Phan Rang-Thap Cham

Name

Phan Rang, Panrang in modern Cham, is a Cham rendering of the Sanskrit Pāṇḍuraṅga, the name of a deity in early Cham belief; it first appears in Cham inscriptions of about the tenth century as Paṅrauṅ or Panrāṅ and was later transcribed into Vietnamese as Phan Rang^[1]. Tháp Chàm, the Cham towers, refers to the Po Klong Garai tower group on the western side of the city^[1]. English Wikipedia records the nickname the land of the towers^[4].

The two names belonged to two settlements: Phan Rang, the old provincial town by the river, and Tháp Chàm, the railway junction near the towers. From 1977 to 1981 they were separate district towns, and the hyphenated name dates from the re-established town of 1981^[1].

Champa and the Nguyen period

Vietnamese Wikipedia traces the place name to the principality of Panduranga, an autonomous territory of Champa dated to 757 with its seat at present-day Phan Rang^[1]. After the fall of the Cham capital Vijaya to Đại Việt in 1471 the Cham withdrew southwards, and Panduranga, with its capital at Băl Cau beside the Phan Rang river, remained the capital of Champa for 142 years, from 1471 to 1613^[1].

In 1697 the Nguyễn lords renamed the territory Thuận Thành, divided into the four đạo of Phan Lang, Long Hương, Phan Lý and Phố Hài, and in 1832 the Nguyễn dynasty ended its autonomy and created the prefectures of Ninh Thuận and Hàm Thuận^[1].

Administrative history

The town of Phan Rang was created by an edict of Emperor Khải Định dated 4 August 1917 and remained the capital of Ninh Thuận until 1976, when Ninh Thuận, Bình Thuận and Bình Tuy were merged into Thuận Hải province; Thuận Hải's capital sat at Phan Rang from February 1976 to March 1977 and then moved to Phan Thiết^[1]. During the Vietnam War the town was the site of the United States Air Force's Phan Rang Air Base^[4].

Decision 124-CP of 27 April 1977 dissolved the town: its six eastern wards became Phan Rang township, the seat of Ninh Hải district, and its three western wards became Tháp Chàm township, the seat of the new An Sơn district^[1]. Decision 45-HĐBT of 1 September 1981 re-established a town under the name Phan Rang-Tháp Chàm, which began operating on 1 January 1982 with nine wards and three communes^[1]. Ninh Thuận province was re-established from Thuận Hải on 1 April 1992 and the town again became its capital^[1].

The town was recognised as a class III urban area by Decision 132/QĐ-BXD of 2 February 2005, and Decree 21/2007/NĐ-CP of 8 February 2007 made it a city with 7,937.56 ha and 162,941 inhabitants in 12 wards and 3 communes^[1]. Decree 08/2008/NĐ-CP of 21 January 2008 created the wards of Mỹ Bình and Mỹ Hải and converted Văn Hải into a ward, leaving 15 wards and 1 commune on 7,889.74 ha with 175,826 inhabitants^[1]. Decision 252/QĐ-TTg of 26 February 2015 recognised the city as a class II urban area^[1].

Resolution 1198/NQ-UBTVQH15 of 28 September 2024, in force from 1 November 2024, merged Mỹ Hương and Tấn Tài wards into Kinh Dinh and Thanh Sơn ward into Phủ Hà, leaving 12 wards and 1 commune^[1]. On 16 June 2025 Resolution 203/2025/QH15 amended the constitution to end district-level government and Resolution 1667/NQ-UBTVQH15 redrew the city as five wards, in operation from 1 July 2025^[1][2].

Geography

The city lay at the centre of the former Ninh Thuận province, 1,380 km from Hanoi, 330 km from Ho Chi Minh City, 105 km from Đà Lạt and 95 km from Nha Trang, bordered by the sea and Phan Rang bay to the east, Ninh Sơn district to the west, Ninh Phước district to the south and Bác Ái and Ninh Hải districts to the north^[1]. Wikidata places it at 11.564 north and 108.989 east^[5], and English Wikipedia gives an elevation of 9 m^[4].

