
{| width=200 align=right border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 1em; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;" |--- |bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan=2|Name |- |Name:||Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh |- |Meaning:||Named after Ho Chi Minh |--- |bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan=2|Geography |- |Region:||Southeast |- |Area:||2,095km² |--- |bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan=2|People |- |Population:||5,387,100 |- |Ethnicities:||Vietnamese people, Overseas Chinese |--- |bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan=2|Location |- |colspan=2| |} Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese language: ''Thành Chí Minh'') is the largest city in Vietnam, located near the delta of the Mekong River. Under the name Prey Nokor (Khmer language: ), it was the main port of Cambodia, before being conquered by the Vietnamese in the 17th century. Under the name Saigon (Vietnamese: ''Sài Gòn''), it was the capital of the French colony of Cochinchina, and later of the independent state of South Vietnam from 1954 to 1976. It is situated on the western bank of the Saigon River. Ho Chi Minh City is located at 10°45' North, 106°40' East (10.75, 106.667). [http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/cntry_files.html] ==Origin of the name== ===Original Khmer name=== The city was known by its original Khmer inhabitants as Prey Nokor (). Prey Nokor means "forest city", or "forest land" in Khmer language (Prey = "forest"; Nokor = "city, land", from Sanskrit ''nagara''). The name Prey Nokor is still the name used in Cambodia today, as well as the name used by the Khmer Krom minority living in the delta of the Mekong. ===Traditional Vietnamese name=== After Prey Nokor was settled by Vietnamese refugees from the north, in time it became known as Sài Gòn. There is much debate about the origins of the Vietnamese name Sài Gòn, whose etymology is analyzed below. It should be noted, however, that before the French colonization, the official Vietnamese name of Saigon was (chu nom: 嘉定). In 1862, the French discarded this official name and adopted the name "Saigon", which had always been the popular name. From an orthographic point of view, the Vietnamese name Sài Gòn is written in two syllables, which is the traditional convention in Vietnamese spelling. Some people, however, write the name of the city as SàiGòn or Sàigòn in order to save space or give it a more westernized look. ====Sino-Vietnamese etymology==== A frequently heard etymology is that Sài is a Chinese loan word (Chinese language: 柴, pronounced in Standard Mandarin) meaning "firewood, lops, twigs; palisade", while Gòn is another Chinese loan word (Chinese: 棍, pronounced gùn in Mandarin) meaning "stick, pole, bole", and whose meaning evolved into "cotton" in Vietnamese (''bông gòn'', literally "cotton stick", i.e. "cotton plant", then shortened to ''gòn''). Some people say that this name originated from the many cotton plants that the Khmers had planted around Prey Nokor, and which can still be seen at Cây Mai temple and surrounding areas. … ::Truong Vinh Ky, "Souvenirs historiques sur Saigon et ses environs", in ''Excursions et Reconnaissances'', Imprimerie Coloniale, Saigon, 1885. Another explanation is that the etymological meaning "twigs" (Sài) & "boles" (Gòn) refers to the dense and tall forest once existing around Saigon, a forest to which the Khmer name Prey Nokor already referred. It should be noted that Chinese people both in Vietnam and in China do not use the name 柴棍 (pronounced Chaai-Gwan in Cantonese (linguistics) and Cháigùn in Standard Mandarin), although etymologically speaking it is the Chinese name from which the Vietnamese name Sài Gòn is derived (if the theory here is correct). Instead, they call the city 西貢 (pronounced Sai-Gung in Cantonese and in Mandarin), which is a mere phonetic transliteration of the name "Saigon". ====Khmer etymology==== Another etymology often proposed is that "Saigon" comes from "Sai Con", which would be the transliteration of the Khmer word ''prey kor'' () meaning "forest of kapok trees" (''prey'' = forest; ''kor'' = kapok tree). The Khmer word ''prey kor'' should not be confused with the Khmer name "Prey Nokor" discussed above (''kor'' is a Khmer word meaning "kapok tree", while ''nokor'' is a Khmer word of Sanskrit origin meaning "city, land"). This Khmer etymology theory is quite interesting given the Khmer context that existed when the first Vietnamese settlers arrived in the region. However, it fails to completely explain how Khmer "''prey''" led to Vietnamese "Sài", since these two syllables appear phonetically quite distinct. ====Cantonese etymology==== A less likely etymology was offered by Vuong Hong Sen, a Vietnamese scholar in the early 20th century, who asserted that ''Sài Gòn'' had its origins in the Cantonese name of Cholon (Vietnamese: quoc ngu ; chu nom ) , the Chinese district of Saigon. The Cantonese (and original) name of Cholon is "Tai-Ngon" (堤岸), which means "embankment" (French: ''quais''). The theory posits that "Sài Gòn" derives from "Tai-Ngon". ===Current Vietnamese name=== On May 1, 1975, after the fall of South Vietnam, the now ruling communist government named the city after the pseudonym of their beloved leader Ho Chi Minh (chu nom: 胡志明). The official name is now ''Thành Chí Minh'', often abbreviated TPHCM. In English this is translated as Ho Chi Minh City, abbreviated HCMC, and in French language it is translated as Hô Chi Minh Ville (the circumflex is sometimes omitted), abbreviated