Ngọc Sơn Temple

Hoàn Kiếm (chữ Hán: 郡還劍; transl. Returned Sword) is one of the four original urban districts of Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam. It is named after the scenic Hoàn Kiếm Lake. The lake is in the heart of the district and serves as the focal point of the city's public life. The majority of tourist attractions in Hanoi are also located in the district. The district currently has 18 wards, covering a total area of 5.29 square kilometres (2.04 sq mi). As of 2019, there were 135,618 people residing in the district Hoàn Kiếm is the downtown and commercial center of Hanoi. Most of the largest Vietnamese public corporations and bank headquarters are located here, but the central government offices are located in Ba Đình district. The Hanoi City Committee is located on Đinh Tiên Hoàng street, adjacent to the Hoàn Kiếm lake. The district has a north–south division among its wards. Its northern half houses the Old Quarter with small street blocks and alleys, and a traditional Vietnamese atmosphere. The southern half has distinctive French-style villas and broad avenues, and is sometimes called the "French Quarter" in modern travel literature. Some notable buildings in Hoàn Kiếm's "French Quarter" are the Hanoi Opera House, the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi hotel, the National Museum of Vietnamese History (formerly the École française d'Extrême-Orient), the Grand Palais, and the Tonkin Palace.

Hoàn Kiếm Lake (Vietnamese: Hồ Hoàn Kiếm, chữ Hán: 湖還劍, meaning "Lake of the Returned Sword" or "Lake of the Restored Sword"), also known as Sword Lake (Hồ Gươm) or Tả Vọng Lake (Hồ Tả Vọng), is a fresh water lake, measuring some 12 ha in the historical center of Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam. In the past, the lake was variously named "Lục Thủy Lake" (Vietnamese: Hồ Lục Thủy, meaning "Green Water Lake" - aptly named for the water's color) or "Thủy Quân Lake" (Vietnamese: Hồ Thủy Quân, meaning "Mariner's Lake"). The lake is one of the major scenic spots in the city and serves as a focal point for its public life.

Turtle Tower (Vietnamese: Tháp Rùa / 塔𪛇), also called Tortoise Tower, is a small tower in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake (Sword Lake) in central Hanoi, Vietnam. It is one of the most iconic, symbolic and most recognizable pieces of architecture representing Hanoi and the entirety of Vietnam.

Đại La (Chinese: 大羅城; pinyin: Dàluóchéng), means the Citadel of the Great Dike, or La Thành (羅城, means the Citadel of the Dike) was an ancient fortified city in present-day Hanoi during the third Chinese domination of the 7th and 8th centuries, and again in the 11th-century under Lý dynasty.Đại La was constructed by jiedushi Gao Pian in 866. It was the seat of Songping County during the Tang dynasty, and was capital of the Tĩnh Hải quân. In 1010, Lý Công Uẩn decided to move his capital away from the cramped Hoa Lư (present-day Ninh Bình). Đại La was favored because of its central and convenient location, defensible terrain and relatively dry climate. According to the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, a Yellow Dragon appeared near Lý Công Uẩn's boat when he passed by Đại La. The sighting was considered as greatly auspicious by his ministers. Subsequently, the city was renamed Thăng Long ("rising dragon").

The siege of Songping or the siege of Hanoi was the pivotal part of Nanzhao's great offensive in 863. Nanzhao was in alliance with local tribal rebels, against the Tang dynasty who was currently in control of the Red River Delta in modern-day northern Vietnam. The siege took place in Songping (modern-day Hanoi), capital of Tang's frontier Protectorate General to Pacify the South in early 863 during the reign of Emperor Yizong. It was the fourth time since 858 that Songping was attacked by Nanzhao forces The siege was one of the most important and tragic events in the history of Vietnam before the tenth century. With 50,000 men from its main army and other tribal mercenaries combined, the Yunnanese approached Songping and issued an ultimatum to surrender or die. They laid siege on the city from mid-January until its fall on 1 March, resulting in military disaster and the retreat of Tang forces out of the region in 2 years.