The Cái river of Phan Rang, also called the Dinh river, is 130 km long with a basin of 2,050 km²; its mean flow is 39 m³ per second and its low flow 3.35 to 8.0 m³ per second below the Đa Nhim hydroelectric plant, on whose irrigation releases the dry-season flow from January to July depends, while the flood season runs from September to December^[1]. Most of the city lies on the north bank; only the wards of Bảo An, Đạo Long and Đông Hải lie on the south bank^[1]. The city has 10 km of coastline^[1].

Vietnamese Wikipedia gives the city's area three ways: 79.18 km² with the 2024 project figures, 79.19 km² with the 2019 census, and 7,889.74 ha, that is 78.90 km², in the 2008 boundary decree; no change of boundary is recorded between 2008 and the abolition of the city, so these are successive restatements of one territory rather than different areas^[1].

Population

The figures available come from different sources and definitions. The 2007 decree that created the city recorded 162,941 inhabitants, and the 2008 boundary decree 175,826^[1]. The census of 1 April 2019 counted 167,394 people, 94 percent of them urban, on 79.19 km², a density of 2,114 people per km²^[1]. The reorganisation project of 2024 used a converted population, which counts temporary residents for urban classification, of 207,998 at 31 December 2023 and 245,623 at 31 December 2024^[1]; English Wikipedia gives the same 207,998 for 2023, with 196,459 in the wards and 11,539 in Thành Hải commune^[4]. Statoids lists an estimate of 159,794 for 2003 on 79 km²^[6].

The main ethnic groups are Kinh and Cham^[1]. The city was the most populous unit of Ninh Thuận and, after the merger, one of 16 wards among the 65 commune-level units of the enlarged Khánh Hòa^[2].

The wards of 2025

Items 60 to 64 of Resolution 1667/NQ-UBTVQH15 created five wards from the city's 12 wards and its one commune, together with two units of neighbouring districts: Khánh Hải township of Ninh Hải district joined Văn Hải ward to form Ninh Chử ward, and Nhơn Sơn commune of Ninh Sơn district joined Đô Vinh ward^[2]. Under item 36 part of the old Đông Hải ward went instead to the new Phước Dinh commune with An Hải and Phước Dinh communes^[2].

Economy

Vietnamese Wikipedia, without giving the year, describes trade and services as the leading sector with a production value of more than 20,700 billion VND and a share of 62.3 percent, and retail sales and consumer service revenue of more than 29,026 billion VND^[1]. Industry produced more than 6,862 billion VND, led by frozen shrimp, dried cashew, RS sugar and aloe vera jelly, and construction 3,763 billion VND; the city held the Tháp Chàm industrial cluster and the Thành Hải industrial park^[1]. The same page puts agriculture and fisheries at 8 to 10 percent of the economic structure without giving a production value for them, and the 62.3 percent share does not follow arithmetically from the production values quoted for the other sectors^[1].

Rice and grapes are the main crops, with an annual rice output of more than 30,000 tonnes and Phan Rang grapes used mainly for wine^[1]. Fishing and aquaculture along the 10 km coast, including industrial shrimp farming, are described as important to the local economy^[1].

Cham heritage

The Po Klong Garai tower group on the western edge of the city consists of three towers: the main tower 20.5 m high, the fire tower 9.31 m and the gate tower 8.56 m; it was listed as a national relic in 1979 and later as a special national relic^[1]. The towers are the venue of the annual Katé festival of the Cham Brahmanist community, held in the seventh month of the Cham calendar, which falls between about 25 September and 5 October^[1]. Vietnamese Wikipedia describes the city as the centre of Cham culture in Vietnam^[1].

Transport

National Route 1 and National Route 27 to Đà Lạt and the Central Highlands cross the city, and its bus stations stand in Đài Sơn ward^[1]. Tháp Chàm station on the North-South railway lies at km 1407+630, nearly 93 km south of Nha Trang station and 143.5 km north of Bình Thuận station, on Minh Mạng street in Đô Vinh ward, about 5 km west of the city centre^[1][7].

The station was the lowland terminus of the Tháp Chàm-Đà Lạt rack railway, begun in 1908, completed in 1932 and opened to traffic four years later; almost all of its track was removed after 1975, leaving only the 6.7 km Đà Lạt-Trại Mát section in tourist use^[8]. A pre-feasibility report of 2023 proposed rebuilding the whole 83 km line with 16 stations and stops between January 2025 and June 2029^[8]. The military airfield of Thành Sơn, a class 1 military airport, was included in the national airport master plan for 2021 to 2030^[1].