Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is the largest city in Vietnam. It was once known
as Prey Nokor, an important Khmer seaport prior to annexation by the
Vietnamese in the 17th century.

Under the name Saigon, it was the capital of the French colony of
Cochinchina and later of the independent state of South Vietnam from 1954 to
1975. In 1976, Saigon merged with the surrounding province of Gia Định and
was officially renamed Hồ Chí Minh City (although the name Sài Gòn—formally
known as District 1—is still commonly used.)

The city center is situated on the banks of the Saigon River, 60 kilometers
(37 mi) from the South China Sea and 1,760 kilometers (1,094 mi) south of
Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

The metropolitan area, which consists of the Hồ Chí Minh City metropolitan
area, Thủ Dầu Một, Dĩ An, Biên Hòa and surrounding towns, is populated by
more than 9 million people, making it the most populous metropolitan area in
Vietnam and the countries of the former French Indochina. The Greater Ho Chi
Minh City Metropolitan Area, a metropolitan area covering most parts of Đông
Nam Bộ plus Tiền Giang and Long An provinces under planning will have an
area of 30,000 square kilometers with a population of 20 million inhabitants
by 2020.

Traditional Vietnamese Name

After Prey Nokor was settled by Vietnamese refugees from the north, in time
it came to be known unofficially as Sài Gòn. There is much debate about the
origins of the Vietnamese name, Sài Gòn, the etymology of which is analyzed
below.

However, before the French colonization the official Vietnamese name of
Saigon was Gia Định (Chữ Nôm: 嘉定). In 1862, the French discarded this
official name and adopted the name "Saigon", which had always been the
popular name, although it was still written as 嘉定 on sinitic maps until at
least 1891.

The Vietnamese name, Sài Gòn, is sometimes written in two words, which is
the traditional convention in Vietnamese spelling. Some people, however,
write the name of the city as "SaiGon" or "Saigon" in order to save space or
give it a more Westernized look.

Sino-Vietnamese etymology

A frequently heard, and reasonable, explanation is that Sài is a Chinese
loanword (Chinese: 柴, pronounced chái in Mandarin) meaning "firewood, lops,
twigs; palisade", while Gòn is another Chinese loanword (Chinese: 棍,
pronounced gùn in Mandarin) meaning "stick, pole, bole", and whose meaning
evolved into "cotton" in Vietnamese (bông gòn, literally "cotton stick", i.e
, "cotton plant", then shortened to gòn).

Some people say that this name originated from the many cotton plants that
the Khmer people had planted around Prey Nokor, and which can still be seen
at Cây Mai temple and surrounding areas.

Another explanation is that the etymological meaning "twigs" (sài) and
"boles" (gòn) refers to the dense and tall forest that once existed around
the city, a forest to which the Khmer name, Prey Nokor, already referred.

In Chinese, the city is referred to as 西貢, pronounced "sai gung" in
Cantonese, "sai goong" in Teochew and xīgòng in Mandarin. This represents
"Saigon" written phonetically.

Cantonese etymology

Another reasonable etymology was offered by Vương Hồng Sển, a Vietnamese
scholar in the early 20th century, who asserted that Sài Gòn had its origin
in the Cantonese name of Cholon (Vietnamese: quoc ngu Chợ Lớn; chu nom
Cholon.png) , the Chinese district of Saigon. The Cantonese (and original)
name of Cholon is "Tai-Ngon" (堤岸), which means "embankment" (French: quais).
The theory posits that "Sài Gòn" derives from "Tai-Ngon".

Khmer etymology

Another etymology often proposed, although held now as a least-likely
etymology, is that "Saigon" comes from "Sai Côn", which would be the
transliteration of the Khmer word, Prey Nokor (Khmer: PreyNokor.png),
meaning "god or heavenly". Nokor is a Khmer word of Sanskrit origin meaning
city, land").

This Khmer etymology theory is quite interesting, given the Khmer context
that existed when the first Vietnamese settlers arrived in the region.
However, it fails to completely explain how Khmer "prey" led to Vietnamese
sài", since these two syllables appear phonetically quite distinct and as
the least reasonable and least likely candidate from the Khmer etymology.

"Prey" is forest/jungle in Khmer. Nokor is Kingdom/city/land in Khmer. So,
Prey Nokor" is literally Forest Kingdom.

Current Vietnamese name

Immediately after the communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975, a
provisional government renamed the city after Hồ Chí Minh, the pre-eminent
but by-then deceased North Vietnamese leader. The official name is now Thành
phố Hồ Chí Minh, abbreviated Tp. HCM. In English, this is translated as Hồ
Chí Minh City, abbreviated HCMC, and in French it is translated as Hô Chi
Minh Ville (the circumflex is sometimes omitted), abbreviated HCMV. Sài Gòn
is still the most common way to refer to the city in conversation inside
Vietnam. Sài Gòn is used officially to refer to District 1; for example, in
bus destinations. The name is also found in company names, book titles and
even on airport departure boards (the code for Tân Sơn Nhất International
Airport is SGN). Also, most Vietnamese that fled the country during the
communist takeover do not recognize the name "Hồ Chí Minh City", and will
only refer to the city as Saigon.

