Nha Trang Bay

Extent and area

The bay lies between 12°08′33″ and 12°25′18″ N and between 109°07′16″ and 109°14′30″ E according to the Vietnamese Wikipedia article, which draws on a 2018 description by the provincial relic conservation centre^[1]. Its area is given there as 24,965 ha, split into 21,185 ha of water and 3,780 ha of islands^[1]. The provincial party committee's news site repeats the 24,965 ha figure and the 37.8 km² of island land, but gives Hòn Tre 36 km² rather than 32.5 km²^[4].

A second figure circulates. The Vietnamese Wikipedia article on the former city says the bay covers about 507 km² and holds 19 islands, without a footnote^[2]. The larger number would take in a wider sweep of sea; no fetched page explains the difference, and the two are given here as the sources give them.

The sea in the bay averaged 24.7 to 32.9 °C between 2017 and 2020, with a mean salinity of 30 ‰ and turbidity of 1.0 to 3.3 NTU; the shore receives an average of 1,285 mm of rain a year^[1].

The nineteen islands

The fetched sources name the islands only in part. The bay article gives the count, the largest and the smallest^[1]; the former-city article names thirteen: Hòn Tre, Hòn Mun, Hòn Miễu, Hòn Tằm, Hòn Một, Hòn Chồng, Hòn Vợ, Hòn Nội, Hòn Ngoại, Hòn Cau, Hòn Vung, Hòn Rơm and Hòn Nọc^[2]. Hòn Chồng and Hòn Vợ are rock stacks on the mainland shore rather than islands, and Hòn Rùa and Hòn Đỏ, which lie off the northern shore, appear in other pages^[10][9]. No fetched page lists all 19 by name.

Nine of the islands lie inside the marine protected area: Hòn Tre, Hòn Miễu, Hòn Tằm, Hòn Một, Hòn Mun, Hòn Cau, Hòn Vung, Hòn Rơm and Hòn Nọc according to the provincial newspaper in 2012^[5]; the Vietnamese Wikipedia article on the protected area gives the same list but with Hòn Ngọc in place of Hòn Nọc^[6]. The table gives every island a fetched page names, with the area and the ward where a source states one.

Marine protected area

The Hòn Mun Marine Protected Area was launched at a conference on 8 June 2001 and its management board was set up on 18 July 2001; on 12 March 2004 the provincial People's Committee renamed it the Nha Trang Bay Marine Protected Area^[1]. It covers over 16,000 ha, nine islands and the water around them^[1], or about 160 km² of which 38 km² is land and 122 km² sea^[5]. It was Vietnam's first marine conservation project, run by the Ministry of Fisheries, the Khanh Hoa People's Committee and IUCN with money from the Global Environment Facility through the World Bank, the Danish government through DANIDA, IUCN and Vietnamese counterpart funds^[5].

A 2008 planning article recorded that the waters of Hòn Mun and Hòn Nọc formed the core conservation zone, where tourism was to be kept to a minimum, while Hòn Một, Hòn Tre, Hòn Tằm and Trí Nguyên were planned as tourism centres^[16]. The provincial newspaper counted over 350 hard coral species, over 230 reef fish, 112 molluscs, 112 crustaceans, 27 echinoderms, 69 seaweeds and 7 seagrasses in the protected area in 2012^[5].

On 24 June 2022 the Nha Trang City People's Committee announced that swimming and diving at every dive point around Hòn Mun would stop from 27 June 2022, following a conclusion of the provincial Party Committee of 21 June 2022 on the loss of coral there^[15]. On 13 June 2024 the provincial People's Committee allowed pilot diving in four other areas of the bay, north of Hòn Rùa, at an artificial reef off Vĩnh Hòa, north-east of Trí Nguyên and between Bãi Tranh and Bãi Sỏi, while Hòn Mun itself stayed closed^[14].

Biodiversity

The bay article counts over 350 coral species, about 40 per cent of the world's reef-building corals, 528 fish species (of which 176 reef fish and 26 of commercial value), 259 zooplankton taxa in 18 groups, 10 seagrass species (two thirds of Vietnam's total) and 9 mangrove species^[1]. The same page records the loss: coral cover fell from 31.2 per cent to 21.1 per cent between 1994 and 2005, the reef area from 871.5 ha in 2002 to 754.1 ha in 2015, and the area of healthy coral from 665 ha in 1980 to 74 ha in 2019^[1].

The bay's fishery landed 651.3 tonnes worth 32.67 billion VND in 2014, and the collection of lobster seed ran at about 212,000 individuals a year, worth 32.34 billion VND^[1].

Ports and piers

Nha Trang port at Cầu Đá, at the southern end of the city beach, was set up by Decision 432/QĐ_TC of the Ministry of Transport on 9 February 1976 and is sheltered by Hòn Tre, Hòn Miễu and Hòn Tằm^[17]. The Cầu Đá tourist pier beside it, which handled 413 craft (235 speedboats and 178 wooden boats), was closed to tourist traffic by the city People's Committee on 16 May 2020, with the boats moved to the Nha Trang tourist pier in Vĩnh Trường ward^[18]. On 31 July 2022 the Nha Trang Bay Management Board asked the maritime port authority to declare the Cầu Đá inland-waterway pier closed for good^[19].

About 5 million domestic and foreign visitors a year are said to come to the bay^[1].

Administration since 2025

Resolution 1667/NQ-UBTVQH15, adopted by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on 16 June 2025 and in force from that day, merged the wards of Vạn Thạnh, Lộc Thọ, Vĩnh Nguyên, Tân Tiến and Phước Hòa into Nha Trang ward (item 49) and the wards of Vĩnh Hòa, Vĩnh Hải, Vĩnh Phước and Vĩnh Thọ with the communes of Vĩnh Lương and Vĩnh Phương into Bắc Nha Trang ward (item 50); the new wards operate from 1 July 2025^[11]. Bích Đầm on Hòn Tre was in Vĩnh Nguyên ward until then^[12], Trí Nguyên on Hòn Miễu was also in Vĩnh Nguyên and Hòn Rùa in Vĩnh Hòa^[14], and Hòn Đỏ is now in Bắc Nha Trang^[13]. No fetched page states the ward of Hòn Mun, Hòn Tằm or Hòn Một.