HCMV. Still, the old name Sài Gòn/Saigon is widely used by Vietnamese and is found in company names or on book titles. ==History== Ho Chi Minh City began as a small fishing village known as Prey Nokor. The area that the city now occupies was originally swamp , and was inhabited by Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese. It grew to become a trading post and the main port of the Kingdom of Cambodia. In 1623, King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia (1618-1628) allowed Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trinh-Nguyen civil war in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor, and to set up a custom house at Prey Nokor. Increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers, which the weakened Cambodian kingdom could not impede, slowly vietnamized the area. In time, Prey Nokor became known as Saigon. In 1698, Nguyen Phuc Chu, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyen rulers of Hue (city) to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the area, thus detaching the area from Cambodia, which was not strong enough to intervene. He is often credited with the expansion of Saigon into a significant settlement. Conquered by France in 1859, the city was influenced by the French during their colonial occupation of Vietnam, and a number of prominent buildings in the city reflect this. In 1954, the French were defeated by the Communist Viet Minh in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and withdrew from Vietnam. Rather than recognise the Communists as the new government, however, they gave their backing to a government established by Emperor Bao Dai. Bao Dai had set up Saigon as his capital in 1950. When Vietnam was officially partitioned into North Vietnam (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (the Republic of Vietnam), the southern government, led by President Ngo Dinh Diem, retained Saigon as its capital. At the conclusion of the Vietnam War in 1975, the city came under the control of the North Vietnamese Army and its allies. In the United States this event is commonly called the "Fall of Saigon," while in Vietnam it is called the "Fall of Saigon." In 1976, upon establishment of the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the victorious Communists renamed the city after socialist Vietnam's founding father, Ho Chi Minh. The former name ''Saigon'' is still used by most Vietnamese, especially in informal contexts. Officially, the term ''Saigon'' refers only to District One of Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City is home to a well-established ethnic Chinese population. The Cholon, Ho Chi Minh City district serves as its Chinatown. ==Government== Ho Chi Minh City is a municipality that exists at the same level as Provinces of Vietnam . As such, it has a similar political structure to provinces, with a People's Council and a People's Committee being the principle administrative entities. The municipality is divided into twenty-two districts. Five of these are designated as rural districts, covering the farmland around the city which is included in the municipality's official boundaries. These districts are named Nha Be, Can Gio, Hoc Mon, Cu Chi, and Binh Chanh. The remaining seventeen districts are found in the city itself. Only five of the urban districts have names (Tan Binh, Binh Thanh, Phu Nhuan, Thu Duc, and Go Vap) - the remainder are simply numbered from one to twelve. ==Demographics== The population of Ho Chi Minh City (as of 2003) is believed to be around 6 million, making it the most populous city in the country. It is also the most populous of Vietnam's province-level administrative units. Ethnically, the majority of the population is either Vietnamese (''Kinh'') or Hoa (overseas Chinese), although people from other List of ethnic groups in Vietnam have also moved to the city. ==Medical== Medical care is limited and usually of poor quality. Medical facilities usually require cash payment for medical treatment. The following medical facilities are located in Ho Chi Minh City: *Ho Chi Minh Family Practice *Columbia Asia International Healthcare *Columbia-Gia Dinh International Clinic ==Transportation== Tan Son Nhat Airport is located 4 mi/7 km north of Ho Chi Minh City. Taxi and bus services are available for travel from and to the airport and within the city. Buses, however, are generally in poor condition, making them unsafe to ride. While most of the city's taxis are metered and usually in good condition, very few drivers speak English (although some older drivers may speak French). Some drivers refuse to use their meters in order to obtain a higher fare. In July 2000, reports emerged that armed men were stopping taxis in Ho Chi Minh City and robbing passengers. There have not been any recent reports of such criminal activity. Visitors should not use motorcycle taxis (cyclos) or three-wheeled cabs (pedicabs) as they leave passengers vulnerable.; Ho Chi Minh City's transportation system is in poor condition, and many of its streets are riddled with potholes. This is especially true in the city's numerous back streets and alleyways, which are sometimes little more than dirt paths. Visitors should consider the city's streets dangerous due to motorists' general disregard for pedestrians and the constant presence of thousands of motorbikes on the roads. However, drivers adhere strictly to Vietnam's driving laws for fear of punishment. Visitors should note that they must obtain a Vietnamese driver's license should they wish to drive in Vietnam as an International Driver's License is not accepted. Vietnam Airlines is the national carrier of Vietnam. The airline currently operates a modern fleet of Western-built aircraft, but suffered several fatal mishaps prior to phasing out its aging Russian-built fleet. The airline has experienced numerous hijackings, all but one of which occurred during Vietnam's civil war. The most recent occurred in 1992, and did not result in any injuries. ==External link== * [http://www.hochiminhcity.gov.vn/ Official website] (in Vietnamese and English) * [http://www.amchamvietnam.com American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam] (Ho Chi Minh City) Cities in Vietnam ga:Cathair Ho Chi Minh vi:Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh
