Vietnam
/ Ho Chi Minh City / The City
Ho Chi Minh
City is the economic center of Vietnam. Until the reunification
of North and South Vietnam in April 1975 the city's name was Saigon.
The Communist government of Hanoi renamed it in honour of Ho Chi
Minh, the leader of the Communist forces during the Vietnam War.
But the inhabitants
of the city have never quite gotten accustomed to the new name
and thus still prefer the old name, Saigon. In official publications,
however, only Ho Chi Minh City is used.
As the old
name Saigon could not be abolished, the authorities conceded to
a compromise and kept the name Saigon for the center of
Ho Chi Minh City. Therefore the entire city officially is called
Ho Chi Minh City, while the center officially is Saigon.
At the peak
of the Vietnam War the city counted some 4.5 million inhabitants.
After the reunification of Vietnam the Communist masters reduced
the number of inhabitants. However, these measures were by far
not as drastic as the according steps taken by the Khmer
Rouge in Phnom Penh. By 1996, the population of Ho Chi
Minh City has again grown to more than 4 millions.
Saigon and
the Mekong delta were inhabited by the Vietnamese only from the
17th century onwards. Before the arrival of the Vietnamese, the
region was settled by the Khmer (Cambodians).
In 1859 the
French conquered Saigon, and in 1862 they made it the capital
of their colony Cochin China. Saigon was extended
and rebuilt in French style, with broad boulevards and elegant
architecture.
Ho Chi Minh
City is home to a large Chinese minority. As anywhere in the world,
many of the Chinese migrants run their own small businesses. The
name of Saigon's traditional Chinatown is Cholon.
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