Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City

Saigon

The land the city stands on was for a long time part of the kingdom of Cambodia. The Vietnamese first gained entry to the region in the 17th century.^[1] The name Saigon has been in use since then, and the scholar Le Quy Don recorded it in 1774. The surrounding area was Gia Dinh, a prefecture set up in 1698.^[2]

The French captured the town in 1859, and the Vietnamese emperor Tu Duc ceded it to France in 1862. Saigon became the capital of Cochinchina and grew into a major port.^[1] Under French rule Saigon and neighbouring Cho Lon became official administrative names, and in 1931 they were merged into one municipal area.^[2]

After the Geneva conference of 1954 divided Vietnam into northern and southern zones, Saigon became the capital of South Vietnam. During the Vietnam War it was the headquarters of US military operations.^[1]

A name proposed in 1946

The idea of naming the city after Ho Chi Minh, the leader of Vietnam’s independence movement, is older than the war’s end. On 25 August 1946, at a gathering in Hanoi, southern officials and residents proposed renaming Saigon Ho Chi Minh City. The petition had 57 signatures and was printed on the front page of the Cuu Quoc newspaper on 27 August 1946.^[2]

The war ended in Saigon on 30 April 1975. In May 1975 the old Saigon municipality was merged with most of Gia Dinh province and parts of three others to form Saigon–Gia Dinh City. Northern and southern newspapers were already calling it Ho Chi Minh City within days.^[2]

2 July 1976

Vietnam’s newly elected National Assembly met for its first session from 24 June to 3 July 1976. On 2 July it resolved that Saigon–Gia Dinh would be named Ho Chi Minh City.^[2] The same day it named the reunified country the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, with Hanoi as its capital.^[3]

The resolution said the city’s people had long wished it to bear Ho Chi Minh’s name.^[2] Ho Chi Minh himself, then called Nguyen Tat Thanh, had left Vietnam from the city in 1911.^[2]

“the people of Saigon–Gia Dinh have always expressed boundless affection for President Ho Chi Minh and earnestly wished for the city to bear his name”^[2]

Saigon comes back as a ward

In June 2025, as Vietnam reorganised its local government, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly passed Resolution No. 1685 on Ho Chi Minh City’s wards. It created a new Saigon ward from the whole of Ben Nghe ward and parts of Da Kao and Nguyen Thai Binh wards.^[4] The city is still Ho Chi Minh City.^[4]