Term originally coined by Portuguese travelers to describe the southern Nguyen dynasty. The French used the term to describe the colony they carved out of present day southern Vietnam by the mid-1860s, la Cochinchine. In Vietnamese, this French geopolitical term translated as Nam Ky. Following the Japanese coup de force of 9 March 1945 ousting the French from Indochina, the Tran Trong Kim government adopted the term southern section or Nam Phan in the Official Gazette to replace the colonial terms Cochinchine/Nam Ky. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam followed suit but dropped Phan in favour of Bo to come up with the term, Nam Bo, or southern region. Upon returning to Indochina after World War II, the French would revive the colonial term, “Cochinchina”, as part of a wider battle over the control of the south and its political status: would it be colonial (Cochinchina/Indochinese Federation) or national (Nam Bo/Vietnam)? With the failure of the Indochinese Federation in 1947 and of Cochinchinese autonomy, from 1948 the French backed away from the idea of a separate southern entity and allowed Bao Dai to unify the country under the national name of Vietnam with the southern part referred to in Vietnamese as Nam Viet. Cochinchina as a legal, geopolitical colonial reality ceased to exist. See also 23 SEPTEMBER 1945; 19 DECEMBER 1946; ACCORDS OF 6 MARCH 1946; ANNAM; BAO DAI SOLUTION; COCHINCHINESE CIVIL GUARD; GEORGES THIERRY D’ARGENLIEU; INDOCHINESE FEDERATION; JEAN CEDILE; LANGUAGE OF WAR; NGUYEN VAN THINH; PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF COCHINCHINA; TONKIN.