Nha Trang

Name and origins

Most researchers derive the name from a Cham place name, Aia Trang or Ea Trang in the Rhade form, meaning a river of reeds, which named the Cái river that reaches the sea at the city; the name later spread from the river to the land around it^[1][7]. The written form Nha Trang Môn, the Nha Trang gate, appears in Đỗ Bá's atlas Toản tập Thiên Nam tứ chí lộ đồ thư, and Nha Trang Hải môn on the Giáp Ngọ niên bình Nam đồ, both from the second half of the seventeenth century^[1].

Under the kingdom of Champa the area belonged to the principality of Kauthara, and the Po Nagar towers built by the Cham still stand above the river mouth^[7]. From 1653, when the Nguyễn lords took the region, until the middle of the nineteenth century Nha Trang was a thinly settled stretch of Hà Bạc in Vĩnh Xương district of Diên Khánh prefecture^[1].

Administrative history

A decree of the Governor-General of Indochina dated 30 August 1924 made Nha Trang a townlet (centre urbain) formed from the old villages of Xương Huân, Phương Câu, Vạn Thạnh, Phương Sài and Phước Hải, and a further decree of 7 May 1937 raised it to a town (commune) with five wards^[1].

On 27 January 1958 the government of Ngô Đình Diệm abolished the town by Decree 18-BNV and divided it into the communes of Nha Trang Đông and Nha Trang Tây in Vĩnh Xương district; Decree 132-SL/NV of 22 October 1970 re-established the town as the provincial capital with two urban districts, and Decree 357-ĐUHC/NC/NĐ of 5 June 1971 divided it into 11 quarters^[1]. Communist forces took the city on 2 April 1975, and in September 1975 the two urban districts were merged into a single town of 17 wards^[1].

Decision 391-CP/QĐ of 30 March 1977 raised the town to a city and capital of Phú Khánh province, adding the seven communes of Vĩnh Thái, Vĩnh Ngọc, Vĩnh Hiệp, Vĩnh Lương, Vĩnh Trung, Vĩnh Thạnh and Vĩnh Phương from the former Vĩnh Xương district^[1]. Phước Đồng commune was created on 27 March 1978^[1]. When Khánh Hòa province was re-established from Phú Khánh on 30 June 1989 Nha Trang became its capital^[1]. Two urban classifications followed, class II in 1999 and class I in 2009, both dated 22 April^[1][6].

Resolution 1196/NQ-UBTVQH15 of 28 September 2024, in force from 1 November 2024, merged Phương Sơn ward into Phương Sài, merged Xương Huân and Vạn Thắng into Vạn Thạnh and created Tân Tiến ward from Phước Tiến, Phước Tân and Tân Lập, leaving 14 wards and 8 communes^[1].

Geography and the bay

The city lay on the coast at the eastern edge of Khánh Hòa, bordered by Ninh Hòa town to the north, Cam Lâm district to the south, Diên Khánh district to the west and the sea to the east^[1]. It is 1,290 km from Hanoi, 441 km from Ho Chi Minh City and 45 km from Cam Ranh^[1]. Wikidata places the city centre at 12.245 north and 109.192 east^[5].

The terrain rises from sea level to about 900 m in three belts: the coastal plain and the banks of the Cái river cover about 81.3 km², or 32.33 percent of the city; low hills with slopes of 3 to 15 degrees in the west, south-east and on the small islands make up 36.24 percent; and steeper mountains at the northern and southern ends and on Hòn Tre cover 31.43 percent^[1].

Nha Trang Bay holds 19 islands, of which Hòn Tre is the largest at 32.5 km² and Hòn Nọc the smallest at about 4 ha; Vietnamese Wikipedia gives the bay an area of about 507 km² in this article^[1] and 249.65 km², of which 211.85 km² is water and 37.8 km² island, in its article on the bay itself^[9]. The Hòn Mun marine protected area, created in 2001, covers about 160 km², roughly 38 km² of land and 122 km² of water around nine islands, among them Hòn Tre, Hòn Miễu, Hòn Tằm, Hòn Một and Hòn Mun^[1]. The Trần Phú coastal road runs about 7 km along the bay from Xóm Cồn to the Cầu Đá port^[1].

