Ho Chi Minh City (abbreviated HCMC), also commonly known as Saigon, is the most populous city in Vietnam, with a population of around 9.3 million in 2023. Situated in the Southeast region of Vietnam, the city surrounds the Saigon River and covers about .
Saigon was the capital of French Indochina from 1887 to 1902, and again from 1945 until its cessation in 1954. Following the partition of French Indochina, it became the capital of South Vietnam until the fall of Saigon in 1975. The communist government renamed Saigon in honour of Hồ Chí Minh shortly after the fall of Saigon. Beginning in the 1990s, the city underwent rapid modernisation and expansion, contributing to Vietnam's post-war economic recovery.
It is known for its well-preserved French colonial architecture, vibrant street life, its varied cultural institutions, which include historic landmarks, walking streets, museums and galleries which attracts over 8 million international visitors each year.
Ho Chi Minh City is a major centre for finance, media, technology, education, and transportation. The city generates around a quarter of the country's total GDP, and is home to many multinational companies. It has a Human Development Index of 0.795 (high), ranking second among all municipalities and provinces of Vietnam. Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport, the main airport serving the city, is the busiest airport in the country by passenger traffic, accounting for nearly half of all international arrivals to Vietnam.
Etymology
The first known human habitation of the area was a Cham settlement called Baigaur. The Cambodians then took over the Cham village of Baigaur and renamed it Prey Nokor, a small fishing village. Over time, under the control of the Vietnamese, it was officially renamed Gia Định (), a name that was retained until the time of the French conquest in the 1860s, when it adopted the name , westernized as , although the city was still indicated as on Vietnamese maps written in chữ Hán until at least 1891.
The current name, Ho Chi Minh City, was given after reunification in 1976 to honour Ho Chi Minh. Even today, however, the informal name of remains in daily speech. However, there is a technical difference between the two terms: is commonly used to refer to the city centre in District 1 and the adjacent areas, while Ho Chi Minh City refers to all of its urban and rural districts.
Saigon
The etymology of Saigon is uncertain.
The original toponym behind Sài Gòn, was attested earliest as 柴棍, with two phonograms whose Sino-Vietnamese readings are sài and côn respectively, in Lê Quý Đôn's Phủ biên tạp lục (撫邊雜錄 "Miscellaneous Chronicles of the Pacified Frontier", c. 1776), wherein Lê relates that, in 1674, Cambodian prince Ang Nan was installed as uparaja in 柴棍 (Sài Gòn) by Vietnamese forces.
柴棍 also appears later in Trịnh Hoài Đức's Gia Định thành thông chí (嘉定城通志 "Comprehensive Records about the Gia Định Citadel", c. 1820), Nam quốc địa dư giáo khoa thư (南國地輿教科書 "Textbook on the Geography of the Southern Country", 1908), etc.
Adrien Launay's Histoire de la Mission de Cochinchine (1688−1823), "Documents Historiques II: 1728 - 1771" (1924: 190) cites 1747 documents containing the toponyms: provincia Rai-gon, Rai-gon thong (for *Sài Gòn thượng "Upper Saigon"), & Rai-gon-ha (for *Sài Gòn hạ "Lower Saigon").
It is probably a transcription of Khmer ព្រៃនគរ (Prey Nokôr), or Khmer ព្រៃគរ (Prey Kôr).
The proposal that Sài Gòn is from non-Sino-Vietnamese reading of Chinese 堤岸 tai4 ngon6 (“embankment”, SV: đê ngạn), the Cantonese name of Chợ Lớn, (e.g. by Vương Hồng Sển) has been critiqued as folk-etymological, as: (1) the Vietnamese source Phủ biên tạp lục (albeit written in literary Chinese) was the earliest extant one containing the local toponym's transcription; (2) 堤岸 has variant form 提岸, thus suggesting that both were transcriptions of a local toponym and thus are cognates to, not originals of, Sài Gòn. Saigon is unlikely to be from 堤岸 since in 南國地輿教科書 Nam Quốc địa dư giáo khoa thư, it also lists Chợ Lớn as 𢄂𢀲 separate from 柴棍 Sài Gòn.