Vietnam Travel – 8 Popular World Heritage Destinations

Discover the highlights of Vietnam Travel through country’s World Heritage Sites :

1. Ha Long Bay, Quang Niin
2. Complex of Hué Monuments, Thua Thien Hue
3. Hoi An Ancient Town, Quang Nam
4. My Son Sanctuary, Quang Nam
5. Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Ninh Binh
6. Trang An Landscape Complex, Quang Tri
7. Citadel of the Ho Dynasty, Thanh Hoa
8. Central Sector of the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long, Hanoi

1. Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay, in the Gulf of Tonkin, includes some 1,600 islands and islets, forming a spectacular seascape of limestone pillars.

Because of their precipitous nature, most of the islands are uninhabited and unaffected by a human presence. The site’s outstanding scenic beauty is complemented by its great biological interest.

Hạ Long Bay or Halong Bay has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994 and a popular travel destination in Quang Ninh Province. The name Hạ Long means “descending dragon”.

2. Complex of Hue Monuments

The Imperial City is a walled enclosure within the citadel of the city of Hue. Established as the capital of unified Viet Nam in 1802, Hué was not only the political but also the cultural and religious centre under the Nguyen dynasty until 1945.

The Perfume River winds its way through the Capital City, the Imperial City, the Forbidden Purple City and the Inner City, giving this unique feudal capital a setting of great natural beauty.

Hue Monuments contain the palaces that housed the imperial family, as well as shrines, gardens, and villas for mandarins. Constructed in 1803 under Emperor Gia Long as a new capital, it mostly served a ceremonial function during the French colonial period.

After the end of the monarchy in 1945, it suffered heavy damage and neglect during the Indochina Wars through the 1980s

3. Hoi An Ancient Town

Hoi An is a city Quang Nam Province and is noted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999.

Old Town Hoi An, the city’s historic district, is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South-East Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century. Its buildings and its street plan reflect the influences, both indigenous and foreign, that have combined to produce this unique heritage site.

Prominent in the city’s old town is its covered “Temple Bridge”, dating to the 16th–17th century.

4. My Son Sanctuary

My Son (Mỹ Sơn) is a cluster of abandoned and partially ruined Hindu temples in central Vietnam, constructed between the 4th and the 14th century by the Kings of Champa, an Indianized kingdom of the Cham people.

My Son is graphically illustrated by the remains of a series of impressive tower-temples located in a dramatic site that was the religious and political capital of the Champa Kingdom for most of its existence. The temples are in a valley roughly two kilometres wide that is surrounded by two mountain ranges.

My Son is located near the village of Duy Phú, in the administrative district of Duy Xuyên in Quảng Nam Province in Central Vietnam, 69 km southwest of Da Nang.

5. Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park

The Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2003, covered 85,754 hectares. The site covers a total surface area of 123,326 hectares and shares a boundary with the Hin Namno Nature Reserve in the Peoples Democratic Republic of Laos.

The Park’s landscape is formed by limestone plateaux and tropical forests. It features great geological diversity and offers spectacular phenomena, including a large number of caves and underground rivers. The site harbours a high level of biodiversity and many endemic species.

The park is noted for its cave and grotto systems as it is composed of 300 caves and grottos. A 2009 survey brought the total discovered length of the cave system to about 126 km, with many areas still not well explored. Sơn Đoòng Cave, which was discovered in the 2009 survey by British and Vietnamese explorers, is considered the largest cave in the world.

6. Trang An Landscape Complex

Trang An is a scenic area near Ninh Binh province, renowned for its boat cave tours. The site was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014.

Situated near the southern margin of the Red River Delta, the Trang An Landscape Complex is a spectacular landscape of limestone karst peaks permeated with valleys, many of them partly submerged and surrounded by steep, almost vertical cliffs.

Exploration of caves at different altitudes has revealed archaeological traces of human activity over a continuous period of more than 30,000 years.

They illustrate the occupation of these mountains by seasonal hunter-gatherers and how they adapted to major climatic and environmental changes, especially the repeated inundation of the landscape by the sea after the last ice age.

The story of human occupation continues through the Neolithic and Bronze Ages to the historical era. Hoa Lu, the ancient capital of Viet Nam, was strategically established here in the 10th and 11th centuries AD. The property also contains temples, pagodas, paddy-fields and small villages. 

7. Citadel of the Ho Dynasty

The 14th -century Ho Dynasty citadel, built according to the feng shui principles, testifies to the flowering of neo-Confucianism in late 14th century Viet Nam and its spread to other parts of east Asia.

According to these principles it was sited in a landscape of great scenic beauty on an axis joining the Tuong Son and Don Son mountains in a plain between the Ma and Buoi rivers. The citadel buildings represent an outstanding example of a new style of south-east Asian imperial city.

The site is located in Tay Giai commune, Vinh Loc District, in Thanh Hoa Province, in Vietnam’s North Central Coast region

8. Central Sector of the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long

The Thang Long Imperial Citadel was built in the 11th century by the Ly Viet Dynasty, marking the independence of the Dai Viet. It was constructed on the remains of a Chinese fortress dating from the 7th century, on drained land reclaimed from the Red River Delta in Hanoi.

It was the centre of regional political power for almost 13 centuries without interruption. The Imperial Citadel buildings and the remains in the 18 Hoang Dieu Archaeological Site in Hanoi, reflect a unique South-East Asian culture specific to the lower Red River Valley, at the crossroads between influences coming from China in the north and the ancient Kingdom of Champa in the south.

About Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia,. Vietnam borders China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west. It shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea.