Ho Chi Minh City, commonly known as Saigon, is the most populous city in Vietnam, with a population of around 10 million in 2023. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigon River. As a municipality, Ho Chi Minh City consists of 16 urban districts, five rural districts, and one municipal city (sub-city). As the largest financial centre in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City has the largest gross regional domestic product out of all Vietnam provinces and municipalities, contributing around a quarter of the country's total GDP. Ho Chi Minh City's metropolitan area is ASEAN's 6th largest economy, also the biggest outside an ASEAN country capital.
The Viet Cong (VC) was an epithet and umbrella term to refer to the communist-driven armed movement and united front organization in South Vietnam. It was formally organized as and led by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, and nominally conducted military operations under the name of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam (LASV). The movement fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the Vietnam War. The organization had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized and mobilized peasants in the territory the VC controlled. During the war, communist fighters and some anti-war activists claimed that the VC was an insurgency indigenous to the South that represented the legitimate rights of people in South Vietnam, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. It was later conceded by the modern Vietnamese communist leadership that the movement was actually under the North Vietnamese political and military leadership, aiming to unify Vietnam under a single banner.
Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was a South Vietnamese general and chief of the South Vietnamese National Police.
Vũng Tàu is the largest city of Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province in southern Vietnam. It is the province's economic, financial and cultural centre, and a popular tourist hub in southern Vietnam. The city area is 141.1 square kilometres, consists of 16 urban wards and one commune of Long Sơn Island. Vũng Tàu was the capital of the province until it was replaced by the much smaller Bà Rịa city on 2 May 2012. The city is also the crude oil extraction center of Vietnam.
The fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by North Vietnam on 30 April 1975. The event marked the end of the Vietnam War and the collapse of the South Vietnamese state, leading to a transition period and the formal reunification of Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam under communist rule on 2 July 1976.
Biên Hòa is the capital city of Đồng Nai Province, Vietnam, and is part of the Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area. Situated northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Biên Hòa is connected to it via National Route 1. As a class-1 provincial city, it is the sixth largest city in Vietnam by population.
Phan Huy Quát was a South Vietnamese doctor and politician who served as Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam for four months in 1965.
The Independence Palace, also publicly known as the Reunification Convention Hall, is a landmark in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It was designed by architect Ngô Viết Thụ and was the home and workplace of the president of the Republic of Vietnam. It was the site of the Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975 that ended the Vietnam War, when a North Vietnamese Army tank crashed through its gates.
The First Battle of Saigon, fought during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War, was the coordinated attack by communist forces, including both the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong (VC), against Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam.
Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi is a five-star historic luxury hotel, opened in 1901 as Grand Métropole Hotel in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. It is today one of the most important buildings of Vietnam in the French colonial style. The hotel today has 364 rooms.
The Rex Hotel is a famous luxury and business hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, the daily U.S. briefings at the hotel became known as "The Five O'Clock Follies".
The Brinks Hotel in Saigon, also known as the Brink Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ), was bombed by the Vietcong on the evening of 24 December 1964, during the Vietnam War. Two Vietcong operatives detonated a car bomb underneath the hotel, which housed United States Army officers. The explosion killed two Americans, an officer and an NCO, and injured approximately 60, including military personnel and Vietnamese civilians.
The Hôtel Continental, or also known as Khách sạn Hoàn Cầu in Vietnamese, is a hotel in District 1, the central district of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The hotel is located at the corner of Đồng Khởi Street and Lam Sơn Square, by the Saigon Municipal Theatre. It was built in 1880 during the French colonial period and named after the Hôtel Continental in Paris. The hotel has undergone refurbishments over the years, while still maintaining the essence of its original architecture and style. The hotel is owned by the state-owned Saigon Tourist.
The Hotel Majestic is a historic luxury hotel located in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Built by local Chinese businessman Hui Bon Hoa in 1925 in a French Colonial and classical French Riviera styles. Bon Hoa was one of the richest business men in southern Vietnam at the time.
The 1967 South Vietnam Independence Cup was an invitational men's association football tournament hosted by South Vietnam and played in Saigon during the Vietnam War by national teams from mostly anti-communist nations that supported the American war effort. The tournament was meant to be as a propaganda exercise.
Landmark 81 is a supertall skyscraper in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It is primarily invested and developed by Vinhomes, the largest Vietnamese real-estate developer. Landmark 81 holds the position of the tallest building in Vietnam, the second tallest building in Southeast Asia, as well as the seventeenth tallest building in the world overall.
The Third Republic of Vietnam, also referred to by its previous name the Provisional National Government of Vietnam, is a self-proclaimed government in exile, headquartered in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Orange County, California, with offices in other Little Saigon communities.
Trần Văn Đỗ was a South Vietnamese intellectual and politician who served in both the governments of the State of Vietnam and South Vietnam as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of South Vietnam. He was the younger brother of Trần Văn Chương, who served as the South Vietnamese ambassador to the United States in the early 1960s under the government of South Vietnam's first President Ngô Đình Diệm. He was also the uncle of then South Vietnam's First Lady Trần Lệ Xuân, commonly known as Madame Nhu. He was an outspoken critic of the Diệm's government, and in 1960, he was one of the main drafters of the Caravelle Manifesto, a public document, supported by many political factions of the South Vietnamese government demanding reform within Diệm's government.
Lam Sơn Square is the city square surrounding the Municipal Theatre of Ho Chi Minh City in District 1, downtown Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Trần Văn Tuyên was a South Vietnamese lawyer and politician who served as a member of the lower house representing Saigon District 3 from 1971 until the collapse and surrender of South Vietnam on 30 April 1975 by President Dương Văn Minh. Prior, he briefly served as Deputy Prime Minister of South Vietnam in 1965 under Prime Minister Phan Huy Quát and practiced law in Saigon. He is also a fierce political critic of both the Ngô Đình Diệm and Nguyễn Văn Thiệu regimes.
