Vietnam: Regions, Cities & Travel Guide

What is Vietnam known for?

Vietnam draws travellers with its food, its coastline, and a wealth of natural and cultural attractions. Hanoi, the capital, anchors the north; Ho Chi Minh City, the largest city, anchors the south. Its long shore faces the South China Sea.

Between the two cities lies a country that has come a long way from the turmoil of the Vietnam War through decades of steady recovery. The cooking alone rewards the trip.

Where is Vietnam?

Vietnam sits at the eastern edge of Mainland Southeast Asia, a country shaped as much by its borders as by its long coast. China lies along the north. Laos and Cambodia run down the western frontier, so the interior faces the rest of Southeast Asia while the shore looks out to open water.

The eastern coast follows the South China Sea for its full length. Further round, the Gulf of Thailand reaches the country's south-western side, near the far south around Ho Chi Minh City. The two great cities sit at opposite ends of this stretch.

Hanoi commands the north as the capital, while Ho Chi Minh City spreads across the south as the largest city, and the ground between them runs a very long way. That length is the country's defining trait. A journey down Vietnam is a journey along the sea, from the northern border with China toward the waters of the Gulf of Thailand, tracing a shore that rarely leaves the traveller's side.

Coast and frontier order almost everything here.

What is the history of Vietnam?

Vietnam's modern shape dates to 1976, when the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was formed and the country came together as a single state. That founding closed a long and turbulent period. The decades before it were marked by the upheaval of the Vietnam War, whose turmoil reached across the whole country and left deep marks on both the north around Hanoi and the south around Ho Chi Minh City.

What followed was a slow rebuilding. From the 1990s onward the country steadied and reopened, and a long stretch of economic change reshaped daily life across Vietnam. The two great cities carried much of that shift.

Hanoi kept its place as the capital and the seat of national life, while Ho Chi Minh City grew into the largest city and the busiest hub of trade. The wider world returned as well, and travellers began to find their way back to a land of food and natural and cultural attractions long overshadowed by the war years. From a divided past to a single republic, the thread is one of recovery.

What is Vietnam like?

Food sits at the centre of Vietnamese life, and the country's cooking is one of the first things travellers remember. Meals are a daily ritual. Across Vietnam the table draws on the produce of the coast and the interior alike, and the results shift from the north around Hanoi to the south around Ho Chi Minh City, so that the same country can taste noticeably different from one end to the other.

Culture here also carries the weight of the country's setting. Vietnam has long stood among its neighbours on the mainland of Southeast Asia, sharing frontiers with China, Laos, and Cambodia. The two cities anchor the cultural map.

Hanoi, the capital, keeps the older civic life of the north, while Ho Chi Minh City sets the faster, more commercial tone of the south, and between them stretches a wealth of natural and cultural attractions that runs from the shore to the hills. The war years left their mark here as well, and the memory of the Vietnam War still runs through the country's art, its museums, and its public life. One nation, many local worlds.

What is the climate of Vietnam?

Vietnam sits in the tropics, and warmth is the constant across most of the year. Its climate is broadly tropical, shaped by the sea along the whole eastern coast and by the wet and dry turns of the tropical year. The country's length tells, though.

Because the land runs so far between Hanoi in the north and Ho Chi Minh City in the south, the weather is not the same from one end to the other, and a single journey can pass through more than one kind of season. Heat and rain set the rhythm.

How do you get to Vietnam?

Most visitors arrive through Vietnam's two big cities. Hanoi is the main way in for the north, while Ho Chi Minh City handles the bulk of arrivals in the south, so the point of entry usually depends on which end of the country the trip begins. The distances are long.

Since the country stretches so far from top to bottom, crossing between the two usually means a flight or a long overland leg rather than a quick hop, and many journeys follow the coast along the South China Sea. Enter at one end, leave from the other.