A Rich and Royal Ruin in the Heart of Hanoi

Nine hundred years before Ho Chi Minh declared Hanoi the capital of a newly independent Vietnam in 1945, the first king of the Ly Dynasty issued a similar decree.

In 1010 King Ly Thai To picked Thang Long (“Ascending Dragon”), situated within present-day Hanoi, as the capital for a country that had defeated the Tang Dynasty less than a century before, ending a millennium of Chinese rule.

“It is situated at the very heart of our country,” the king declared in Edict on the Transfer of the Capital. “It is equally an excellent capital for a royal dynasty for ten thousand generations.”