Nha Trang

Location and extent

The city occupied the eastern edge of Khanh Hoa province, bounded by Ninh Hòa town to the north, Cam Lâm district to the south, Diên Khánh district to the west and the sea to the east^[1]. It lay 45 km from Cam Ranh, 441 km from Ho Chi Minh City and 1,290 km from Hanoi^[1]. Wikidata places it at 12.245 N, 109.19167 E and links it to OpenStreetMap relation 7081538^[3].

Off the shore lies Nha Trang Bay, a bay of 24,965 ha with 19 islands, of which Hòn Tre (3,250 ha) is the largest and Hòn Nọc (4 ha) the smallest^[13]. The city's own encyclopedia entry gives the bay about 507 km²^[1], a figure that disagrees with the bay article's 249.65 km²^[13]. The city beach runs 6 to 7 km from the mouth of the Cái river to Cầu Đá^[13].

Area and population

Three figures for the area are in circulation. The Vietnamese encyclopedia's infobox gives 254.24 km² while its body text says 251 km²^[1]; the English article gives 254.29 km²^[2]; Wikidata gives 251 km²^[3]. The areas of the 22 units listed for the city sum to 253.59 km²^[1], and the areas of the four successor wards sum to 254.23 km²^{[8][9][10][11]}.

The census of 1 April 2019 counted 422,601 people in 111,898 households across 27 wards and communes, 285,788 of them (67.62 percent) urban and 136,813 (32.38 percent) rural, with 96.75 men per 100 women^[6]. Wikidata carries an older figure of 392,279 for 2015^[3]. The 2024 figure of 502,586^[1] equals the sum of the four new wards' populations at 31 December 2024 (136,118 + 128,239 + 108,065 + 130,164)^{[8][9][10][11]}, giving a density of 1,977 per km²^[1].

History in outline

The land belonged to the Cham principality of Kauthara, whose religious centre was the Po Nagar tower group at the mouth of the Cái river, and passed to the Nguyễn lords in 1653^[1][2]. From 1653 to the mid nineteenth century it was a thinly settled tract called Hà Bạc in Vĩnh Xương district of Diên Khánh prefecture^[1]. A decree of the Governor-General of Indochina of 30 August 1924 made Nha Trang a townlet (centre urbain) formed from the villages of Xương Huân, Phương Câu, Vạn Thạnh, Phương Sài and Phước Hải, and a second decree of 7 May 1937 raised it to a town (commune) with five numbered wards^[1].

The Republic of Vietnam abolished the town on 27 January 1958 (Decree 18-BNV) and re-established it on 22 October 1970 (Decree 132-SL/NV)^[1]. Communist forces took the city on 2 April 1975^[1][2]. On 30 March 1977 Decision 391-CP/QĐ of the Council of Government made it a city and the capital of Phú Khánh province, adding seven communes of the former Vĩnh Xương district^[1]. Khánh Hòa was re-established from Phú Khánh in 1989 with Nha Trang as its capital^[1]. Decision 106/1999/QĐ-TTg of 22 April 1999 recognised it as a class II urban area and Decision 518/QĐ-TTg of 22 April 2009 as a class I urban area under the province^[1][12].

Administration before 2025

At the 2019 census the city had 27 wards and communes^[6]. Resolution 1196/NQ-UBTVQH15 of 28 September 2024, effective 1 November 2024, merged Phương Sơn into Phương Sài, Xương Huân and Vạn Thắng into Vạn Thạnh, and Phước Tiến, Phước Tân and Tân Lập into a new ward named Tân Tiến, leaving 22 units, 14 wards and 8 communes^[5]. That was the composition on 30 June 2025^[1].

The table lists the 22 units, their areas as given in the Vietnamese encyclopedia^[1], and the ward that absorbed each under items 49 to 52 of Resolution 1667/NQ-UBTVQH15^[4].

The four wards since 2025

Resolution 1667/NQ-UBTVQH15 names no areas or populations^[4]. The figures below are those the city's People's Committee put to its council on 24 April 2025^[7] and those the Vietnamese encyclopedia gives for 31 December 2024^{[8][9][10][11]}; the two disagree by 0.01 km² for Bắc Nha Trang (97.03 against 97.04) and Tây Nha Trang (27.88 against 27.89)^[7][9][10]. After the reform Khánh Hòa as a whole had 65 commune-level units, 48 communes, 16 wards and one special zone^[4].

Economy in outline

In 2011 the city's GDP per head was put at 3,184 US dollars, with services and tourism 63.77 percent of output, industry and construction 32 percent and agriculture 4.23 percent^[1]. Holding 4.84 percent of the province's land, the city held more than a third of its population and more than two thirds of its gross product, and produced 82.5 percent of provincial tourism and service revenue and 41.7 percent of its fish catch^[1]. In 2011 it had 455 hotels with nearly 10,000 rooms and received more than 2 million visitors, over 440,000 of them foreign^[1]. Exports in 2010 were 424 million US dollars, about half of it seafood^[1].