During the last decades, the Mekong Delta in Vietnam was one of the most productive and fastest growing
agricultural areas in the world and even today, growth in agriculture still lasts. This paper illustrates the
evolution and changes of agriculture closely linked to the development in water engineering in the Mekong
Delta. It becomes apparent that the massive growth in agriculture during the last decades is not just the
result of economic reforms in Vietnam but also depends significantly on contemporary and historical
development in water engineering. Furthermore, this paper sketches recent socio-economic trends as
industrialization, urbanization, poverty and migration, which shaped patterns that are partly linkable to
water aspects in the Mekong Delta. For example, it could be detected, that the spatial proximity to the
Mekong River main channels seems to be an advantageous factor for socio-economic development.
Last but not least, this paper also shows that comprehensive and coherent analysis of secondary statistical
data in Vietnam is only possible to a limited degree, since data from various data sources and different
administrative levels do not always offer coherence and thus do not often allow comparative statistical
analysis.