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HO CHI MINH CITY

ABOUT HO CHI MINH CITY

·        GEOGRAPHY

 

Map of Ho Chi Minh City

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HCM City has an area of approximately 2,094 square kilometers. It is located from 10 10’-10 38’ North and 106o2’-106o54’ East. The city has Binh Duong Province in the north, Tay Ninh Province in the northwest, Dong Nai Province in the east and northeast, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province in the southeast, and Long An and Tien Giang provinces in the west and southwest.

HCM City is 1,730km from Hanoi by land and is at the crossroads of international maritime routes. It is also at the center of Southeast Asia. The city center is 50km from the East Sea in a straight line. It is a transport hub of the southern region and a gateway to the world, having the largest port system and airport in Vietnam. Saigon Port can handle 10 million tons of cargo a year. Tan Son Nhat International Airport, 7km from the city center, has tens of international routes.

         

 Topography

 

HCM City belongs to a transitional region between the southeastern and Mekong Delta regions. The general topography is that HCM City terrain gets lower from north to south and from east to west. There are three types of terrain.

The high terrain lies in the northern-northeastern area and part of the northwestern area encompassing northern Cu Chi, northeastern Thu Duc and District 9. This is the bending terrain with average height of 10-25 meters. Long Binh Hill in District 9 is the highest at 32 meters.

The depression terrain lies in the southern-southwestern and southeastern part encompassing districts 9, 8, 7, Binh Chanh, Nha Be and Can Gio. The area’s height is in the range of 0.5 to 2 meters.

The medium-height terrain lies in the middle of the city, encompassing most old residential areas, part of districts 2 and Thu Duc, and the whole of districts 12 and Hoc Mon. The area’s height is 5-10 meters.

In general, the topography of HCM City is not complicated but fairly diverse and therefore has good conditions for multi-faceted development.


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·        COMMUNITIES

Chinatown


 Binh Tay market in Cho Lon

Culture, architecture and food combine as attractions for residents and visitors in one of HCM City's most distinctive sections
Cho Lon in HCM City has long been known as a bustling Chinatown. Covering District 5 and part of districts 6, 8 and 11, the area attracts tourists because of its special character and its cultural heritage.
Tran Hung Dao Street has been considered the main artery of Cho Lon, serving as a "reception road" welcoming visitors to the town. It is a place of splendor, with many people passing by and Hong Kong-style shops. Within a short section between the District 5 Cultural House and the intersection with Chau Van Liem Street, there are more than 30 eye ware shops whose names mostly end with the word quang (i.e. sight), such as Dai Quang, Tan Quang, Nghe Quang, Sanh Quang, Ai Quang, among others. "Every time I visit Vietnam, I like to walk on this street, especially at night," says Peter, a British visitor. "Apart from seeing the busy traffic, I go shopping here because shops run by people of Chinese origin try to keep up their shop's prestige and give us feelings of friendliness and safety."
According to tour guides, foreigners like to visit Binh Tay Marketplace. Built on Thap Muoi Street more than 70 years ago, the marketplace has been linked with Kook Tan, a Chinese man well known for his prosperity. 
Since a traditional medicinal herbs street was officially opened in District 5, the district has drawn more tourists. Traveling on Hai Thuong Lan Ong Street, visitors can smell the strong odors of different types of medicinal herbs coming from traditional pharmacies such as Van Hoa, Loc Sanh, Vinh Thanh, Nam Xuong and Quang An Phat. In addition, on such streets as Tran Hung Dao, Trieu Quang Phuc, Chau Van Liem and Luong Nhu Hoc, visitors can have a look at blocks of houses built by Chinese people a century ago, combining Chinese and French architectural designs.
Temples and clubhouses are great places for those wanting to study Chinese culture. Of the pagodas in Cho Lon, many are old and have been an attraction for generations of visitors. The most famous pagoda is T'ian Hou (Thien Hau) Pagoda on Nguyen Trai Street. Going there on Madam T'ian Hou's birthday, which falls on the 23rd day of the third month in the lunar calendar, visitors can see rounds of incense with a diameter of one meter hanging. They carry pieces of paper with the names of worshippers. Also on Nguyen Trai Street and as famous as T'ian Hou Pagoda is the pagoda honoring Guan Kung, a Chinese figure well known for his loyalty and nobility. Many visitors who are businesspeople go there seeking Mr. Guan's support in order to remain strong in business.

