The Há»Âng Bàng period (), also called the Há»Âng Bàng dynasty, was a legendary ancient period in Vietnamese historiography, spanning from the beginning of the rule of Kinh Dðáng Vðáng over the kingdom of VÃÂn Lang (initially called XÃÂch Quá»·) in 2879 BC until the conquest of the state by An Dðáng Vðáng in 258 BC. Vietnamese history textbooks claim that this state was established in the 7th century BC on the basis of the Dong Son culture.
The 15th-century Vietnamese chronicle ÃÂại Viá»Ât sá» ký toàn thð (ÃÂại Viá»Ât, The Complete History) claimed that the period began with Kinh Dðáng Vðáng as the first Hùng king ( or Vua Hùng), a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Vietnamese rulers of this period. The Hùng king was the absolute monarch of the country and, at least in theory, wielded complete control of the land and its resources. The ÃÂại Viá»Ât sá» ký toàn thð also recorded that the nation's capital was Phong Châu (in present-day Phú Thá» Province in northern Vietnam) and alleged that VÃÂn Lang was bordered to the west by Ba-Shu (present-day Sichuan), to the north by Dongting Lake (Hunan), to the east by the South China Sea and to the south by Champa.
The name Há»Âng Bàng is the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation of characters "" assigned to this dynasty in early Vietnamese-written histories in Chinese; its meaning is supposedly a mythical giant () bird ().
French linguist Michel Ferlus (2009) includes VÃÂn Lang (Old Chinese: ZS *mïn-raÃÂà Â; B&S *mÃÂ[n]-C.räaà Â) in the word-family *-ra:à  "human being, person" of Southeast Asian ethnonyms across three linguistic families, Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, together with:
There also exists a phonetically similar Proto-Mon-Khmer etymon: *tâÂÂnra:à  "man, male".
The earliest historical mentions of VÃÂn Lang, however, just had been recorded in Chinese-language documents, dated back to the Tang dynasty (7th- to 9th-century), about the area of Phong Châu (Phú Thá»Â). However, Chinese records also indicated that another people, who lived elsewhere, were also called VÃÂn Lang.
The area now known as Vietnam has been inhabited since Palaeolithic times, with some archaeological sites in Thanh Hóa Province reportedly dating back around half a million years ago. The prehistoric people had lived continuously in local caves since around 6000 BC, until more advanced material cultures developed. Some caves are known to have been the home of many generations of early humans. As northern Vietnam was a place with mountains, forests, and rivers, the number of tribes grew between 5000 and 3000 BC.
During a few thousand years in the Late Stone Age, the inhabitant populations grew and spread to every part of Vietnam. Most ancient people were living near the Há»Âng (Red), Cả and Mã rivers. The Vietnamese tribes were the primary tribes at this time. Their territory included modern meridional territories of China to the banks of the Há»Âng River in the northern territory of Vietnam. Centuries of developing a civilization and economy based on the cultivation of irrigated rice encouraged the development of tribal states and communal settlements.
Legend describes a significant political event occurred when Lá»Âc Tục came into power in 2879 BC. Lá»Âc Tục was recorded as a descendant of the mythical ruler Shennong. He consolidated the other tribes and succeeded in grouping all the vassal states (or autonomous communities) within his territory into a unified nation. Lá»Âc Tục proclaimed himself Kinh Dðáng Vðáng and called his newly born nation XÃÂch Quá»·. In the Complete Annals of ÃÂại Viá»Ât (Vietnamese: ÃÂại Viá»Ât sá» ký toàn thð, chữ Hán: 大è¶Âå²è¨Âå ¨æ¸), states that,
The name XÃÂch Quá»· 赤鬼 is derived from Sino-Vietnamese xÃÂch 赤 "red" and quá»· 鬼 "demon". The meaning of the name is from Twenty-Eight Mansions, where 鬼 quá»· refers to the constellation 鬼宿 (Sino-Vietnamese: Quá»· tú, Vietnamese: sao Quá»·) which lies in the South (a common motif of Vietnamese place names). Red 赤 is associated with Vermilion Bird of the South (Sino-Vietnamese: Chu Tðá»Âc, chữ Hán: æ±éÂÂ).
Lá»Âc Tục inaugurated the earliest monarchical regime as well as the first ruling family by in Vietnam's history. He is regarded as the ancestor of the Hùng kings, as the founding father of Vietnam, and as a Vietnamese cultural hero who is credited with teaching his people how to cultivate rice.
Starting from the third Hùng dynasty since 2524 BC, the kingdom was renamed VÃÂn Lang, and the capital was set up at Phong Châu (in modern Viá»Ât Trì, Phú Thá»Â) at the juncture of three rivers where the Red River Delta begins from the foot of the mountains. The evidence that the Vietnamese knew how to calculate the lunar calendar by carving on stones dates back to 2200âÂÂ2000 BC. Parallel lines were carved on the stone tools as a counting instrument involving the lunar calendar.
According to Vietnamese legend, at one point, VÃÂn Lang had a war against Shang-China invasion, which VÃÂn Lang came out victorious thanks to general Gióng.
The Há»Âng Bàng epoch finally ended in the middle of the third century BC on the advent of the military leader Thục Phán's conquest of VÃÂn Lang, dethroning the last Hùng king.
VÃÂn Lang ended 258 BC when Thục Phán led the ÃÂu Viá»Ât tribes to overthrow the last Hùng king in approximately 258 BC. After conquering VÃÂn Lang, Thục Phán united the Lạc Viá»Ât tribes with the ÃÂu Viá»Ât tribes to form a new kingdom of ÃÂu Lạc. He proclaimed himself An Dðáng Vðáng and built his capital and citadel, Cá» Loa Citadel, in the modern-day Dong Anh district of Hanoi.
