The term Champa refers to a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is today central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd century through 19th century (1832), before being absorbed and annexed by the Vietnamese state.

 The kingdom was known variously as nagaraCampa (Sanskrit; Khmer: ???????) in the Chamic and Cambodian inscriptions, Ch?m Pa in Vietnamese (ChiêmThành in Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary) and ?? (Zhànchéng) in Chinese records.

The Chams of modern Vietnam and Cambodia are the remnants of this former kingdom. They speak Chamic languages, a subfamily of Malayo-Polynesian closely related to the Malayic and Bali–Sasak languages.

Champa was preceded in the region by a kingdom called Linyi (??, Lim Ip in Middle Chinese) or Lâm?p (Vietnamese) that was in existence from 192 AD; the historical relationship between Linyi and Champa is not clear. Champa reached its apogee in the 9th and 10th centuries. Thereafter, it began a gradual decline under pressure from ??iVi?t, the Vietnamese polity centred in the region of modern Hanoi. In 1832, the Vietnamese emperor Minh M?ng annexed the remaining Cham territories.

Hinduism, adopted from India since early in its history, has shaped the art and culture of Champa kingdom for centuries, as testified with numbers of exquisite Cham Hindu statues and red brick temples dotted the landscapes in Cham lands.

The best time to visit the destination is from October to February.