Diversified gastronomy

Cho Lon attracts visitors not only through its unique cultural characteristics, but also with Chinese-style food. Luxurious meals are available at leading restaurants and hotels such as A Dong, Thien Hong, Ai Hue, Bat Dat and Dong Khanh.
The area selling sui cao (ravioli soup) on Ha Ton Quyen Street (near Tran Quy Street) is patronized by Chinese customers every night. Here the food is served until midnight. Also attracting scores of eaters are the Dan Ich fish hotpot eatery and the Dong Nguyen chicken rice restaurant on Chau Van Liem Street, or the Dai Gia Lac rice restaurant on An Duong Vuong Street. An older eatery and providing cheaper stewed foods such as pigs' stomachs and tongues, tofu and salted vegetables is the Hanh Nguyen rice and soup shop on Hung Vuong Street. This is open from 3:00 to 10:00 p.m.
Not in District 5, the restaurant at 66 Le Dai Hanh Street selling hu tieu mi (noodles with seasoned and saute pork or beef) is patronized by many Chinese people from District 5 - the restaurant remains crowded at midnight. Whenever visiting Dai The Gioi water park, people can cross the street to enter a small alley to enjoy bun ca ri vit (curried rice vermicelli and duck meat). The house selling the food, located on Tran Phu Street, serves Chinese customers from noon to 9:00 p.m.
Those who prefer sweet food can go to Ha Ky, a shop selling sweetened porridge and stewed nuts and beans, on Chau Van Liem Street. Another, which also attracts lots of customers at night, is near Soai Kinh Lam fabric marketplace. Though a little more expensive, at VND5,000 a glass, the sweetened porridge served there pleases visitors from far and wide.

 

Community grouping

 

Thanks to its strategic position, HCM City is the meeting place of many ethnic groups from the North, Central and South of Vietnam through different periods of time. The city has so many resources that it can provide many opportunities for the migrants from all over Vietnam.
The city is a place where the majority Kinh people, through a long period of time, have associated with and lived in harmony with many other peoples. Citizens also comprise Chinese, Cham, Khmer peoples, and members of the Tay, Muong, Nung, Thai, Meo, Han, Cao Lan, Sau Diu, Tho, and Man ethnic groups that have long been at home in Vietnam. Members of peoples from the Central Highlands are represented, too, especially the Gia Rai, Ede, Bana, Sedang, Stieng, Van Kieu, Churu and others. They live peacefully with the Kinh people and add to the cultural and economic diversity of HCM City.
Of the more than five million city dwellers, minority ethnic groups make up about one million people. People of Chinese heritage make the largest of the minority groups. The city is home to about 50% of all Chinese in Vietnam. About 12% of city residents are of Chinese origin, and District 5 is the Chinese center in HCM City.
During the war for reunification, a large number of soldiers and workers from the U.S., France, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and others lived in Saigon. Therefore, many families in what was known as Saigon-Gia Dinh have links to a variety of countries, religions and social groups. In the community of Saigon-Gia Dinh, the Kinh people make the largest group. In the 1960s, the city had 1,423,500 Kinh people, 77% of the 1,800,000 city dwellers.
In 1954, about 33,000 northerners “went South” to settle in the areas of Saigon-Gia Dinh and Cholon. Among them, 75% were Catholics from Bac Ninh, Bui Chu, Phat Diem, Hai Phong, Hanoi, Hung Hoa, Lang Son, Thai Binh, Thanh Hoa, Vinh and other provinces. They concentrated on the outskirts of Saigon like Tan Binh (40% of the population and within 12 wards), Go Vap (10 wards), Phu Nhuan (5 wards), Binh Thanh (every ward).
In 1959, 1960 and especially 1963, when the political situation in the Central of Vietnam was getting more and more severe, many Kinh people moved to HCM City. People from Quang Nam Province moved to the Bay Hien area while people from Binh Dinh and Thua Thien provinces moved to poorer areas of Co Giang, Khanh Hoi, Ban Co and so on.
Kinh people from Tay Ninh, Long An, Dong Nai, An Xuyen (Bac Lieu), Ba Xuyen (Soc Trang), Long Xuyen and others also moved to HCM City as a heaven during the unrest at that time. After the war, very few settlers returned to their home districts.
HCM City is therefore a melting pot of all kinds of peoples. They get along well with each another by following the “Solidarity, Mutual Assistance, and Equality” motto of the Party.