The first Hùng King established the first "Vietnamese" state in response to the needs of co-operation in constructing hydraulic systems and in struggles against their enemies. This was a very primitive form of a sovereign state with the Hùng king on top and under him a court consisted of advisors â the lạc hầu. The country was composed of fifteen bá» "regions", each ruled by a lạc tðá»Âng; usually the lạc tðá»Âng was a member of the Hùng kings' family. Bá» comprised the agricultural hamlets and villages based on a matriarchal clan relationship and headed by a bá» chÃÂnh, usually a male tribal elder.
The Tale of the Há»Âng Bàng Clan claimed that Hùng kings had named princesses as "mỵ nðáng" (From Tai mae nang, which means princess), and prince as quan lang (From Muong word for Muong noble throughout the time).
Semi-historical source described VÃÂn Lang's northern border stretched to the southern part of present-day Hunan, and the southern border stretched to the Cả River delta, including parts of modern Guangxi, Guangdong and Northern Vietnam. Such claims haven't been proved by archeological research.
According to Trần Trá»Âng Kim's book, Viá»Ât Nam sá» lðợc (A Brief History of Vietnam), the country was divided into 15 regions as in the table below. However, they're in fact taken from Sino-Vietnamese names of later commanderies established by the Chinese in northern Vietnam.
The economy was based predominantly on rice paddy cultivation, and also included handicrafts, hunting and gathering, husbandry and fishing. Especially, the skill of bronze casting was at a high level. The most famous relics are ÃÂông Sán Bronze Drums on which are depicted houses, clothing, customs, habits, and cultural activities of the Hùng era.
The Hùng Vðángs ruled VÃÂn Lang in feudal fashion with the aid of the Lạc Tðá»Âng, who controlled the communal settlements around each irrigated area, organized construction and maintenance of the dikes, and regulated the supply of water. Besides cultivating rice, the people of VÃÂn Lang grew other grains and beans and raised stock, mainly buffaloes, chickens, and pigs. Pottery-making and bamboo-working were highly developed crafts, as were basketry, leather-working, and the weaving of hemp, jute, and silk.
From 2000 BC, people in modern-day North Vietnam developed a sophisticated agricultural society, probably through learning from the Shang dynasty or the Laotian. The tidal irrigation of rice fields through an elaborate system of canals and dikes started by the sixth century BC. This type of sophisticated farming system would come to define Vietnamese society. It required tight-knit village communities to collectively manage their irrigation systems. These systems in turn produced crop yields that could sustain much higher population densities than competing methods of food production.
By about 1200 BC, the development of wet-rice cultivation and bronze casting in the Mã River and Red River plains led to the development of the ÃÂông Sán culture, notable for its elaborate bronze drums. The bronze weapons, tools, and drums of ÃÂông Sán sites show a Southeast Asian influence that indicates an indigenous origin for the bronze-casting technology. Many small, ancient copper mine sites have been found in northern Vietnam. Some of the similarities between the ÃÂông Sán sites and other Southeast Asian sites include the presence of boat-shaped coffins and burial jars, stilt dwellings, and evidence of the customs of betel-nut-chewing and teeth-blackening.
The period between the end of the third millennium and the middle of the first millennium BC produced increasingly sophisticated pottery of the pre-Dong Son cultures of northern Viet Nam and the pre-Sa Huỳnh cultures of southern Vietnam. This period saw the appearance of wheel-made pottery, although the use of the paddle and anvil remained significant in manufacture. Vessel surfaces are usually smooth, often polished, and red slipping is common. Cord-marking is present in all cultures and forms a fairly high percentage of sherdage. Complex incised decoration also developed with rich ornamental designs, and it is on the basis of incised decoration that Vietnamese archaeologists distinguish the different cultures and phases one from another.
The pottery from the successive cultural developments in the Red River Valley is the most well known. Vietnamese archaeologists here discern three pre-ÃÂông Son cultures: Phùng Nguyên, ÃÂá»Âng ÃÂáºÂu, and Gò Mun. The pottery of these three cultures, despite the use of different decorative styles, has features that suggest a continuity of cultural development in the Red River Valley. In the Ma River Valley in Thanh Hóa Province, Vietnamese archaeologists also recognize three pre-Dong Son periods of cultural development: Con Chan Tien, Dong Khoi (Bai Man) and Quy Chu. In the areas stretching from the Red to the Cả River valleys, all the local cultures eventually developed into the ÃÂông Sán culture, which expanded over an area much larger than that of any previous culture and Vietnamese archaeologists believe that it had multiple regional sources. For instance, while ÃÂông Sán bronzes are much the same in different regions of northern Viet Nam, the regional characters of the pottery are fairly marked. On the whole, ÃÂông Sán pottery has a high firing temperature and is varied in form, but decorative patterns are much reduced in comparison with preceding periods, and consist mainly of impressions from cord-wrapped or carved paddles. Incised decoration is virtually absent.
Contemporary Vietnamese historians have established the existence of various ethnic minorities now living in the highlands of North and Central Vietnam during the early phase of the Há»Âng Bàng dynasty.
The history of the Há»Âng Bàng period is split according to the rule of each Hùng king. The dating of events is still a subject of research. The date ranges are conservative date estimates for the known periods: The lines of kings are in the order of the baguas and Heavenly Stems.