210.49.196.xxx: "Fall of Saigon" is a phrase that's often bandied about at least in the United States, which is why I ''emphasised'' it as we normally do for a secondary definition. (This way, anybody trying to understand that particular phrase will be able to find it easily, especially important as the page grows.) Do you think that this is wrong? — User:Toby Bartels 16:44 Aug 5, 2002 (PDT) Sorry i just didn't understand what it was for! My bad sorry! -- 210.49.196.xxx No problem ^_^. — User:Toby Bartels 19:11 Aug 5, 2002 (PDT) ---- Should this page really be under Ho Chi Minh City - it is still far more commonly called Saigon - even by the locals. ---- Ho Chi Minh City is the official and legal name, and the article ought to reflect that. I edited a reference to Ho Chi Minh as well. He was not only a communist leader, but also leader of the anti-colonial fighting against France, Japan and then France again. User: EdwinHJ == photo of South Vietnamese flag == This photo was added by User:Jimmyvanthach. It shows a South Vietnamese flag and has little relevance to the article, rather it seems to be that Jimmy is pushing his POV. User:Duncharris|User talk:duncharris 12:39, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC) ==Page move?== This page should move to Saigon. Wikipedia is supposed to use common names. - User:Nat KrauseUser_Talk:Nat Krause 07:16, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC) Ho Chi Minh City is the official name. Saigon is the old name, even if it is commonly refered to between Vietnamese, the only reason is because it is shorter. To refer to Ho Chi Minh city as Saigon just because it is common is ridiculous, after all, this is a kind of encyclopedia, and encyclopedia means to be correct to its best. New Zealander call themselves Kiwi, do you just add a link to Kiwi referring to New Zealander instead of the bird itself? :If Saigon is commonly used by Vietnamese and other people, then it is not "the old name". By "official name", I take you are referring to what the government of Vietnam says it should be called. However, Wikipedia has a policy to "Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Use_common_names_of_persons_and_things" -- it does not have a policy of "Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Go by what the government says". - User:Nat KrauseUser_Talk:Nat Krause 04:16, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC) So it is Wikipedia policy?? Then why didn't you move the page about Ho Chi Minh to uncle Ho and have Ho Chi Minh redirect to uncle Ho instead?? More than 10 years in Vietnam, I've never heard anybody call him "Ho Chi Minh", everybody call him "uncle Ho" (although in all official documents and media he is refered to as "president Ho Chi Minh"). Why didn't you just move United States redirect to U.S instead of making U.S redirect to United States? As far as I'm concern, US and America is being used more commonly than United States. Searching for [http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/search.aspx?q=Saigon&Submit2=Go Saigon on Encarta], they prefer precision to common. Wikipedia is very weird because it prefer common to precision. What that Wikipedia's policy of using the most common name possible mean is questionable. I would think it means to use the name that people will most likely used on the search box. In this case, I don't think people will search for Saigon instead of the official name Ho Chi Minh city. :This isn't really an issue of precision. There is only one city called Saigon, just as there is only one famous person called Jimmy Carter. It might be an issue of formality. If Ho Chi Minh was almost always called "Uncle Ho" in English, then we might have his article under Uncle Ho, although I would worry that it is a little on the informal side. After all, we have an article called Mother Theresa. :And I think it is very unlikely that "Ho Chi Minh City" will be searched for more than "Saigon". - User:Nat KrauseUser_Talk:Nat Krause 13:57, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) ==Re-moved to Ho Chi Minh City== The city is names Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh in Vietnamese. Not Saigon, that was the previous name. Compare it with Sankt Peterburg and Leningrad or other cities that changed their names. If we follow the naming conventions it is the question do we use the native name ''Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh'' or the English translation ''Ho Chi Minh City''. I would clearly prefer the latter one, it is not common tu use in English the native name. Saigon is not an option, this the old name of the city. One cannot compare this with discussions like Gdansk/Danzig, Kiyiv/Kiev or Beijing/Peking, since there it is about the translation or romanization of the name. Since there was no clear majority for the move to Saigon, I reverted the move. User:Wilfried Derksen 12:43, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) :In