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CULTURE OF HO CHI MINH CITY

·        CULTURAL MERGING IN SAIGON-HCM CITY


A Chinese pagoda in District 5

Over hundreds of years, with the vicissitude of history, the world’s various cultures seemed to have found a common place to converge in Saigon-HCM City. The city has been gradually turned into a non-discriminating community, a cultural kaleidoscope, for people from almost every corner of the world, regardless of race and ideology.

Atheism and theism were all absorbed, blended and “Saigonized” into the Vietnamese cultural background – the revolutionary refinement. All the cultural flows converged and supplemented each other to produce a unique “common home” with a wide-ranging characteristic e.g. Vietnamese-Chinese-English-Indian-Russian-Korean-American-French-Japanese, and more.

Saigon, depending on individual appraisal, is sometimes called “Saigon Potpourri”, “Multi-faced Saigon”, and “Amalgamated Saigon,” all to describe the uniqueness of this lively and colorful city. 

  1. In 1698, Lord Nguyen Phuc Chu sent Garrison-General Nguyen Huu Canh on an inspection and conquest expedition to the Saigon region. This was a strategic step of the Nguyen dynasty, aiming to expand the court’s influence southward with gradual colonization. The coastal culture of the central region Vietnamese came with the expedition southward, then took root in the Saigon areas. The coastal ways of life had, for centuries, tempered these Vietnamese into hardened but flexible pioneer-soldiers, people who had to struggle to make a living in the narrowest and most arid part of Vietnam. These early soldier-pioneers were adventurous, hard-working, and brave, had good adaptability and above all, were dreamers of a better life, all the merits needed for the hardship of colonization. Long-standing skills were brought to the new land as well, the most notable being wood and stone carving, the fame of which had been manifested in the building of fortresses and royals’ palaces in Hue Citadel under the Nguyen dynasty. Local food specialties were brought along with the expedition and stayed throughout the centuries. Quang noodle (prepared with rice flour noodles), Hue beef-soup vermicelli (hot and spicy), and Hue tre (pork skin and galingale wrapped in leaves and paddy straw) can still be found in Saigon. In general, Vietnam’s central region culture was part of Saigon’s tradition right from the dawn of the community.
  2. A little later in the same period, Chinese culture started to arrive with defeated Ming troopers and court dissidents who failed in their uprising against the ruling Manchurian. In this new refuge, those uprooted Chinese, like working bees with their ancient cultural nectar, started to establish their own settlement quarters which then developed into Cholon, Saigon’s Chinatown. One particular trait of Chinese communities all over the world, Saigon’s Chinatown is no exception: commercial activities, importing and exporting and light industry always rank first of all professions. From the early days in Saigon, the Chinese were quick to figure out the principles of the “market economy” and therefore took to the catering for societies’ demands in accordance with consumers’ needs and whims. Thanks to these Chinese traders, merchandise was put into circulation and distributed through the import-export activities. Today, almost everything can be found in Cholon, not to mention the food and foodstuffs prepared by Chinese chefs. In other words, to fully enjoy food you have to eat in Cholon. It is not that you can find all the specialties, all the delicious dishes of the world and the southern region in Cholon but it is the eating ambience – good cooks, exciting atmosphere, the generosity, the hospitality that Cholon’s Chinese show during eating sprees – now also a trait of southern Vietnamese. Ancient residential quarters or at least their relics, can be found in Cholon, such as the famous Lord and Lady’s Shrines, the various schools of martial art, the homes of Lion and   Kylin dancing teams…Truly, Cholon is a typical Chinese community with a full range of activities reflecting the characteristic of the Saigon Chinese.
  3. In 1861, French colonialists invaded and occupied Saigon in their effort to break the “closed door” policy of the Nguyen dynasty. By then, Saigon had already established its own local ways of life by people coming from the southern plains, the coastal central region and various Khmer and Chinese communities. The trading with China and India had brought religious and philosophical ideas that complemented the existing Buddhism and various schools of ethical thought. Along with French colonialists, Western civilization flooded Saigon. Positive elements were brought by doctors, explorers, architects, engineers, and Catholic missionaries who came with the French legionnaires, the back-up force for the colonial rulers. The essence of French culture took root and bloomed in novel and exotic fields like technology, philosophy, religion, art, archeology, literature, culinary art, to the highest Western standards.
  4. The Dien Bien Phu victory (May 7, 1954) marked the downfall of French colonialism in Vietnam. The Geneva treaty temporarily bisected Vietnam and urged the historic migration from the north to the south. In fact, northerners had come to the south long before this event but the 1954 migration was the opportunity for the northern plain civilization to move to Saigon. Settlements of the uprooted northerners like the “Ong Ta” area changed the face of Saigon with their northern style well-organized communities. But the generosity of the southerners enabled them to adapt to the northerners’ discipline, a new trait for Saigonese. Most notable was the model of setting up communities by their common profession, allowing for the easy establishing of a professional association or vocational society, to help protect each other in the fight against the control of the market by “foreign corporate sharks”. Food wise, Saigonese now had on their menu specialties like pho, steamed meat rolls, spring rolls, green rice flakes, cakes, and drinks like green tea, kudzu dried powder and the hookah pipe for smoking. For fashion, the “ao dai”, a modification of the colorful and unique “four-piece dress” of northern girls, made its debut about this eventful period. This dress then contributed its part in the enriching of Vietnamese culture and in the enlivening of the Vietnamese characteristic in the then pro-Western fashion trend in Saigon. It seemed that at this point the breath of the northern plain civilization started to blend in with the way of life of Saigonese.
  5. Saigon in the period of a divided Vietnam. Late in the fifties, taking advantage of the weakened and shaky French colonialism in Indochina, American imperialists pushed the French aside and moved into southern Vietnam. Saigon then bore the brunt of the American-style of life. During this period, new notions and new schools of thought clashed with old ones, creating a state of complicated cultural disorder. However, Saigon had undergone and been tempered throughout decades of unrest and was competent in sorting and adopting essential quality from the new wave of cultural concepts to enrich its age-old experience. In short, having undergone the two modern-time conflicts with powerful opponents, Saigon had to face stressful challenges but was able to retain its own cultural characteristics.
  6. Emerging triumphant on April 30, 1975, Saigon had the honor of being named Ho Chi Minh City in 1976 and started a new cycle of transformation. The adopting of new Socialist concepts was not without difficulty but the flexibility of its aesthetic attributes allowed Saigon to gradually establish itself as a new cultural and economic beacon for the country.