Population

The city government reviewed the census of 1 April 2019 on 18 October 2019 and reported 422,601 residents^[4]; Vietnamese Wikipedia adds that 67.62 percent of them were urban^[1]. The provincial yearbook gives an average of 422,893 for 2019, a density of 1,663 people per km²^[2]. Vietnamese Wikipedia cites the 2024 population and housing survey for a later figure of 502,586, but gives no link to the published table^[1].

Density is very uneven: the central wards of Vạn Thắng, Vạn Thạnh, Phương Sài, Phước Tân, Phước Tiến and Tân Lập reached nearly 15,000 people per km², while the hilly communes of Vĩnh Lương and Phước Đồng had about 320 to 370 people per km²^[1].

Wards and communes

Before its abolition the city had 22 commune-level units, 14 wards and 8 communes, all of them listed in the table below^[1]. The largest units by area were Phước Đồng commune at 56.65 km², Vĩnh Lương at 47.05 km² and Vĩnh Nguyên ward at 42.62 km², which includes the islands; the smallest, Vĩnh Thọ ward, covered 0.67 km²^[1].

Resolution 1667/NQ-UBTVQH15, adopted on 16 June 2025, regrouped these units into four wards, listed in items 49 to 52 of its first article; their governments began operating on 1 July 2025, with no district tier between them and the province^[3].

Science and education

Scientific research in Nha Trang began under French rule with two institutions: the Pasteur Institute, which Vietnamese Wikipedia dates to 1891, and the Fisheries Service of Indochina of 1922, the forerunner of the Institute of Oceanography^[1]. The Pasteur Institute was founded by the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin, who died there on 1 March 1943; a street is named after him and a museum records his work^[7].

Higher education began in 1971 with the Duyên Hải community college; after 1975 the Fisheries University, now Nha Trang University, moved from Hải Phòng, and the Air Force Officer School and the Naval Academy were transferred to the city^[1]. Also in the city are Thái Bình Dương University, Khánh Hòa University, the Institute of Oceanography, the Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals (IVAC) and the Nha Trang observatory of the Vietnam National Space Center^[1]. At school level the city had 116 schools with nearly 68,000 pupils, including 41 primary, 24 lower secondary and 13 upper secondary schools^[1].

Economy

In 2011 the city's GDP per head was 3,184 US dollars, and its economy was divided between industry and construction at 32 percent, tourism and services at 63.77 percent and agriculture at 4.23 percent^[1]. Although it covered only 4.84 percent of the province's area, Nha Trang held more than a third of its population and more than two thirds of its gross domestic product, and it produced 82.5 percent of provincial tourism and service revenue, 42.9 percent of industrial output and 41.7 percent of the fisheries catch^[1].

In 2011 the city received more than 2 million visitors, of whom more than 440,000 were foreign, with an average stay of 2.09 days and tourism revenue of 2,142.9 billion VND^[1]. Exports in 2010 were worth 424 million US dollars, of which seafood accounted for about 215 million, or 50.7 percent^[1]. Industrial output reached 8,107 billion VND in 2011 from 1,694 establishments, led by seafood processing, tobacco, garments and shipbuilding, with 35 export seafood plants in the city^[1].

Transport

Commercial flights moved from the old Nha Trang airfield in the city to Cam Ranh International Airport, which Vietnamese Wikipedia places 35 km to the south and English Wikipedia 28 km to the south^[1][7]. The North-South railway runs 25 km through the city; Nha Trang station stands at km 1314+930 and is served by every passenger and freight train, and a minor station at Lương Sơn lies at km 1302+880^[1].

Nha Trang port in the bay has a depth of 11.8 m at the quay and can receive cargo ships of up to 20,000 DWT and large cruise ships; the city also has a naval port, the Hòn Rớ fishing port with its wholesale seafood market, and tourist piers at Cầu Đá, Phú Quý and Hòn Tre^[1]. National Route 1, the country's main north-south road, passes beside the city^[7].