what sense is "Saigon" the previous name? It's still the name that is in common usage, especially in English, but also in Vietnamese. By the way, is there a clear majority for having the page at Ho Chi Minh City? - User:Nat KrauseUser_Talk:Nat Krause 13:57, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::In the Netherlands Amsterdam is named by many people Mokum. But it is now way the name of the city. The name of Saigon was changed after the collapse of South Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City. It is the official name. That many people still name it Saigon doesn't make it the city name. I do not know if there is a clear majority for the name Ho Chi Minh city, but you moved it to an old name without having the debate on the talk page. So therefore I reverted it to the old status. I looked some minutes ago in my english atlases and they mention Ho Chi Minh City with Saigon between brackets. ::BTW, I do not like cities to be named after communist dictators, but is the fact that the government of Vietnam did so. User:Wilfried Derksen 21:05, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Chu Nom == I have removed the mention to the so-called "chu nom" characters of the city. The "chu nom" in this case is nothing more than Chinese. First of all, the name "Ho Chi Minh City" has been in use only since 1976, so including a Chinese name for a Vietnamese city is absurd. Secondly even if there is a Chinese name for Saigon, it should only be included in the etymology section since this is a Vietnamese city, not a Chinese one. User:DHN 02:16, 6 May 2005 (UTC) == Etymology of Saigon == I am quite sceptical about this: "gòn, from the Chu Nom character for the cotton plant". Acccording to the online Chu Nom dictionary [http://nomfoundation.org/nomdb/lookup.php], the only gòn is 棍 which means stick, staff, but not cotton. Cotton, on the other hand, is Chu Nom 綿, pronounced either miên, men, or . So I believe the article is wrong on that, unless someone has an explanation to offer. User:Hardouin 15:40, 23 May 2005 (UTC) :As a native Vietnamese speaker, I can vouch that ''gòn'' is the Vietnamese word for "cotton" [http://vdict.com/?dictionary=2&word=g%C3%B2n&typings=-1&quickm=0&autoc=0&liststring=&submit2=Lookup]. The Nom lookup tool's context for the word is "bông gòn", which is "cotton-wool". The character given by the tool, when translated back to Vietnamese from Chinese, is pronounced ''côn'', ''gon'', or ''gòn''[http://nomfoundation.org/nomdb/nom_details.php?codepoint=68cd&img=1], which are mostly similar to ''gòn''. Remember that Nom was never formalized, and since gòn is a native Vietnamese word, they had to make up a new character that sounds like the word. User:DHN 04:07, 24 May 2005 (UTC) I checked this in detail, and I understand that the native Vietnamese word for cotton is "bông". Maybe "bông" is a cognate of the Khmer word "amboh", which would make sense since Vietnamese and Khmer are related languages. On the other hand, gòn is definitely a Chinese word (棍, pronounced gùn in Mandarin), and it means "stick". From what I understand, the native Vietnamese word bông and the Chinese loan word gòn were used together, in the sense of "cotton stick", i.e. "cotton plant", and it is probable that later, by contraction, "gòn" alone came to be understood as meaning "cotton", which is why as a native Vietnamese speaker you say it means cotton. However, the original meaning of gòn is clearly "stick". The article needs to be rephrased accordingly. User:Hardouin 02:02, 25 May 2005 (UTC) :You may be right. However, in my experience, ''bông'' is mostly used in the sense of "flower" except in certain complex words where it means "cotton" (chăn bông = cotton blanket). User:DHN 02:13, 25 May 2005 (UTC) Well, according to the online Vietnamese dictionary, bông is the standard word for cotton in Vietnamese [http://vdict.com/1,cotton,-1,0,0,.html]. Maybe in the particular region of Vietnam where your family come from, the word gòn is favored, I don't know. In any case, I am rewriting the etymology section to better reflect the etymology of gòn. You tell me if you like it. User:Hardouin 11:16, 25 May 2005 (UTC) == Sàigòn? == I've rarely seen the city name being called Sàigòn in Vietnamese. The only usage of it I've seen are "SàiGòn" (to save space) or among certain groups of people who want to "modernize" the language and make it more "Westernized" [http://vny2k.net/]. The French called it Saigon and the Vietnamese called it Sài Gòn. Before the French arrived (but after it was Vietnamized), I think the city name was written with Chinese characters, so the spelling of Sàigòn is moot. User:DHN 02:20, 25 May 2005 (UTC) :According to the Vietnamese Google, there are 471,000 webpages with the spelling Sài Gòn, but only 8,940 webpages with the spelling Sàigòn. So I think that settles the matter. I am reverting to the Sài Gòn spelling in the article. User:Hardouin 11:11, 25 May 2005 (UTC) ::I wouldn't call the "Sài Gòn" way "traditional". I've seen it written as "Sài-gòn" in pre-1975 documents in southern Vietnam. There's no one way of writing quốc ngữ that can be considered traditional. I've seen what is now "ph" written as "f" and "c" as "k" in propaganda posters circa 1946. Vietnamese spelling have changed considerably since the beginning of the 20th century, when it was new. Ho Chi Minh's 1927 pamphlet "Đường Kách Mệnh" (Road to Revolution) would be written as "Đường Cách Mạng" in modern Vietnamese. User:DHN 05:35, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
