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Saigon Architecture
Unexpected architectural delights
found in Saigon City are the
Post Office with its arched high
ceilings (look up!), and the Notre
Dame Cathedral, which is supposed to
be a smaller replica of the
original.
Ho
Chi Minh City History
Situated on the banks of the Saigon
River, Saigon City has gone by
several names over the centuries,
most recently in 1975.
Saigon City was originally
founded as Prey Nokor, a small
fishing village and main port of
Cambodia under the Khmer, in the
16th century. The name Prey Nokor
means "forest city" or "forest land"
and reffered to the swampy forests
upon which it was founded. In the
17th century, Vietnamese settlers
flocked to Prey Nokor and by 1698,
Nguyen Huu Canh, a Vietnamese noble
was sent to expand Prey Nokor into a
Vietnamese settlement. By that time,
Prey Nokor had became known as Gia
Dinh officially, but Sai Gon more
popularly (Sai Gon coming from
obscure etymology but most assuredly
reffering to the foresty area of the
city).
In 1859, the French conquered Saigon
and encorporated it as the capital
into the newly-formed French colony
of Cochinchina, which later became
French Indochina and subsequently
South Vietnam. There, the French
labeled Prey Nokor Saigon. The
French architectural style is
visible in many of the remaining
nineteenth century buildings, for
example the Museum of Fine Arts and
the Saigon City Museum.
During the Vietnam-American War,
Saigon was the capital of the
Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam)
until its unification with the North
Vietnamese in 1975 which united the
two halves. It was subsequently
renamed Saigon City in honor of
the pseudonym of the Vietnamese
guerilla leader-Saigon (real
name Nguyen Tat Thanh).
Today, Saigon City is the
largest city in Vietnam, larger than
even the capital Hanoi, with more
than 8 million people, and hosts the
largest number of businesses in
Vietnam - over 300,000. It is
climbing, slowly but surely, into
the new millennium.
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