Description : Hanoi is the capital city of Vietnam. It covers an area of 3,358.6 km2 (1,296.8 sq mi). It is the second largest city in Vietnam, with over eight million residents within the city proper and an estimated population of 20 million within the metropolitan area. Located in part of the Red River Delta, Hanoi is the commercial, cultural, and educational centre of Northern Vietnam. Having an estimated nominal GDP of US$32.8 billion as of 2018, it is the second most productive economic area of Vietnam, after Ho Chi Minh City. The city is a settlement along the banks of the Red River. In 257 B.C, under the rule of king An Dương Vương, the citadel of Cổ Loa, nowaday Đông Anh district of Hanoi, was constructed and served as the capital of Âu Lạc. After the fall of Âu Lạc, the city was renamed to Tống Bình and ultimately Đại La. In 1010, emperor Lý Thái Tổ moved the capital to Đại La, renaming it Thăng Long (literally "Ascending Dragon"). Thăng Long would remain the political and cultural centre of the state of Đại Việt until 1802, when the Nguyễn dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of Vietnam, moved the capital to Huế. The city renamed to Hanoi in 1831, and was the capital of French Indochina from 1883 to 1945. On 6 January 1946, the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam designated Hanoi as the capital of the newly-independent country, which would last during the First Indochina War (1946–1954) and the Vietnam War (1955–1975). Hanoi has been the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam since 1976. Historically it had Chinese, French and Russian influences. It hosts various venerable educational institutions and cultural venues of significance, including the Vietnam National University, the Mỹ Đình National Stadium, and the Vietnam National Museum of Fine Arts. On 16 July 1999, the UNESCO presented the title "City for Peace" to Hanoi. Hanoi joined UNESCO's Network of Creative Cities as a Design City on 31 October 2019 on the occasion of World Cities' Day. Hanoi has been inhabited since at least 3000 BC. The Cổ Loa Citadel in Đông Anh District served as the capital of the Âu Lạc kingdom founded by the Thục emigrant Thục Phán after his 208 BC conquest of the native Văn Lang. In 179 BC, the Âu Lạc Kingdom was annexed by Nanyue, which ushered in more than a millennium of Chinese domination. By the middle of the 5th century, in the center of ancient Hanoi, the Liu Song dynasty set up a new district (縣, huyện) called Songping (Tong Binh), which later became a commandery (郡, quận), including two districts Yihuai (義懷) and Suining (綏寧) in the south of the Red River (now Từ Liêm and Hoài Đức districts) with a metropolis (the domination centre) in the present inner Hanoi. By the year 679, the Tang dynasty changed the region's name into Annan (Pacified South), with Songping as its capital. In order to defeat the people's uprisings, in the later half of the 8th century, Zhang Boyi (張伯儀), a Tang dynasty viceroy, built Luocheng (羅城, La Thanh or La citadel, from Thu Le to Quan Ngua in present-day Ba Dinh precinct). In the earlier half of the 9th century, it was further built up and called Jincheng (金城, Kim Thanh or Kim Citadel). In 863, Nanzhao army and local people 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 (大羅城, Đại La thành). He built the wall, 6,344 meters around the city, which some part were more than 8 meters high. Đại La at the time with approximate 25,000 residents included small foreign communities and residents of Persians, Arabs, Indian, Cham, Javanese and Nestorian Christians, became an important trading center of the Tang Dynasty due to the ransacking of Canton by Huang Chao rebellion. By early 10th century AD, modern-day Hanoi was known to the Muslim traders as Luqin.
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