Dong Ap Bia is a mountain

Mountain

Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...

 on the Laotian border of South Vietnam

South Vietnam

South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...

 in Thua Thien-Hue Province

Thua Thien-Hue Province

Thừa Thiên-Huế is a province in the North Central Coast of Vietnam, approximately in the center of the country. It borders Quang Tri Provice to the north and Da Nang City to the south, Laos to the west and the South China Sea to the east. The province has 128 km of coastline, 22,000 ha of...

. Rising from the floor of the western A Shau Valley

A Shau Valley

The A Shau Valley is a valley in Vietnam's, Thừa Thiên province, west of the city of Huế along the border with Laos. The valley was one of the key entry points into South Vietnam for men and matériel brought along the Ho Chi Minh Trail by the communist forces and was the scene of heavy fighting...

, it is a looming, solitary massif

Massif

In geology, a massif is a section of a planet's crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole...

, unconnected to the ridges of the surrounding Annamite range. It dominates the northern valley, towering some 937 metres above sea level

Sea level

Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...

. Snaking down from its highest peak are a series of ridges and fingers, one of the largest extending southeast to a height of 900 metres, another reaching south to a 916-meter peak. The entire mountain is a rugged, uninviting wilderness blanketed in double- and triple-canopy jungle, dense thickets of bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

, and waist-high elephant grass

Elephant Grass

Pennisetum purpureum is a species of grass native to the tropical grasslands of Africa. It is a tall perennial plant, growing to tall, rarely up to , with leaves long and broad....

. Local Montagnard

Degar

The Degar are the indigenous peoples of the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The term Montagnard means "mountain people" in French and is a carryover from the French colonial period in Vietnam. In Vietnamese, they are known by the term thượng - this term can also be applied to other minority ethnic...

 tribesmen called Ap Bia "the mountain of the crouching beast."

In May 1969, Dong Ap Bia was the site of the Battle of Hamburger Hill

Battle of Hamburger Hill

The Battle of Hamburger Hill was a battle of the Vietnam War which was fought by the United States and South Vietnam against North Vietnamese forces from May 10–20, 1969. Although the heavily fortified Hill 937 was of little strategic value, U.S. command ordered its capture by a frontal assault,...

.