The International Control Commission (abbreviated ICC; French: Commission Internationale de Contrôle, or CIC), was an international force established in 1954. More formally called the International Commission for Supervision and Control, the organisation was actually organised as three separate but interconnected bodies, one for each territory within the former French Indochina, being treated as a single state having two temporary administrations: the ICSC for Vietnam; the ICSC for Laos; and the ICSC for Cambodia.It oversaw the implementation of the Geneva Accords that ended the First Indochina War and brought about the Partition of Vietnam. It monitored the observance of the ceasefires and noted any violations. The organization consisted of delegations of diplomats and military personnel from: Canada, Poland, and India, representing respectively the non-communist, communist, and non-aligned blocs. The ICC/ICSC started well, but the irreconcilable positions soon told, and the organisation became largely irrelevant in the face of an increasingly-active conflict. Nevertheless, it survived, as a communications link, until the Paris Accords were signed and it was reconvened as the International Commission for Control and Supervision.

North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; Vietnamese: Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa; chữ Nôm: 越南民主共和), was a socialist state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1945 to 1976, with formal sovereignty being fully recognized in 1954. A member of the Eastern Bloc, it opposed the French-backed State of Vietnam and later the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). North Vietnam emerged victorious over South Vietnam in 1975 and ceased to exist the following year when it unified with the south to become the current Socialist Republic of Vietnam. During the August Revolution following World War II, Vietnamese communist revolutionary Hồ Chí Minh, leader of the Việt Minh Front, declared independence on 2 September 1945 and proclaimed the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The Việt Minh (formally the "League for the Independence of Vietnam"), led by the communists, was created in 1941 and designed to appeal to a wider population than the Indochinese Communist Party could command.From the beginning, the communist-led Việt Minh sought to consolidate power by purging other nationalist groups. Meanwhile, France moved in to reassert its colonial dominance over Vietnam in the aftermath of WW2, eventually prompting the First Indochina War in December 1946. During this guerrilla war, the Việt Minh captured and controlled most of the rural areas in Vietnam, which led to French defeat in 1954. The negotiations in the Geneva Conference that year ended the war and recognized Vietnamese independence. The Geneva Accords provisionally divided the country into a northern zone and a southern zone along the 17th parallel, stipulating general elections scheduled for July 1956 to "bring about the unification of Viet-Nam". The northern zone was controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and became commonly called North Vietnam, while the southern zone, under control of the de jure non-communist State of Vietnam, was commonly called South Vietnam. Supervision of the implementation of the Geneva Accords was the responsibility of an international commission consisting of India, Canada, and Poland, respectively representing the non-aligned, the capitalist, and the communist blocs. The United States, which did not sign the Geneva Accords, stated that it "shall continue to seek to achieve unity through free elections supervised by the United Nations to ensure that they are conducted fairly". Meanwhile, the State of Vietnam strongly opposed the partition of the country, with its prime minister Ngô Đình Diệm announcing in July 1955 that the State of Vietnam would not participate in elections, claiming that it had not signed the Geneva Accords and was therefore not bound by it, and raising concerns that an unfree election would occur under the Việt Minh regime in North Vietnam. In October 1955, Diệm's government held its own referendum, which was widely marred by electoral fraud, to depose Chief of State Bảo Đại and established the Republic of Vietnam with Diệm as its first president.Failure to unify the country by referendum led to the Vietnam War in 1955. Backed by their communist allies, mainly China and the Soviet Union, the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam and the South Vietnam-based Việt Cộng guerrilla fought against the Military Forces of South Vietnam. To prevent other countries from becoming communist in Southeast Asia, the United States intervened in the conflict along with Western Bloc forces from South Korea, Australia and Thailand, who heavily supported South Vietnam militarily. The conflict spread to neighboring countries and North Vietnam supported the Pathet Lao in Laos and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia against their respective US-backed governments. By 1973, the United States and its allies withdrew from the war, and the unsupported South Vietnam was swiftly overrun by the superior Northern forces. The Vietnam War ended on 30 April 1975 and saw South Vietnam come under the control of the Việt Cộng's Provisional Revolutionary Government, which led to the reunification of Vietnam on 2 July 1976 and the creation of the current Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the unified Vietnamese state experienced economic decline, refugee crises and conflicts with the Khmer Rouge in 1977 and China in 1979. The expanded Socialist Republic retained Soviet-style political culture, economic system and memberships in Eastern Bloc organisations such as COMECON until the Đổi Mới economic reforms in 1986 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China), officially known as the Indochinese Union and after 1947 as the Indochinese Federation, was a grouping of French colonial territories in Mainland Southeast Asia until its demise in 1954. It comprised Cambodia, Laos (from 1899), the Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan (from 1898 until 1945), and the Vietnamese regions of Tonkin in the north, Annam in the centre, and Cochinchina in the south. The capital for most of its history (1902–1945) was Hanoi; Saigon was the capital from 1887 to 1902 and again from 1945 to 1954. The Second French Empire annexed Cochinchina in 1862 and established a protectorate in Cambodia in 1863. After the French Third Republic took over northern Vietnam through the Tonkin campaign, the various protectorates were consolidated into one union in 1887. Two more entities were incorporated into the union: the Laotian protectorate and the Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan. The French exploited the resources in the region during their rule, but also contributed to improvements of the health and education system in the region. Nevertheless, deep divides remained between the native population and the colonists, leading to sporadic rebellions by the former. After the Fall of France during World War II, the colony was administered by the Vichy government and was under Japanese occupation until March 1945, when the Japanese overthrew the colonial regime. After the Japanese surrender, the Viet Minh, a communist organization led by Hồ Chí Minh, declared Vietnamese independence, but France subsequently took back control of French Indochina with the help of the British. An all-out independence war, known as the First Indochina War, broke out in late 1946 between French and Viet Minh forces. To counter the Viet Minh, the State of Vietnam, led by former Emperor Bảo Đại, was proclaimed by the French in 1949. French efforts to retake Vietnam were unsuccessful, culminating in defeat at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. On 22 October and 9 November 1953, the Kingdom of Laos and Kingdom of Cambodia proclaimed their respective independences. Following the Geneva Accord of 1954, the French were forced to withdraw from Vietnam, which had been split into the two countries (until 1976), and French Indochina was no more.

