Ho Chi Minh City is the business and financial hub of Vietnam, with a
prominent history going back hundreds of years. The Khmers originally
settled the region, with the Vietnamese taking over in the 17th century.
The
French conquered Saigon, as it was then known, in 1859, and made it the
capital of Cochin China in 1862. They extended and embellished the city
with broad boulevards and elegant architecture. At the peak of the
Vietnam War in 1969 the city had 4.5 million inhabitants. They were all
evacuated when Saigon and the rest of the South fell to North Vietnam in
1975.
The city has recovered in the 30 years since then; the
current population is over 7 million. It was renamed Ho Chi Minh City,
after the spiritual leader of Vietnamese Communism, but the inhabitants
were so reluctant to adopt the new name that the authorities
compromised; the official name is Ho Chi Minh City but the city centre
is still called Saigon. The Vietnamese government may be Communist, but
it understands well the importance of the tourism industry to the
economy, and has promoted the country vigorously.
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