History of Khanh Hoa

Kauthara and Champa

Archaeologists date human settlement in the area to prehistory: stone tools of a hoe-based agriculture have been found on Hòn Tre island in Nha Trang Bay, and a set of stone lithophones, the Khánh Sơn stone chimes, was discovered in Khánh Sơn district in February 1979 and is believed to date to around the middle of the first millennium BC^[1]. Vietnamese Wikipedia dates the Xóm Cồn culture, found at Ba Ngòi in Cam Ranh, to almost 4,000 years ago, earlier than the Sa Huỳnh culture whose sites are also found across the province^[1].

From around the start of the Common Era a branch of the Cau tribe, one of the two dominant Cham groupings, founded a polity historians call Nam Chăm, comprising Panrăn, in the area of modern Phan Rang, and Kauthara, in the area of modern Khánh Hòa^[1]. By the eighth century Nam Chăm had gained the upper hand over its northern rival, giving rise to the unified Panduranga dynasty, and Kauthara flourished with the construction of large temple complexes, above all Po Nagar, dedicated to the Cham mother goddess Yang Pô Y Na Gar; inscriptions in Sanskrit and old Cham survive at the site and elsewhere in the province^[1].

The Nguyen lords and the naming of Khanh Hoa

In 1653, citing raids by the Cham king on Vietnamese settlers in Phú Yên, the Nguyễn lord Nguyễn Phúc Tần sent the officer Hùng Lộc with 3,000 troops against Champa; after a heavy defeat the Cham king ceded the territory from the Phan Rang river to Phú Yên, and the Nguyễn organised it as Thái Khang dinh, comprising Thái Khang prefecture in the north, around today's Ninh Hòa and Vạn Ninh, and Diên Ninh prefecture in the south, covering today's Diên Khánh, Cam Lâm, Khánh Sơn, Cam Ranh and Nha Trang, with Hùng Lộc as governor^[1]. Thái Khang was renamed Bình Khang in 1690, and Diên Ninh became Diên Khánh in 1742^[1].

In 1793 the future emperor Gia Long, then still fighting the Tây Sơn as Nguyễn Ánh, built a citadel at Diên Khánh as a forward base, and the settlement served as the province's administrative centre from 1802 until 1945^[1]. In 1803 Bình Khang was renamed Bình Hòa, and in 1831, the twelfth year of the Minh Mạng era, Bình Hòa trấn became Khánh Hòa province, with a new Ninh Hòa prefecture carved from the old Bình Hòa prefecture^[1]. The administrative seat moved from Diên Khánh to Nha Trang after the Japanese coup of 9 March 1945^[1].

French rule and Yersin

Under the French protectorate that followed the 1884 Patenôtre treaty, Nguyễn-dynasty officials remained at Diên Khánh while the French résident and garrison were based at Nha Trang, which grew from a fishing settlement into a gazetted urban centre in 1924 and a full town in 1937^[1]. The colonial economy rested on rice, tobacco and rubber, salt production, and a lucrative trade in swiftlet nests, which the colonial government nationalised in 1930 for its tax revenue^[6].

The Swiss-French bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin settled in Nha Trang in the 1890s and founded the city's Pasteur Institute, a date Vietnamese Wikipedia gives as 1891 and English Wikipedia's article on Yersin as 1895^[1][5]. He remained in Nha Trang for the rest of his life, researching plague serum and pioneering rubber, quinine and coffee cultivation in the province, and died there in 1943^[5].

Phu Khanh, 1975 to 1989

Communist forces took Ninh Hòa, Nha Trang and Cam Ranh in the first three days of April 1975^[1]. On 29 October 1975 Khánh Hòa was merged with Phú Yên province, together with Nha Trang city and Cam Ranh town, into Phú Khánh province, which by the end of 1975 comprised Nha Trang and Tuy Hòa towns and nine districts^[2]. On 28 December 1982 the Trường Sa island district was transferred from Đồng Nai province into Phú Khánh, the first time Trường Sa was administered from this coast^[1][2].

By the end of 1988 Phú Khánh had grown to 15 district-level units. On 30 June 1989 the National Assembly's 5th session of its 8th legislature voted to split the province again: Khánh Hòa was re-formed with Nha Trang city and seven districts, including Trường Sa, and Phú Yên was re-formed around Tuy Hòa^[2].

Since 1989

Khánh Hòa's town and district structure was adjusted repeatedly after 1989: Cam Ranh became a town in 2000 and a city in 2010, Ninh Hòa became a town in 2010, and Cam Lâm district was re-created from parts of Cam Ranh and Diên Khánh in 2007^[1]. The most far-reaching change came in 2025. Resolution 202/2025/QH15, adopted by the National Assembly on 12 June 2025, merged the former Ninh Thuận province into Khánh Hòa, creating a province of 8,555.86 km² and 2,243,554 people^[3]. Four days later, on 16 June 2025, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly adopted Resolution 1667/NQ-UBTVQH15, abolishing every district-level unit in the enlarged province and regrouping 194 former commune-level units into 65 wards, communes and the Trường Sa special zone, all operating from 1 July 2025^[4].

A dated timeline

The table below draws together the dates given in the sections above.