Island · Nha Trang
Hon Mieu
Hòn Miễu
Hòn Miễu, also called đảo Trí Nguyên after its village, is the island closest to the shore among the islands of Nha Trang Bay, Khanh Hoa province, Vietnam[1]. Vietnamese Wikipedia gives its area as about 3 km², its distance from the mainland as 1 km and from the city as 6 km, and its coordinates as 12.1900235, 109.2263576[1]. Its population was about 3,000 people in 2015[1].
The island is known for the Trí Nguyên fish ponds, built in 1971 by a fisherman named Lê Cẩn as three walled sea-water ponds holding sharks, rays and ornamental fish, restored by the provincial tourism department in the early 1980s and later replaced by an aquarium built on the same foundations[3]. Vietnamese Wikipedia places the island in Nha Trang ward[1], the ward formed on 1 July 2025[5][6].
Geography
Hon Mieu lies 1 km off the mainland and 6 km from the city of Nha Trang, the nearest of the bay's islands to the shore[1]. Hills cover 95% of its roughly 3 km² with slopes of 20 to 25°; there are no streams and the groundwater is poor[1]. Vietnamese Wikipedia gives the coordinates 12.1900235, 109.2263576[1]; Wikidata gives 12.183333, 109.233333 with the GeoNames identifier 1574673 and an elevation value of 1 m[2].
The Vietnamese article on the bay counts 19 islands in Nha Trang Bay, of which Hòn Tre at 3,250 ha is the largest and Hòn Nọc at 4 ha the smallest, in a bay of 24,965 ha[4]. The waters around Hon Mieu are described as holding mackerel and anchovy stocks of 7,000 to 10,000 tonnes, with lobster, snails, sea cucumber and coral[1].
Tri Nguyen village
The island's village, Trí Nguyên, gives the island its second name[1]. Vietnamese Wikipedia accounts for the first: miễu is a variant reading of miếu, a shrine, and the village communal house, đình làng Trí Nguyên, stands towards the south of the island, so the island came to be called hòn Miễu[1]. Vietnamese Wikipedia, citing a Dân Trí report of February 2015, gives a population of about 3,000[1]. No later published figure was found, and the Dân Trí page itself no longer loads.
The Tri Nguyen fish ponds
In 1971 a fisherman, Lê Cẩn, built three square ponds on the island and stocked them with predatory fish, including sharks and rays, and with ornamental species such as angelfish[3]. In the early 1980s the provincial tourism department restored and developed the site, adding a pavilion over the water where visitors could eat while watching the fish[3]. An aquarium was later built on the foundations of the three old ponds; Báo Khánh Hòa, writing in June 2024, gives no date for it and recalls the original construction in stone and coral rather than concrete[3].
Administration
Vietnamese Wikipedia lists the island's ward as Nha Trang and its hamlet as Trí Nguyên[1]. Nha Trang ward was formed by Resolution 1667/NQ-UBTVQH15 of 16 June 2025, and began operating on 1 July 2025, from the wards of Vạn Thạnh, Lộc Thọ, Vĩnh Nguyên, Tân Tiến and Phước Hòa[5][6]; it covers 47.12 km² and had 136,118 people on 31 December 2024[5]. Nha Trang Bay was recognised as a national scenic site on 25 March 2005[4].
Questions and answers
Sources
Every figure in this article is cited to one of these pages, listed in order of first use, with the date it was read.
See also
- Nha Trang BayBay
- Hon TreIsland
- Hon TamIsland
- Hon MunIsland
- Nha TrangFormer city
- Binh Ba IslandIsland