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{| width=200 align=right border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 1em; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;" |--- |bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan=2|Name |- |Name:||Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh |- |Meaning:||Named after Ho Chi Minh |--- |bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan=2|Geography |- |Region:||Southeast |- |Area:||2,095km² |--- |bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan=2|People |- |Population:||5,387,100 |- |Ethnicities:||Vietnamese people, Overseas Chinese |--- |bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan=2|Location |- |colspan=2| |} Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese language: ''Thành Chí Minh'') is the largest city in Vietnam, located near the delta of the Mekong River. Under the name Prey Nokor (Khmer language: ), it was the main port of Cambodia, before being conquered by the Vietnamese in the 17th century. Under the name Saigon (Vietnamese: ''Sài Gòn''), it was the capital of the French colony of Cochinchina, and later of the independent state of South Vietnam from 1954 to 1976. It is situated on the western bank of the Saigon River. Ho Chi Minh City is located at 10°45' North, 106°40' East (10.75, 106.667). [http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/cntry_files.html] ==Origin of the name== ===Original Khmer name=== The city was known by its original Khmer inhabitants as Prey Nokor (). Prey Nokor means "forest city", or "forest land" in Khmer language (Prey = "forest"; Nokor = "city, land", from Sanskrit ''nagara''). The name Prey Nokor is still the name used in Cambodia today, as well as the name used by the Khmer Krom minority living in the delta of the Mekong. ===Traditional Vietnamese name=== After Prey Nokor was settled by Vietnamese refugees from the north, in time it became known as Sài Gòn. There is much debate about the origins of the Vietnamese name Sài Gòn, whose etymology is analyzed below. It should be noted, however, that before the French colonization, the official Vietnamese name of Saigon was (chu nom: 嘉定). In 1862, the French discarded this official name and adopted the name "Saigon", which had always been the popular name. From an orthographic point of view, the Vietnamese name Sài Gòn is written in two syllables, which is the traditional convention in Vietnamese spelling. Some people, however, write the name of the city as SàiGòn or Sàigòn in order to save space or give it a more westernized look. ====Sino-Vietnamese etymology==== A frequently heard etymology is that Sài is a Chinese loan word (Chinese language: 柴, pronounced in Standard Mandarin) meaning "firewood, lops, twigs; palisade", while Gòn is another Chinese loan word (Chinese: 棍, pronounced gùn in Mandarin) meaning "stick, pole, bole", and whose meaning evolved into "cotton" in Vietnamese (''bông gòn'', literally "cotton stick", i.e. "cotton plant", then shortened to ''gòn''). Some people say that this name originated from the many cotton plants that the Khmers had planted around Prey Nokor, and which can still be seen at Cây Mai temple and surrounding areas. … ::Truong Vinh Ky, "Souvenirs historiques sur Saigon et ses environs", in ''Excursions et Reconnaissances'', Imprimerie Coloniale, Saigon, 1885. Another explanation is that the etymological meaning "twigs" (Sài) & "boles" (Gòn) refers to the dense and tall forest once existing around Saigon, a forest to which the Khmer name Prey Nokor already referred. It should be noted that Chinese people both in Vietnam and in China do not use the name 柴棍 (pronounced Chaai-Gwan in Cantonese (linguistics) and Cháigùn in Standard Mandarin), although etymologically speaking it is the Chinese name from which the Vietnamese name Sài Gòn is derived (if the theory here is correct). Instead, they call the city 西貢 (pronounced Sai-Gung in Cantonese and in Mandarin), which is a mere phonetic transliteration of the name "Saigon". ====Khmer etymology==== Another etymology often proposed is that "Saigon" comes from "Sai Con", which would be the transliteration of the Khmer word ''prey kor'' () meaning "forest of kapok trees" (''prey'' = forest; ''kor'' = kapok tree). The Khmer word ''prey kor'' should not be confused with the Khmer name "Prey Nokor" discussed above (''kor'' is a Khmer word meaning "kapok tree", while ''nokor'' is a Khmer word of Sanskrit origin meaning "city, land"). This Khmer etymology theory is quite interesting given the Khmer context that existed when the first Vietnamese settlers arrived in the region. However, it fails to completely explain how Khmer "''prey''" led to Vietnamese "Sài", since these two syllables appear phonetically quite distinct. ====Cantonese etymology==== A less likely etymology was offered by Vuong Hong Sen, a Vietnamese scholar in the early 20th century, who asserted that ''Sài Gòn'' had its origins in the Cantonese name of Cholon (Vietnamese: quoc ngu ; chu nom ) , the Chinese district of Saigon. The Cantonese (and original) name of Cholon is "Tai-Ngon" (堤岸), which means "embankment" (French: ''quais''). The theory posits that "Sài Gòn" derives from "Tai-Ngon". ===Current Vietnamese name=== On May 1, 1975, after the fall of South Vietnam, the now ruling communist government named the city after the pseudonym of their beloved leader Ho Chi Minh (chu nom: 胡志明). The official name is now ''Thành Chí Minh'', often abbreviated TPHCM. In English this is translated as Ho Chi Minh City, abbreviated HCMC, and in French language it is translated as Hô Chi Minh Ville (the circumflex is sometimes omitted), abbreviated HCMV. Still, the