Thi Tuong Lagoon

About 40 kilometers west of the center of Cà Mau city, the land gives way to a sheet of water so wide that people reach for the words "sea lake" to describe it. It is not a sea, and it is not a lake that anyone dug. It is Đầm Thị Tường, a natural lagoon.

In 2026 the Cà Mau Newspaper called it the largest natural lagoon in the Mekong Delta. The area planned for ecotourism covers more than 1,900 hectares across four communes. Two of them are Sông Đốc and Trần Văn Thời. The other two are Hưng Mỹ and Phú Mỹ. The open water covers about 700 hectares and falls into three parts, the inner lagoon, the middle lagoon and the outer lagoon.

A fisheries bulletin from 2018 describes how it came to be. The lagoon is a wetland that stays under water all year, built up by silt from the Mỹ Bình River, the Ông Đốc River and the web of canals around them. The water is brackish, a place where the delta meets the sea. The lagoon runs more than 10 kilometers in length and about 2 kilometers across at its widest.

Most of the people along its shore make their living by farming fish and by fishing. Across the water one sees huts, houses on stilts and the small craft of fishermen. These are not just scenery. They are the real life of hundreds of households that have been tied to the lagoon for generations.

Some call the place Đầm Bà Tường, another name found in that same bulletin. Folk stories tell of a person who opened the land and named this water. No clear state or press source has confirmed those stories, so they are passed on here only as what people in the area tell, never as history.

The lagoon's future is already being drawn on paper. The provincial plan for Cà Mau from 2021 to 2030, issued under the Prime Minister's Decision 1386, lists it among the proposed nature reserves. The Cà Mau Newspaper also reported that the province is placing the lagoon on a planned route that runs from Cà Mau city to the lagoon, then to Sông Đốc and Cà Mau Cape. The Tourism Information Center, under the national tourism authority, adds ideas for a main boat landing, links by water and road, and a place for experiences run by the community.

All of that is still ahead. Today the lagoon remains a raw and genuine place, not yet packaged, and that is much of its pull.

On an afternoon, a small boat slides out toward the middle. About 700 hectares of water open on every side. Wind from the Ông Đốc River brings the smell of brackish water and the soft knock of oars. On the surface, wooden huts on stilts print their shadows in the water, and the life of the fishing households goes on quietly. Nothing needs adding. There is only water, sky, and the great openness of the southern plain.