The trend of global integration has seen Saigon implement the renovation policies that originated from the Party’s sixth National Congress in 1986. Consequently, Saigon-HCM City has had the opportunity to demonstrate its refinement and to invite other countries to come in with open dialogue and cultural cooperation. In the new millennium, Saigon-HCM City is going to be the gateway for talks and cooperation and certainly be in direct contact with new cultural inflows from all over the world. Once again, Saigon might have to show its ability to withstand culture shocks and to learn from the experience to improve its own ways of life.


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·        SAIGONESE: PEOPLE WITH A DIFFERENCE


Saigonese at a flower festival

Saigon in the pre-modern and modern eras became a big cultural and economic center within Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Has a 300-year culture formed a distinctive character for “Saigonese”?
Gia Dinh Thanh Thong Chi, a book written in 1820 by Trinh Hoai Duc, has this to say: “The Gia Dinh area (the historic name for what is now the Ho Chi Minh City region) has a vast land area and a lot of food, so people like living in luxury and care little about saving. People come from different areas, and each family has its own practices. The land is near the sun and the climate is hot, so people respect faithfulness.” The next paragraph says: “Gia Dinh has a southern location, so there are many determined and courageous people who respect faithfulness and despise wealth. Beautiful women are also abundant.”
John White, an Englishman, visited Saigon in the early 1820s. In 1824 he published in London A Voyage To Cochinchina, where he gives some impressions of Saigonese: “Many women are beautiful and have a fair complexion. Their deeds are very attractive but there is nothing indecent.” After taking a walk, he wrote: “We are very pleased with what we see and we bring along the best impressions of the people’s custom and disposition. The considerateness, kindness and hospitality we see have reached beyond all what we have so far observed in Asian countries, which makes it impossible for us to imagine that such a nation could be different.”
In 1937, writer Ho Bieu Chanh, who enjoyed fame in the south for his very southern-style writing, described a night market in Saigon: “At big shops, people gather into a big crowd. Boys have a glossy hair; girls have bright red lips; old men hold a cigarette in their mouth and release smoke; a woman leads a group of her children, with an older child running ahead and a younger one following her calling to each other noisily; a group makes its way to buy shoes; another group hurries indoors; well-dressed people are with casually-dressed laborers. Everybody looks cheerful…”
Like Hanoi, Saigon-HCM City is a melting pot. Hanoi is the capital, which had four districts for people from different areas to make a living. Ancient Saigon was also a melting pot. Phu Bien Tap Luc by Le Quy Don says Lord Nguyen encouraged wealthy people from Quang Nam, and the central and northern midland, to go south to reclaim the land from the forest and set up villages. Early migrants to Saigon were wealthy people, poor people suffering famine and crop failure due to war, craftspeople and merchants who sought a place for business, troops, designated officials (most of them were being disciplined by the State), criminals in exile, rascals, and even criminals . So migrants to Saigon were more diverse than those moving to Hanoi
Trinh Hoai Duc also says in his book that not only Vietnamese but people from other countries gathered in the area. Saigon is at an international crossroads and is not far from shipping routes between north and south as well as east and west. With a diameter of about 2,500km, Saigon is a central point of Southeast Asia and is close to East Asia. Trinh Hoai Duc wrote: “In Binh Duong and Tan Long districts, inhabitants are crowded; streets, markets and houses are side by side; and people speak languages like Cantonese, Hainanese, Western languages, and Thai. Ships come for trading, with hundreds of kinds of goods. Saigon is a big city in Gia Dinh. Nowhere else in the country can match it…”
