Cam Ranh Bay

Geography

Vietnamese Wikipedia's infobox leaves the bay's area, length, width and depth blank^[1], so the figures here come from newspapers, not an official survey. Bao Khanh Hoa describes an enclosed bay of up to 60 km² with an average depth of 18 to 20 m, and separately puts the bay at 10 km across at its narrowest and 20 km at its widest^[3], widths far too great to enclose 60 km². Thanh Nien instead gives a water area of more than 100 km², a width of 5 to 6 km and a length of 15 km, an average depth of 16 to 25 m with a maximum of 32 m, and 15 to 20 m at the mouth, enclosed by hills of 300 to 400 m^[4]. Both papers stress the bay's proximity to shipping lanes: Bao Khanh Hoa puts it about an hour by ship from the international shipping route, against 18 hours from Hai Phong^[3], and Thanh Nien gives its distance to the Truong Sa islands as about 480 km^[4]. Wikidata records the bay's preferred coordinates as about 11.88°N, 109.17°E^[8].

The islands of Binh Ba and Binh Hung lie within the bay^[5]. Binh Ba covers about 3 km² and had a population of about 5,000 in the English Wikipedia's account, settled from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century by migrants from Binh Dinh province, and is now divided into four hamlets: Binh Hung, Binh An, Binh Ba Dong and Binh Ba Tay^[5]. In February 2025 the provincial paper Báo Khánh Hòa reported close to 100,000 lobster farming cages in the province, of which the bay accounted for more than 70 percent, with an annual output above 3,000 tonnes^[9]. No published figure for salt production specific to the bay, as distinct from Van Phong Bay, was found.

Naval history

The bay's military use is recorded from 1905, when the Russian Baltic Fleet anchored there before the Battle of Tsushima, staying until French colonial authorities ordered it to leave^[2]. Japan used the bay in 1942 to stage its invasion of British Malaya and British Borneo^[2]. The United States surveyed the bay in 1964, the year an American consortium finished a 350 ft pier and causeway there, and after the Vung Ro Bay incident of February 1965 developed Cam Ranh as a major base, built from mid-1965 and including a runway of AM-2 aluminium matting, about 10,000 ft long, finished in 50 days and completed on 16 October 1965^[2]. The base was handed to the government of South Vietnam in May 1972 and captured by North Vietnamese forces on 3 April 1975^[2].

A Soviet lease followed, signed in 1978 or 1979 depending on the source, for a term of 25 years^[1][2]; the lease passed to Russia after the Soviet Union's dissolution, and Russia lowered its flag and completed withdrawal on 2 May 2002^[1][2]. The base is now the headquarters of Vietnam's 4th Naval Region and the country's only submarine base; it hosted a visit by United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in June 2012 and the first US Navy port call since 1975 in October 2016^[2]. Its layout, units and wider history are described in the separate article on Cam Ranh Base.

Commercial port and airport

Cam Ranh International Airport, built on the peninsula that shelters the bay, took its first civil flight on 19 May 2004, replacing an older airport inside Nha Trang city^[7]. A commercial international port opened inside the bay on 8 March 2016, designed for ships of up to 110,000 DWT or passenger vessels of up to 100,000 GRT, with room for 18 vessels at a time and up to 185 a year, and built to operate in winds of up to Beaufort scale 8^[1].

Administration

In 2014 Thanh Nien placed the bay within Cam Ranh city and Cam Lam district^[4], the units that existed before Vietnam's 2025 administrative reform. Since the district level was abolished and Ninh Thuan province merged into Khanh Hoa on 1 July 2025, the bay's shore has been divided among Ba Ngoi, Cam Linh, Cam Ranh and Bac Cam Ranh wards and Nam Cam Ranh commune, all former parts of Cam Ranh city^[1]. Nam Cam Ranh, which includes the islands of Binh Ba and Binh Hung, was created by the resolution of 16 June 2025 out of the four former communes of Cam Lap, Cam Binh, Cam Thinh Dong and Cam Thinh Tay, and began operating with the rest on 1 July 2025, an area of 92.59 km² with a 2025 population of 23,525^[6].