Chinatown in Ho Chi Minh City

Chinatown in Ho Chi Minh City

Transportation: A taxi from Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon to Ben Thanh Market costs about 70,000 VND. To return to District 1, you can try taking a bus for 2,000 VND. Many bus routes start right outside Ben Thanh Market, and you can easily find a suitable one by checking the map and bus stop signs.

Chinatown is Ho Chi Minh City’s “Chinatown.”

Chinatown is located in District 11 in the southwestern part of Ho Chi Minh City, about 5 kilometers from District 1 (historically known as Saigon). In 1932, Saigon and Cholon were merged into a single municipality, becoming one of the top international metropolises in East Asia.

Ho Chi Minh City is home to around 500,000 ethnic Chinese, almost all of whom live in the Cholon area, making it one of the largest Chinese communities in the world. In the early 20th century, Cholon was the wealthiest district in Saigon, where the Chinese played a dominant role in local commerce and industry, just as described in Marguerite Duras’ novel The Lover. Today, Cholon is much like most old urban districts around the world—noisy, messy, and somewhat run-down, with its former prosperity seeming like a distant dream.

What mainly attracts visitors to Cholon are its many Chinese restaurants offering both northern and southern flavors, and Ben Thanh Market (Cho Binh Tay), which rivals Ben Thanh Market in size. Ben Thanh Market is relatively chaotic, while Cho AnDong Market resembles a modern department store—neat, quiet, slightly more expensive, but with better-quality goods.

Vietnam Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh (May 19, 1890 – September 2, 1969), the founding father of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the first Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam, and a great proletarian revolutionary. Born on May 19, 1890, in Nghe An Province, Vietnam, he worked as a teacher, seaman, and laborer in his early years. He joined the Communist Party in France in 1920, went to the Soviet Union for studies in 1923, attended the Fifth Comintern Congress in 1924, and carried out revolutionary activities in China from the end of that year until 1927. In February 1930, he led the establishment of the Communist Party of Indochina. In 1941, he initiated the formation of... More details about Ho Chi Minh++