If Hanoi is an introverted city, Saigon is both a metropolis and an international port with a tendency of openness. In the mid 1800s, Pallu de la Barriere, a Western visitor to Saigon, remarked: “Thousands of boats gather by the river bank and create a small floating city. Annamites, Indians and Chinese, and some French and Tagal (Filipino) soldiers walked to and fro, which created a strange scene…”
Among the first foreigners who migrated to Saigon in the largest number were Chinese, whose offspring are now part of Vietnam’s population and who are referred to as Vietnamese of Chinese origin. They were from coastal parts of southern China, including peasants, craftspeople, traders, mandarins and soldiers. They came to Saigon for many reasons, mainly to settle in a new land because they did not like their government. Chinese immigrants contributed to the establishment and development of ancient Saigon as well as the creation of a Saigonese character. The elements of Chinese culture in the southern culture are different from the northern culture because of the impact of these Chinese immigrants. Trinh Hoai Duc wrote: “Gia Dinh is a newly exploited land of Vietnam. Our migrants, in conjunction with Tang people, Europeans (French, Britons, etc), Khmers, Javans, and Malays, live together in a concentrated and complicated manner.”
The first Vietnamese migrants to the south did not live in solitude. Saigon-Gia Dinh, before the big settlement push began in 1689, was not deserted. Ancient inhabitants are remembered by some minority groups in the southeastern region like Khmer, S’tieng, Ma and Chau Ro. This has been agreed upon by historians, archaeologists and ethnologists. Vietnamese migrants lived with these minority ethnic groups for a long time in their early days of settlement. Cultural exchanges between Vietnamese and other communities contributed to forming the Saigonese from the very early days.
One of the factors in creating the Saigonese is the geographical environment of Saigon. Hanoi and Hue people are different because of the differences between the natural and geographical conditions of Hanoi and Hue, between the Red River and Huong River, and between a center of the northern delta and a hilly land in the central region. Saigon is near the equator and has a tropical climate with hot temperature and high humidity, so this is convenient for plants and animals to grow. Saigon has two seasons: wet and dry. As it is on the borderline between the southeastern region with its mountains and hills and the Mekong Delta with its plains, Saigon has high land in its north and lower land in its south and southeast, with many rivers, streams and swamps. The Saigon River is a young river, linking Saigon with the sea. Thanks to the Saigon River, Saigon remains a port convenient for shipping even though it is more than 60km from the sea. Saigon River and the system of canals and streams in the city are affected by the tides. The natural environment of Saigon has strongly influenced the lifestyle and character of Saigonese. 
It is difficult to answer clearly what Saigonese, Hanoians and Hue people are like. Trinh Hoai Duc and Nguyen Dinh Chieu described Saigonese as “respecting faithfulness and despising talent wealth.” Hanoians, Hue people and Saigonese are all Vietnamese. To some extent, Saigonese and southerners are not very different in their character from people in the other main centers. But a study of Saigonese does show that the natural, social and historical conditions of the Saigon area have crafted a people with distinctive characteristics


