Vietnam: Street barber and customer near the Temple of Literature, Hanoi

The area around Hanoi—the name means ‘within the waters’, a reference to the city’s close relationship with the Song Hong, or ‘Red River’ and numerous surrounding lakes—has been the site of Vietnam’s capital, on and off, for more than two millennia.

In the third century BC King Thuc Pan established the earliest Vietnamese capital at the citadel of Co Loa just north of the present-day city. Over a thousand years later, when the Chinese were driven out and independence restored, General Ngo Quyen symbolically chose Hanoi as the site of the reborn Vietnamese nation.

In 1802 the first Nguyen Emperor, Gia Long, transferred the capital to Hue—but this proved to be a short-lived move. In 1902 France established Hanoi as the capital not just of Vietnam, but of all French Indochina.

In 1954 the city became the capital of the communist north, and in 1976, following the defeat of the non-communist south, it was proclaimed capital of the reunited Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Copyright:

CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

David Henley

Credit:

Pictures From Asia