old name Sài Gòn/Saigon is widely used by Vietnamese and is found in company names or on book titles. ==History== Ho Chi Minh City began as a small fishing village known as Prey Nokor. The area that the city now occupies was originally swamp , and was inhabited by Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese. It grew to become a trading post and the main port of the Kingdom of Cambodia. In 1623, King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia (1618-1628) allowed Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trinh-Nguyen civil war in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor, and to set up a custom house at Prey Nokor. Increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers, which the weakened Cambodian kingdom could not impede, slowly vietnamized the area. In time, Prey Nokor became known as Saigon. In 1698, Nguyen Phuc Chu, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyen rulers of Hue (city) to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the area, thus detaching the area from Cambodia, which was not strong enough to intervene. He is often credited with the expansion of Saigon into a significant settlement. Conquered by France in 1859, the city was influenced by the French during their colonial occupation of Vietnam, and a number of prominent buildings in the city reflect this. In 1954, the French were defeated by the Communist Viet Minh in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and withdrew from Vietnam. Rather than recognise the Communists as the new government, however, they gave their backing to a government established by Emperor Bao Dai. Bao Dai had set up Saigon as his capital in 1950. When Vietnam was officially partitioned into North Vietnam (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (the Republic of Vietnam), the southern government, led by President Ngo Dinh Diem, retained Saigon as its capital. At the conclusion of the Vietnam War in 1975, the city came under the control of the North Vietnamese Army and its allies. In the United States this event is commonly called the "Fall of Saigon," while in Vietnam it is called the "Fall of Saigon." In 1976, upon establishment of the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the victorious Communists renamed the city after socialist Vietnam's founding father, Ho Chi Minh. The former name ''Saigon'' is still used by most Vietnamese, especially in informal contexts. Officially, the term ''Saigon'' refers only to District One of Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City is home to a well-established ethnic Chinese population. The Cholon, Ho Chi Minh City district serves as its Chinatown. ==Government== Ho Chi Minh City is a municipality that exists at the same level as Provinces of Vietnam . As such, it has a similar political structure to provinces, with a People's Council and a People's Committee being the principle administrative entities. The municipality is divided into twenty-two districts. Five of these are designated as rural districts, covering the farmland around the city which is included in the municipality's official boundaries. These districts are named Nha Be, Can Gio, Hoc Mon, Cu Chi, and Binh Chanh. The remaining seventeen districts are found in the city itself. Only five of the urban districts have names (Tan Binh, Binh Thanh, Phu Nhuan, Thu Duc, and Go Vap) - the remainder are simply numbered from one to twelve. ==Demographics== The population of Ho Chi Minh City (as of 2003) is believed to be around 6 million, making it the most populous city in the country. It is also the most populous of Vietnam's province-level administrative units. Ethnically, the majority of the population is either Vietnamese (''Kinh'') or Hoa (overseas Chinese), although people from other List of ethnic groups in Vietnam have also moved to the city. ==Medical== Medical care is limited and usually of poor quality. Medical facilities usually require cash payment for medical treatment. The following medical facilities are located in Ho Chi Minh City: *Ho Chi Minh Family Practice *Columbia Asia International Healthcare *Columbia-Gia Dinh International Clinic ==Transportation== Tan Son Nhat Airport is located 4 mi/7 km north of Ho Chi Minh City. Taxi and bus services are available for travel from and to the airport and within the city. Buses, however, are generally in poor condition, making them unsafe to ride. While most of the city's taxis are metered and usually in good condition, very few drivers speak English (although some older drivers may speak French). Some drivers refuse to use their meters in order to obtain a higher fare. In July 2000, reports emerged that armed men were stopping taxis in Ho Chi Minh City and robbing passengers. There have not been any recent reports of such criminal activity. Visitors should not use motorcycle taxis (cyclos) or three-wheeled cabs (pedicabs) as they leave passengers vulnerable.; Ho Chi Minh City's transportation system is in poor condition, and many of its streets are riddled with potholes. This is especially true in the city's numerous back streets and alleyways, which are sometimes little more than dirt paths. Visitors should consider the city's streets dangerous due to motorists' general disregard for pedestrians and the constant presence of thousands of motorbikes on the roads. However, drivers adhere strictly to Vietnam's driving laws for fear of punishment. Visitors should note that they must obtain a Vietnamese driver's license should they wish to drive in Vietnam as an International Driver's License is not accepted. Vietnam Airlines is the national carrier of Vietnam. The airline currently operates a modern fleet of Western-built aircraft, but suffered several fatal mishaps prior to phasing out its aging Russian-built fleet. The airline has experienced numerous hijackings, all but one of which occurred during Vietnam's civil war. The most recent occurred in 1992, and did not result in any injuries. ==External link== * [http://www.hochiminhcity.gov.vn/ Official website] (in Vietnamese and English) * [http://www.amchamvietnam.com American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam] (Ho Chi Minh City) Cities in Vietnam ga:Cathair Ho Chi Minh vi:Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh
Ho Chi Minh City
210.49.196.xxx: "Fall of Saigon" is a phrase that's often bandied about at least in the United States, which is why I ''emphasised'' it as we normally do for a secondary definition. (This way, anybody trying to understand that particular phrase will be able to find it easily, especially important as the page grows.) Do you think that this is wrong? — User:Toby Bartels 16:44 Aug 5, 2002 (PDT) Sorry i just didn't understand what it was for! My bad sorry! -- 210.49.196.xxx No problem ^_^. — User:Toby Bartels 19:11 Aug 5, 2002 (PDT) ---- Should this page really be under Ho Chi Minh City - it is still far more commonly called Saigon - even by the locals. ---- Ho Chi Minh City is the official and legal name, and the article ought to reflect that. I edited a reference to Ho Chi Minh as well. He was not only a communist leader, but also leader of the anti-colonial fighting against France, Japan and then France again. User: EdwinHJ == photo of South Vietnamese flag == This photo was added by User:Jimmyvanthach. It shows a South Vietnamese flag and has little relevance to the article, rather it seems to be that Jimmy is pushing his POV. User:Duncharris|User talk:duncharris 12:39, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC) ==Page move?== This page should move to Saigon. Wikipedia is supposed to use common names. - User:Nat KrauseUser_Talk:Nat Krause 07:16, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC) Ho Chi Minh City is the official name. Saigon is the old name, even if it is commonly refered to between Vietnamese, the only reason is because it is shorter. To refer to Ho Chi Minh city as Saigon just because it is common is ridiculous, after all, this is a kind of encyclopedia, and encyclopedia means to be correct to its best. New Zealander call themselves Kiwi, do you just add a link to Kiwi referring to New Zealander instead of the bird itself? :If Saigon is commonly used by Vietnamese and other people, then it is not "the old name". By "official name", I take you are referring to what the government of Vietnam says it should be called. However, Wikipedia has a policy to "Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Use_common_names_of_persons_and_things" -- it does not have a policy of "Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Go by what the government says". - User:Nat KrauseUser_Talk:Nat Krause 04:16, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC) So it is Wikipedia policy?? Then why didn't you move the page about Ho Chi Minh to uncle Ho and have Ho Chi Minh redirect to uncle Ho instead?? More than 10 years in Vietnam, I've never heard anybody call him "Ho Chi Minh", everybody call him "uncle Ho" (although in all official documents and media he is refered to as "president Ho Chi Minh"). Why didn't you just move United States redirect to U.S instead of making U.S redirect to United States? As far as I'm concern, US and America is being used more commonly than United States. Searching for [http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/search.aspx?q=Saigon&Submit2=Go Saigon on Encarta], they prefer precision to common. Wikipedia is very weird because it prefer common to precision. What that Wikipedia's policy of using the most common name possible mean is questionable. I would think it means to use the name that people will most likely used on the search box. In this case, I don't think people will search for Saigon instead of the official name Ho Chi Minh city. :This isn't really an issue of precision. There is only one city called Saigon, just as there is only one famous person called Jimmy Carter. It might be an issue of formality. If Ho Chi Minh was almost always called "Uncle Ho" in English, then we might have his article under Uncle Ho, although I would worry that it is a little on the informal side. After all, we have an article called Mother Theresa. :And I think it is very unlikely that "Ho Chi Minh City" will be searched for more than "Saigon". - User:Nat KrauseUser_Talk:Nat Krause 13:57, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) ==Re-moved to Ho Chi Minh City== The city is names Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh in Vietnamese. Not Saigon, that was the previous name. Compare it with Sankt Peterburg and Leningrad or other cities that changed their names. If we follow the naming conventions it is the question do we use the native name ''Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh'' or the English translation ''Ho Chi Minh City''. I would clearly prefer the latter one, it is not common tu use in English the native name. Saigon is not an option, this the old name of the city. One cannot compare this with discussions like Gdansk/Danzig, Kiyiv/Kiev or Beijing/Peking, since there it is about the translation or romanization of the name. Since there was no clear majority for the move to Saigon, I reverted the move. User:Wilfried Derksen 12:43, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) :In