Early history

Hồ Chí Minh City began as a small fishing village known as Prey Nokor. The
area that the city now occupies was originally swampland, and was inhabited
by Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese. It
should be noted that in Khmer folklore southern Vietnam was given to the
Vietnamese government as a dowry for the marriage of a Vietnamese princess
to a Khmer prince in order to stop constant invasions and pillaging of Khmer
villages.

Khmer Territory

Beginning in the early 17th century, colonization of the area by Vietnamese
settlers gradually isolated the Khmer of the Mekong Delta from their
brethren in Cambodia proper and resulted in their becoming a minority in the
delta.

In 1623, King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia (1618—-1628) allowed Vietnamese
refugees fleeing the Trịnh–Nguyễn civil war in Vietnam to settle in the area
of Prey Nokor, and to set up a custom house at Prey Nokor. Increasing waves
of Vietnamese settlers, which the Cambodian kingdom could not impede because
it was weakened by war with Thailand, slowly Vietnamized the area. In time,
Prey Nokor became known as Saigon.

Prey Nokor was the most important commercial seaport to the Khmers. The
city's name was changed by Vietnam to Sài Gòn and then Hồ Chí Minh City. The
loss of the city prevented the Cambodians access to the South China Sea.
Subsequently, the Khmers' access to the sea was now limited to the Gulf of
Thailand. It began as a small fishing village known as Prey Nokor. The area
that the city now occupies was originally swampland, and was inhabited by
Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese.

Nguyễn dynasty rule

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. A large Vauban citadel called Gia Định was built,
which was later destroyed by the French over the battle of Chí Hoà.

Colonial French era

Conquered by France in 1859, the city was influenced by the French during
their colonial occupation of Vietnam, and a number of classical
Western-style buildings in the city reflect this, so much so that Saigon was
called "the Pearl of the Far East" (Hòn ngọc Viễn Đông) or "Paris in the
Orient" (Paris Phương Đông). Saigon had, in 1929, a population of 123,890,
including 12,100 French.

Capital of South Vietnam

Former Emperor Bảo Đại made Saigon the capital of the State of Vietnam in
1949 with himself as head of state. After the Việt Minh gained control of
North Vietnam in 1954, it became common to refer to the Saigon government as
"South Vietnam". The government was renamed the Republic of Vietnam when Bảo
Đại was deposed in 1955. Saigon and Cholon, an adjacent city with many
Sino-Vietnamese residents, were combined into an administrative unit called
Đô Thành Sài Gòn ("Capital City Saigon").

Post-Vietnam War and today

At the conclusion of the Vietnam War, on April 30, 1975, the city came under
the control of the Vietnamese People's Army. Among Vietnamese diaspora
communities and particularly the U.S., this event is commonly called the
"Fall of Saigon," while the communist Socialist Republic of Vietnam calls it
the "Liberation of Saigon."

In 1976, upon the establishment of the unified communist Socialist Republic
of Vietnam, the city of Saigon (including Cholon), the province of Gia Ðịnh
and two suburban districts of two other nearby provinces were combined to
create Hồ Chí Minh City in honour of the late communist leader Hồ Chí Minh.
The former name Saigon is still widely used by many Vietnamese, especially
in informal contexts. Generally, the term Saigon refers only to the urban
districts of Hồ Chí Minh City. The word "Saigon" can also be found on shop
signs all over the country, even in Hanoi.

Geography

Ho Chi Minh City is located at 10°45'N, 106°40'E in the southeastern region of Vietnam, 1,760 km (1,090 mi) south of Hanoi. The average elevation is 19 metres (62 ft) above sea level. It borders Tay Ninh and Binh Duong provinces to the north, Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces to the east, Long An Province to the west and the South China Sea to the south with a coast of 15 km in length. The city covers an area of 2,095 km2 (809 sq mi) (0.63% of the surface of Vietnam), extending up to Cu Chi (12 mi (19 km) from the Cambodian border), and down to Can Gio on the Vietnam East Sea coast. The distance from the northernmost point (Phu My Hung Commune, Cu Chi District) to the southernmost one (Long Hoa Commune, Can Gio District) is 102 kilometers (63 mi), and from the easternmost point (Long Binh Ward, District Nine) to the westernmost one (Binh Chanh Commune, Binh Chanh District) is 47 kilometers (29 mi).