Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City, also known by its historical name Saigon, is the most populous city in Vietnam, with a population of more than 14 million in 2025.
The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigon River. As the largest financial centre in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City has the largest gross regional domestic product out of all Vietnam provinces and municipalities, contributing around a quarter of the country's total GDP. Ho Chi Minh City's metropolitan area is ASEAN's 5th largest economy, also the biggest outside an ASEAN country's capital.
The area was initially part of Cambodian polities until it became part of the Vietnamese Nguyễn lords in 1698, due to Đại Việt's expansionist policy of Nam tiến. It served as the capital of the Nguyễn lords in their final years before the establishment of the Nguyễn dynasty in 1802. After the fall of the Citadel of Saigon during the Cochinchina campaign in 1859, it became the capital of French Cochinchina from 1862 to 1949. It was also the capital of French Indochina from 1887 to 1902, and again from 1945 until its cessation in 1954. After France recognized Vietnam's independence and unity, it was the capital of the State of Vietnam from 1949 to 1955. Following the 1954 partition, it became the capital of South Vietnam until it was captured by North Vietnam, leading to a unified socialist country in 1976. The city was subsequently renamed after North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, though "Saigon" remains widely used informally and has been the official name of the city's administrative center since 2025. Beginning in the 1990s, the city underwent rapid expansion and modernization, which contributed to Vietnam's post-war economic recovery and helped revive its international trade hub status.
Ho Chi Minh City has a long tradition of being one of the centers of economy, entertainment and education in Southern Vietnam in particular and Vietnam in general. It is also the busiest international transport hub in Vietnam, with Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport accounting for nearly half of all international arrivals to Vietnam, and the Port of Saigon among the busiest container ports in Southeast Asia. The city is also a tourist attraction; some of its historic landmarks with modern landmarks, including the Independence Palace, Bitexco Financial Tower, Landmark 81 Tower, the War Remnants Museum, and Bến Thành Market. It is also known for its narrow walkable alleys and bustling nightlife, most notably the Phạm Ngũ Lão Ward and its Bùi Viện street.
In 2025, the Bình Dương and Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu provinces were merged into Ho Chi Minh City, making it a megacity while inheriting the major industrial towns and coastal cities of the two former provinces. Currently, Ho Chi Minh City is facing increasing threats of sea level rise and flooding as well as heavy strains on public infrastructures.
Etymology
The first known human habitation in the area was a Cham settlement called Baigaur. The Cambodians then took over the Cham village of Baiguar and renamed it Prey Nokor, a small fishing village.Over time, under the control of the Vietnamese, it was officially renamed Gia Định in 1698, a name that was retained until the time of the French conquest in the 1860s, when it adopted the name Sài Gòn, francized as Saïgon, although the city was still indicated as wiktionary:嘉 on Vietnamese maps written in chữ Hán until at least 1891. An old name of Gia Định was Phan Yên 藩安, which was later commonly glossed as Phiên An.
The current name, Ho Chi Minh City, was given after reunification in 1976 to honour the late Ho Chi Minh. Even today, however, the informal name of Sài Gòn remains in daily speech. However, there is a technical difference between the two terms: Sài Gòn is currently used to refer to the city centre, aptly named Saigon and the adjacent neighborhoods of Bến Thành, Cầu Ông Lãnh, Tân Định while Ho Chi Minh City refers to all of its urban and rural area.
Saigon
The original toponym behind Sài Gòn was attested earliest as 柴棍, with two phonograms whose Sino-Vietnamese readings are "sài" and "côn" respectively.In Lê Quý Đôn's "Miscellaneous Chronicles of the Pacified Frontier", wherein he relates that, in 1674, Cambodian prince Ang Nan was installed as uparaja in 柴棍 by Vietnamese forces.
柴棍 also appears later in Trịnh Hoài Đức's "Comprehensive Records about the Gia Định Citadel", "Textbook on the Geography of the Southern Country", etc.
Adrien Launay's Histoire de la Mission de Cochinchine, "Documents Historiques II: 1728 – 1771" cites 1747 documents containing the toponyms: provincia Rai-gon, Rai-gon thong, & Rai-gon-ha. It is probably a transcription of Khmer ព្រៃនគរ, or Khmer ព្រៃគរ.
The proposal that Sài Gòn is from non-Sino-Vietnamese reading of Chinese 堤岸, the Cantonese name of Chợ Lớn, has been critiqued as folk-etymological, as: the Vietnamese source Phủ biên tạp lục was the earliest extant one containing the local toponym's transcription; 堤岸 has variant form 提岸, thus suggesting that both were transcriptions of a local toponym and thus are cognates to, not originals of, Sài Gòn. Saigon is unlikely to be from 堤岸 since in "Textbook on the Geography of the Southern Country", it also lists Chợ Lớn as ?? separate from 柴棍 Sài Gòn.
