Hanoi
Hanoi is the capital and second-most populous city of Vietnam. It encompasses an area of, and as of 2025 has a population of 8,807,523. It had the second-highest gross regional domestic product of all Vietnamese provinces and municipalities at US$48 billion in 2023, behind Ho Chi Minh City.
In the third century BCE, the Cổ Loa Capital Citadel of Âu Lạc was constructed in what later is Hanoi. In 1010, under the Lý dynasty, Vietnamese emperor Lý Thái Tổ established the capital of the imperial Vietnamese nation Đại Việt in what later is central Hanoi, naming the city Thăng Long, 'ascending dragon'). In 1428, King Lê Lợi renamed the city to Đông Kinh, 'eastern capital'), and it remained so until 1789. The Nguyễn dynasty in 1802 moved the national capital to Huế and the city was renamed Hanoi in 1831. It served as the capital of French Indochina from 1902 to 1945 and French protectorate of Tonkin from 1883 to 1949. After the August Revolution and the fall of the Nguyễn dynasty, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam designated Hanoi as the capital of the newly independent country. From 1949 to 1954, it was part of the State of Vietnam. It was again part of the DRV ruling North Vietnam from 1954 to 1976. In 1976, it became the capital of the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In 2008, Hà Tây Province and two other rural districts were annexed into Hanoi, almost tripling Hanoi's area.
Hanoi is the cultural, economic and educational center of Northern Vietnam. As the country's capital, it hosts 78 foreign embassies, the headquarters of the Vietnam People's Army, its own Vietnam National University system, and other governmental organizations. It has 18.7 million domestic and international visitors in 2022. It hosts the Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Hoàn Kiếm Lake, West Lake, and Ba Vì National Park near the outskirts of the municipality. Its urban area has a range of architectural styles, including French colonial architecture, brutalist apartments typical of socialist nations, and disorganized alleys and tube houses stemming from the city's growth in the 20th century.
Names
Hanoi was known first as Long Biên, then Tống Bình and Long Đỗ. Long Biên later gave its name to the Long Biên Bridge, built during French colonial times, and more recently to a district to the east of the Red River. Some older names of Hanoi feature long, linked to the curved formation of the Red River around the city, which was symbolized as a dragon.In 866, it was turned into a citadel and named Đại La. This gave it the nickname La Thành. When Lý Thái Tổ established the capital in the area in 1010, it was named Thăng Long.
Arab manuscripts between the 9th and 12th century referred to Hanoi as Luqin, a term derived from Longbian, and was originally used by Muslim traders to mention the Vietnamese.
History
Pre-Thăng Long period
Vestiges of human habitation from the late Palaeolithic and early Mesolithic ages can be found in Hanoi. Between 1971 and 1972, archaeologists in Ba Vì and Đông Anh discovered pebbles with traces of carving and processing by human hands that are relics of Sơn Vi Culture, dating from 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. In 1998–1999, the Museum of Vietnamese History carried out the archaeological studies in the north of , finding relics and objects belonging to the Sơn Vi Culture dating back to the Paleolithic Age around 20,000 years ago. During the mid-Holocene transgression, the sea level rose and immersed low-lying areas; geological data show the coastline was inundated and was located near Hanoi. Consequently, from about 10,000 to approximately 4,000 years ago, Hanoi in general was completely underwater. It is believed that the region has been continuously inhabited for the last 4,000 years.Kingdom of Âu Lạc and Nanyue
In around third century BC, An Dương Vương established the capital of Âu Lạc north of what later is Hanoi, where a fortified citadel is constructed, known to history as Cổ Loa, the first political center of the Vietnamese civilization pre-Sinitic era, with an outer embankment covering 600 hectares. In 179 BC, the Âu Lạc Kingdom was annexed by Nanyue. Zhao Tuo subsequently incorporated the regions into his Nanyue domain, and left the indigenous chiefs in control of the population. For the first time, the region formed part of a polity headed by a Chinese ruler.Chinese rule
In 111 BC, the Han dynasty conquered Nanyue and ruled it. Han dynasty organized Nanyue into seven commanderies of the south and included three in Vietnam alone: Giao Chỉ and Cửu Chân, and a newly established Nhật Nam.In March of 40 AD, Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị, daughters of an aristocratic family of Lac ethnicity in Mê Linh district, led the locals to rise up in rebellion against the Han. It began at the Red River Delta, and spread south and north from Jiaozhi, stirring up all three Lạc Việt regions and most of Lingnan, gaining the support of about 65 towns and settlements. Trưng sisters then established their court upriver in Mê Linh. In 42 AD, the Han emperor commissioned general Ma Yuan to suppress the uprising with 32,000 men, including 20,000 regulars and 12,000 regional auxiliaries. The rebellion was defeated in the next year as Ma Yuan captured and decapitated Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị, then sent their heads to the Han court in Luoyang.