The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Hanoi (Latin: Archidioecesis Metropolitae Hanoiensis, Vietnamese: Tổng giáo phận đô thành Hà Nội, French: Archidiocèse Metropolitain d'Hanoï) is a Catholic metropolitan archdiocese of Vietnam. It is one of the earliest in the history of the Catholic Church in Vietnam. The creation of the diocese in present form was declared 24 November 1960. It covers an area of 7,000 km2 and has been led by Archbishop Joseph Vũ Văn Thiên since November 2018.

On December 19, 1946, Viet Minh soldiers detonated explosives in Hanoi, and the ensuing battle, known as the Battle of Hanoi marked the opening salvo of the First Indochina War.

The Red River Delta or Hong River Delta (Vietnamese: Châu thổ sông Hồng) is the flat low-lying plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries merging with the Thái Bình River in northern Vietnam. Hồng (紅) is a Sino-Vietnamese word for "red" or "crimson". The delta has the smallest area but highest population and population density of all regions. The region, measuring some 15,000 square kilometres (6,000 sq mi) is well protected by a network of dikes. It is an agriculturally rich and densely populated area. Most of the land is devoted to rice cultivation.Eight provinces, together with two municipalities (the capital Hanoi, and the port of Haiphong) form the delta. It had a population of almost 23 million in 2019. In 2021, Paul Sidwell proposed that the locus of Proto-Austroasiatic languages was in this area about 4,000–4,500 years before present. The Hong River Delta is the cradle of the Vietnamese nation. Water puppetry originated in the rice paddies here. The region was bombed by United States warplanes during the Vietnam War. The region was designated as the Red River Delta Biosphere Reserve as part of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme in 2004.

Hanoi Garden is a restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam. It opened in 1998 on Hang Manh street in the Old Quarter. It serves Vietnamese cuisine with a twist and is quite popular with the local Vietnamese. The restaurant has seating for about 200 people. The Vietnam Economic Times has praised its variety of dishes, saying, "You can't fault the Hanoi Garden in this respect, at least. Its bill of fare has page after page of Vietnamese dishes."