Liquid territories: the configuration of geographic space in the cartography of the Mekong River’s catchment areas

Abstract The role played by the Mekong River in the organization of land and people is inextricably linked with a particular spatial category. The concept of the hydrological catchment extends the space of the river far beyond the limits of the river’s perennial waterbodies, to encompass vast areas inhabited by millions of people speaking different languages. Fundamental to the estimation of precipitation and water volume, areal denotations of the Mekong’s basin, delta and floodplain have been repeatedly drawn on maps by geographers, planners, engineers and cartographers. Mapped representations of the Mekong River however are not only the result of recording the flows of water, nor the domain of a single discourse. With diverging intentions, distinct and sometimes conflicting projections of the basin, delta and floodplain have prescribed the differentiation and unification of parts of mainland Southeast Asia, to articulate liquid territories that are outside a single state’s jurisdiction. To understand how the Mekong’s catchments emerge as the geographic reference for human activities, the paper examines the technical and cultural notions that underpin the preparation of these maps. Focusing on early European maps of the Mekong’s delta and floodplain, the paper draws on the discourses of hydrology, geography, and cartography to ask what territories are produced and maintained by evoking the geography of the river’s flows.