the provinces of Đắk Lắk (or "Dac Lac"), Gia Lai, and Kon Tum, the highlands account for 16% of the country's arable land and 22% of its total forested land. Before 1975, North Vietnam had maintained that the Central Highlands and the Day Truong Son were strategic areas of paramount importance, essential to the domination not only of South Vietnam but also of the southern part of Indochina. Since 1975, the highlands have provided an area in which to relocate people from the densely populated lowlands. Coastal lowlands The narrow, flat coastal lowlands extend from south of the Red River Delta to the Mekong River basin. On the landward side, the Dãy Trường Sơn rises precipitously above the coast, its spurs jutting into the sea at several places. Generally the coastal strip is fertile and rice is cultivated intensively. A recent global remote sensing analysis suggested that there were 3,069km² of tidal flats in Vietnam, making it the 10th ranking country in terms of how much tidal flat occurs there. Mekong River Delta The Mekong Delta, covering about 40,000 square kilometers, is a low-level plain not more than three meters above sea level at any point and criss-crossed by a maze of canals and rivers. So much sediment is carried by the Mekong's various branches and tributaries that the delta advances sixty to eighty meters into the sea every year. An official Vietnamese source estimates the amount of sediment deposited annually to be about 1 billion cubic meters, or nearly thirteen times the amount deposited by the Red River. About 10,000 square kilometers of the delta are under rice cultivation, making the area one of the major rice-growing regions of the world. The southern tip, known as the Cà Mau Peninsula is covered by dense jungle and mangrove swamps. The Mekong, which is 4,220 kilometers long, is one of the 12 great rivers of the world. From its source in the Tibetan Plateau, it flows through the Tibetan and Yunnan regions of China, forms the boundary between Laos and Myanmar as well as between Laos and Thailand. At Phnom Penh it merges with the Tonlé Sap and divides into two branches – the Sông Hậu Giang (Hậu Giang river) (known as the Bassac River on the Cambodian side) and the Sông Tiền Giang (Tiền Giang river) – and continues through Cambodia and the Mekong basin before draining into the South