest prisoner camp (40,000 in 1973).
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