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·        CAI LUONG


Cai luong actors

The harmonious combination of Vietnamese culture and the characteristics of the Oriental and Western cultures is the art of cai luong, a traditional form of opera of the south of Vietnam, especially Saigon. A study of this art form gives some understanding of the mix of these three cultures.
Cai luong came into being less than 100 years ago. In its infancy, cai luong was under the decisive influence of two forms of stage performance: the Vietnamese traditional tuong, a form of opera, and French modern drama. The Vietnamese tuong bears the characteristics of the Asian stage with scenarios and plays for self-expression, French drama is typically European, with Aristotle-style works. Therefore, cai luong also has two different kinds of plays but both have the same source of music. The music styles for cai luong are densely national and can express all kinds of moods of the characters, enabling the artists to sing and gesticulate in the Vietnamese or French styles. 
During its process of development, music styles for cai luong have been supplemented with folk music. When it was in contact with China’s Guangdong opera and Western modern music, cai luong selectively absorbed and nationalized some to enrich the current sources of music. As well as adopting modern music styles, the cai luong band uses modern musical instruments. Vietnamese artists renovated the Western violin, mandolin and guitar by making concave frets to create new tones and melodies. To date, the concave-fret guitar is the main instrument for cai luong and it has become a national instrument of Vietnam.
In HCM City, you can enjoy the art of cai luong at theaters or in weekend musical programs on television.


 

·        CULTURAL AND TOURIST CENTRE OF THE COUNTRY


Foreign tourists on a cyclo tour

HCM City is only 300 years old but has many human and historical values created by the exchange of different cultures. The culture of the former Saigon and present-day HCM City shows an original characteristic of the Vietnamese culture and nation in the historical and geographical context of the countrys southern region. It is possible to say that Saigon-HCM City is a convergence of many cultural flows during its process of establishment and development, and it has a culture that bears the impressions of the Vietnamese, Chinese, Cham, Khmer, Indians, and so on. Saigon was also one of the countrys main centers to come under the influences of the French and American cultures. This is reflected through constructions such as Nha Rong Wharf, the Post Office, Grand Theater, City Hall, Reunification Palace, and Ben Thanh Market. The system of ancient pagodas and churches like Giac Lam, Thien Hau, Giac Vien, Notre Dame, Huyen Si, Thong Tay Hoi and Thu Duc reflects a diversity of religions and beliefs with dozens of annual festivals. This has created cultural diversity of this southern land. In each street or at each corner of streets, the citys geographical names link with celebrated people in cultural and historical fields as well as victories of a heroic city. Famous beauty spots and cultural-historical places in the city include Saigon Zoo, Dam Sen, Suoi Tien, Ky Hoa Lake, Museum of History, Museum of Revolutions, Cu Chi Tunnels, Ben Duoc Temple, An Phu Dong Resistance Base, 18 betel-growing hamlets, Lang Le Bau Co, the Bung Sau pineapple garden, and Can Gio Ecotourist Resort.
Saigon-HCM City was the first place in Vietnam to publicize the Latinized national language and publish newspapers. The appearance and development of books, newspapers, specialized training schools, the pool of intellectuals and artists, and cultural and artistic exchanges have made the city capable of great cultural influence.
Thanks to a favorable geographical location, a moderate climate with only two seasons in a year, wet and dry, a history of more than 300 years of fighting against invaders, and a distinctive culture, HCM City has become a tourist center of the country.
HCM City attracts tourists because it has not only many scenic spots, cultural-historical places, and architectural works of interest, but also a typical southern-style gastronomy. From Bach Dang Wharf in the downtown, tourists can travel in a boat along Saigon River to enjoy nature, visit traditional craft villages, orchards, ornamental plant gardens, floating markets on the river, or Can Gio Ecotourist Resort, which has been certified by UNESCO as Vietnams first mangrove forest biosphere reserve. The city is also a gateway from which tourists can go to the southern regions famous places such as the Binh Chau hot spring, Nam Cat Tien National Park, Mui Ne Cape, Dalat, and the Mekong Delta, which is widely known for rice baskets, orchards, salt water forests, swamps, and many kinds of natural resources.
Since 1990, HCM City has earned 28%-35% of the countrys tourism revenues. The city has received an increasing number of international tourists, from 180,000 in 1990 to millions now, which accounts for over 50%-70% of the international tourists to the country. The rapid increase of international tourists to Vietnam and HCM City is the outcome of the open-door and international integration policy, the renovation and upgrading of infrastructure and facilities to serve tourists, and the promotion of foreign investment. Compared with other localities countrywide, HCM City has taken the lead in the cause of renovating social life.
A city of sunlight and friendly dynamic people, Saigon-HCM City is a pleasant place for locals and foreigners alike to visit.


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