Why go
History gives the central sights a useful order. The colonial-era buildings around the old civic centre belong to a different chapter from the Reunification Palace, while Chợ Lớn reflects the city's Chinese-Vietnamese commercial life. Reading these places together explains more than a list of isolated monuments.
The full story
The area around today's city was once a Khmer settlement known as Prey Nokor. Vietnamese settlement increased from the seventeenth century, and Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh established Vietnamese administrative structures here in 1698. The place later became known as Saigon. France captured the city in 1859 and made it the centre of colonial Cochinchina. Civic buildings from that period still shape parts of the central district. In the twentieth century, Saigon became the capital of the State of Vietnam and then the Republic of Vietnam, often called South Vietnam. The city's political role is especially legible at the Reunification Palace. On 30 April 1975, the city came under the control of the Vietnamese People's Army. It was subsequently given the official name Ho Chi Minh City. These changes did not erase older names or neighbourhood identities: Saigon remains widely used, and Chợ Lớn retains a distinctive history within the larger city. A visit can follow the chronology from colonial streets to the palace, then broaden the picture through Chợ Lớn.