what sense is "Saigon" the previous name? It's still the name that is in common usage, especially in English, but also in Vietnamese. By the way, is there a clear majority for having the page at Ho Chi Minh City? - User:Nat KrauseUser_Talk:Nat Krause 13:57, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::In the Netherlands Amsterdam is named by many people Mokum. But it is now way the name of the city. The name of Saigon was changed after the collapse of South Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City. It is the official name. That many people still name it Saigon doesn't make it the city name. I do not know if there is a clear majority for the name Ho Chi Minh city, but you moved it to an old name without having the debate on the talk page. So therefore I reverted it to the old status. I looked some minutes ago in my english atlases and they mention Ho Chi Minh City with Saigon between brackets. ::BTW, I do not like cities to be named after communist dictators, but is the fact that the government of Vietnam did so. User:Wilfried Derksen 21:05, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Chu Nom == I have removed the mention to the so-called "chu nom" characters of the city. The "chu nom" in this case is nothing more than Chinese. First of all, the name "Ho Chi Minh City" has been in use only since 1976, so including a Chinese name for a Vietnamese city is absurd. Secondly even if there is a Chinese name for Saigon, it should only be included in the etymology section since this is a Vietnamese city, not a Chinese one. User:DHN 02:16, 6 May 2005 (UTC) == Etymology of Saigon == I am quite sceptical about this: "gòn, from the Chu Nom character for the cotton plant". Acccording to the online Chu Nom dictionary [http://nomfoundation.org/nomdb/lookup.php], the only gòn is 棍 which means stick, staff, but not cotton. Cotton, on the other hand, is Chu Nom 綿, pronounced either miên, men, or . So I believe the article is wrong on that, unless someone has an explanation to offer. User:Hardouin 15:40, 23 May 2005 (UTC) :As a native Vietnamese speaker, I can vouch that ''gòn'' is the Vietnamese word for "cotton" [http://vdict.com/?dictionary=2&word=g%C3%B2n&typings=-1&quickm=0&autoc=0&liststring=&submit2=Lookup]. The Nom lookup tool's context for the word is "bông gòn", which is "cotton-wool". The character given by the tool, when translated back to Vietnamese from Chinese, is pronounced ''côn'', ''gon'', or ''gòn''[http://nomfoundation.org/nomdb/nom_details.php?codepoint=68cd&img=1], which are mostly similar to ''gòn''. Remember that Nom was never formalized, and since gòn is a native Vietnamese word, they had to make up a new character that sounds like the word. User:DHN 04:07, 24 May 2005 (UTC) I checked this in detail, and I understand that the native Vietnamese word for cotton is "bông". Maybe "bông" is a cognate of the Khmer word "amboh", which would make sense since Vietnamese and Khmer are related languages. On the other hand, gòn is definitely a Chinese word (棍, pronounced gùn in Mandarin), and it means "stick". From what I understand, the native Vietnamese word bông and the Chinese loan word gòn were used together, in the sense of "cotton stick", i.e. "cotton plant", and it is probable that later, by contraction, "gòn" alone came to be understood as meaning "cotton", which is why as a native Vietnamese speaker you say it means cotton. However, the original meaning of gòn is clearly "stick". The article needs to be rephrased accordingly. User:Hardouin 02:02, 25 May 2005 (UTC) :You may be right. However, in my experience, ''bông'' is mostly used in the sense of "flower" except in certain complex words where it means "cotton" (chăn bông = cotton blanket). User:DHN 02:13, 25 May 2005 (UTC) Well, according to the online Vietnamese dictionary, bông is the standard word for cotton in Vietnamese [http://vdict.com/1,cotton,-1,0,0,.html]. Maybe in the particular region of Vietnam where your family come from, the word gòn is favored, I don't know. In any case, I am rewriting the etymology section to better reflect the etymology of gòn. You tell me if you like it. User:Hardouin 11:16, 25 May 2005 (UTC) == Sàigòn? == I've rarely seen the city name being called Sàigòn in Vietnamese. The only usage of it I've seen are "SàiGòn" (to save space) or among certain groups of people who want to "modernize" the language and make it more "Westernized" [http://vny2k.net/]. The French called it Saigon and the Vietnamese called it Sài Gòn. Before the French arrived (but after it was Vietnamized), I think the city name was written with Chinese characters, so the spelling of Sàigòn is moot. User:DHN 02:20, 25 May 2005 (UTC) :According to the Vietnamese Google, there are 471,000 webpages with the spelling Sài Gòn, but only 8,940 webpages with the spelling Sàigòn. So I think that settles the matter. I am reverting to the Sài Gòn spelling in the article. User:Hardouin 11:11, 25 May 2005 (UTC) ::I wouldn't call the "Sài Gòn" way "traditional". I've seen it written as "Sài-gòn" in pre-1975 documents in southern Vietnam. There's no one way of writing quốc ngữ that can be considered traditional. I've seen what is now "ph" written as "f" and "c" as "k" in propaganda posters circa 1946. Vietnamese spelling have changed considerably since the beginning of the 20th century, when it was new. Ho Chi Minh's 1927 pamphlet "Đường Kách Mệnh" (Road to Revolution) would be written as "Đường Cách Mạng" in modern Vietnamese. User:DHN 05:35, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
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