Ho Chi Minh City
The current official name, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, was first proposed by the Viet Minh in August 1946 and was later officially adopted in July 1976. It is abbreviated as TP.HCM, and translated in English as Ho Chi Minh City, abbreviated as HCMC, and in French as Hô-Chi-Minh-Ville, abbreviated as HCMV.The name commemorates Ho Chi Minh, the first leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This name, though not his given name, was one he favored throughout his later years. It combines a common Vietnamese surname with a given name meaning "enlightened will", in essence, meaning "light bringer". Nowadays, "Saigon" is still used as a semi-official name for the city, in some cases being used interchangeably with Ho Chi Minh City, partly due to its long history and familiarity.
History
Early settlement
The earliest settlement in the area was a Funan temple at the location of the current Phụng Sơn Buddhist temple, founded in the 4th century AD. A settlement called Baigaur was established on the site in the 11th century by the Champa. Baigaur was renamed Prey Nokor after conquest by the Khmer Empire around 1145, Prey Nokor grew on the site of a small fishing village and area of forest.The first Vietnamese people crossed the sea to explore this land completely without the organisation of the Nguyễn Lords. Thanks to the marriage between Princess Nguyễn Phúc Ngọc Vạn – daughter of Lord Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên – and the King of Cambodia Chey Chettha II in 1620, the relationship between Vietnam and Cambodia became smooth, and the people of the two countries could freely move back and forth. In exchange, Chey Chettha II gifted Prei Nokor to the Nguyễn lords. Vietnamese settlers began to migrate to the area of Saigon, Đồng Nai. Before that, the Funanese, Khmer, and Cham had lived there, scattered from time immemorial.
The period from 1623 to 1698 is considered the period of the formation of later Saigon. In 1623, Lord Nguyen sent a mission to ask his son-in-law, King Chey Chettha II, to set up tax collection stations in Prey Nokor and Kas Krobei. Although this was a deserted jungle area, it was located on the traffic routes between Vietnam, Cambodia, and Siam. The next two important events of this period were the establishment of the barracks and residence of Vice King Ang Non and the establishment of a palace at Tân Mỹ. It can be said that Saigon was formed from these three government agencies.
Nguyễn dynasty rule
In 1679, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Tần allowed a group of Chinese refugees from the Qing dynasty to settle in Mỹ Tho, Biên Hòa and Saigon to seek refuge. In 1698, Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyễn rulers of Huế by sea to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the area, thus detaching the area from Cambodia, which was not strong enough to intervene. He is often credited with the expansion of Saigon into a significant settlement. King Chey Chettha IV of Cambodia tried to stop the Vietnamese but was defeated by Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh in 1700. In February 1700, he invaded Cambodia from An Giang. In March, the Vietnamese expedition under Cảnh and a Chinese general Trần Thượng Xuyên defeated the main Cambodian army at Bích Đôi citadel, king Chey Chettha IV took flight while his nephew Ang Em surrendered to the invaders, as the Vietnamese marched onto and captured Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh. As a result, Saigon and Long An were officially and securely obtained by the Nguyễn, more Vietnamese settlers moved into the new conquered lands.In 1788, Nguyễn Ánh captured the city, and used it as a centre of resistance against Tây Sơn. Two years later, a large Vauban citadel called Gia Định, or Thành Bát Quái was built by Victor Olivier de Puymanel, one of the Nguyễn Ánh's French mercenaries. The citadel was captured by Lê Văn Khôi during his revolt of 1833–35 against Emperor Minh Mạng. Following the revolt, Minh Mạng ordered it to be dismantled, and a new citadel, called Phụng Thành, was built in 1836. In 1859, the citadel was destroyed by the French following the Battle of Kỳ Hòa. Initially called Gia Định, the Vietnamese city became Saigon in the 18th century.
French colonial era
Ceded to France by the 1862 Treaty of Saigon, the city was planned by the French to transform into a large town for colonization. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, construction of various French-style buildings began, including a botanical garden, the Norodom Palace, Hotel Continental, Notre-Dame Cathedral, and Bến Thành Market, among many others. In April 1865, Gia Định Báo was established in Saigon, becoming the first newspaper published in Vietnam. During the French colonial era, Saigon became known as "Pearl of the Orient", or "Paris of the Extreme Orient".On 27 April 1931, a new région called Saigon–Cholon consisting of Saigon and Cholon was formed; the name Cholon was dropped after South Vietnam gained independence from France in 1955. From about 256,000 in 1930, Saigon's population rose to 1.2 million in 1950.