By the middle of the fifth century, in the center of what later is Hanoi, a fortified settlement was founded by the Chinese Liu Song dynasty as the seat of a new district called Tống Bình within Giao Chỉ commandery. The name refers to its pacification by the dynasty. It was elevated to its own commandery at some point between AD 454 and 464. The commandery included the districts of Yihuai and Suining in the south of the Red River with a metropolis in what later is inner Hanoi.
By the year 679, the Tang dynasty changed the region's name to Annan, with Songping as its capital.
In the latter half of the eighth century, Zhang Boyi, a viceroy from the Tang dynasty, built Luocheng to suppress uprisings. Luocheng extended from Thu Le to Quan Ngua in what later is Ba Đình district. Over time, in the first half of the ninth century, this fortification was expanded and renamed as Jincheng. In 863, the kingdom of Nanzhao, and local rebels, laid siege of Jincheng and defeated the Chinese armies of 150,000. In 866, Chinese jiedushi Gao Pian recaptured the city and drove out the Nanzhao and rebels. He renamed the city to Daluocheng. He built a wall around the city measuring 6,344 meters, with some sections reaching over eight meters in height. Đại La at the time had approximately 25,000 residents, including foreign communities of Persians, Arabs, Indian, Cham, Javanese, and Nestorian Christians. It became a trading center of the Tang dynasty due to the ransacking of Guangzhou by the Huang Chao Rebellion. By tenth century AD, what later is Hanoi was known to the Muslim traders as Luqin.
Thăng Long, Đông Đô, Đông Quan, Đông Kinh
In 1010, Lý Thái Tổ, the first ruler of the Lý dynasty, moved the capital of Đại Việt to the site of the Đại La Citadel. Claiming to have seen a dragon ascending the Red River, he renamed the site Thăng Long. Thăng Long remained the capital of Đại Việt until 1397, when it was moved to Thanh Hóa, then known as Tây Đô, the "Western Capital". Thăng Long then became Đông Đô, the "Eastern Capital".In 1408, the Chinese Ming dynasty attacked and occupied Vietnam, changing Đông Đô's name to Dongguan. In 1428, the Lam Sơn uprising, under the leadership of Lê Lợi, overthrew the Chinese rule. Lê Lợi founded the Lê dynasty and renamed Đông Quan to Đông Kinh or Tonkin. During 17th century, the population of Đông Kinh was estimated by Western diplomats as about 100,000.
Nguyễn dynasty and the French colonial period
When the Nguyễn dynasty was established in 1802, Gia Long moved the capital to Huế. Thăng Long was no longer the capital, and its chữ Hán was changed from 昇龍 to the homophone 昇隆, in order to reduce any loyalist sentiment towards the old Lê dynasty. In 1831, the Nguyễn emperor Minh Mạng renamed it Hà Nội. Hanoi was conquered and occupied by the French military in 1873 and passed to them ten years later. As Hanoi, it was located in the protectorate of Tonkin and became the capital of French Indochina in 1902. Nominally it still belonged to the sovereignty of Vietnam under French protectorate in Tonkin, and since 1888 it had been a French concession and had directly been ruled by the French like Cochinchina.WWII, First Indochina War, and Vietnam War
French Indochina including Hanoi was occupied by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in September 1940, after the Japanese invasion of French Indochina. Japan overthrew the French rule in Hanoi and formed the Empire of Vietnam in March 1945. After the fall of the Empire of Vietnam, it became the capital of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam when Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independence of Vietnam on 2 September 1945. The French returned and reoccupied the city in February 1947. After France recognized Vietnam's nominal and partial independence with the Élysée Accords on 14 June 1949, Hanoi became under the control of the State of Vietnam from 1949 to 1954, a unified associated state within the French Union. This state gained full independence with the Matignon Accords on 4 June 1954. In January 1953, Hanoi held the free municipal elections of the State of Vietnam. After eight years of fighting between the French and DRV forces, Hanoi became the capital of North Vietnam when this territory became a sovereign country and Vietnam became divided at 17th parallel on 21 July 1954. The army of the French Union withdrew to the South that year and the People's Army of Vietnam of the DRV and International Control Commission occupied the city on 10 October the same year under the terms of the 1954 Geneva Conference.During the Vietnam War between North and South, North Vietnam was attacked by the United States and South Vietnamese Air Forces. Following the end of the war with the fall of Saigon in 1975, Hanoi became the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam when North and South Vietnam were reunited on 2 July 1976.