Cam Ranh Bay

Cam Ranh Bay (käm rän) [key], inlet of the South China Sea, 10 mi (16 km) long and 20 mi (32 km) wide, S Vietnam. It is an excellent harbor linked to the sea by a strait (1 mi/1.6 km wide). The bay was the site of one of the largest U.S. military facilities (est. 1965) in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War and was seized by Communist forces in 1975. The USSR (now Russia) established a naval base there in the early 1980s.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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