Locach

Lochac, Locach or Locat is a country far south of China mentioned by Marco Polo. The name is widely believed to be a variant of Lo-huk 罗斛: the Cantonese name for the southern Thai kingdom of Lopburi (also known as Lavapura and Louvo), which was a province of the Khmer Empire at the time.

However, it has also been suggested that Polo or his sources in China were referring to other locations or conflating several different places as Lochac.

It must be noted that in Vietnam, Lopburi was referred to as Lộ Hạc. The Complete History of Đại Việt, the oldest Vietnamese dynastic history, records that in the year 1149 merchant ships from the three countries Trảo Oa (Java), Lộ Hạc and Xiêm La (Siam) entered the Hải Đông (Gulf of Tonking) and requested permission to trade on the island of Vân Đồn. The same work further records that in the year 1360, merchant ships belonging to the countries of Lộ Hạc, Tráo Oa and Xiêm La came to the island of Vân Đồn carrying foreign goods to trade. The editor of the Complete History of Đại Việt, Ngô Đức Thọ, says: "Lộ Hạc is Lavo in Lopburi province, Thailand. Lộ Hạc is likely to be the country of Locac mentioned in Marco Polo's Travels".


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