THAI BINH PROVINCE, NORTHERN VIETNAM

Thai Binh Province General Information

Thai Binh province, Northern Vietnam
Region: Red River Delta
Capital: Thái Bình
Area: 1,586.35 km²
Population: 1,860,447 (2019 Census)
Density: 1,173/km²
Demographics: Vietnamese, Tay, Thai, and Muong
Calling code: 227
Website: thaibinh.gov.vn

Thái Bình is a coastal eastern province in the Red River Delta region of northern Vietnam, named after the Vietnamese name for the Pacific Ocean: Thái Bình Duong. It is about 18 km from Nam Định, 70 km from Haiphong, and 110 km from Hanoi.

Thai Binh Province Administrative Divisions

Thái Bình is subdivided into eight district-level sub-divisions:

7 districts

Dong Hung
Hung Hà
Kien Xuong
Quỳnh Phu
Thái Thuy
Tien Hai
Vu Thu

1 provincial city

Thái Bình (capital)

They are further subdivided into nine commune-level towns (or townlets), 267 communes, and 10 wards.

People And Culture

A solid province

Although situated in the centre of the Red River Delta, in the past, Thái Bình was like an island bounded by three larger rivers. It is the only province that never breaks or merges. Therefore, this position gives the people of Thái Bình a quite distinct culture. Thai Binh province is the homeland of hát chèo opera (in Khuoc village, Phong Châu commune, Đông Hung district) and water puppet (in Nguyên Xá commune, Đông Hung district). Thái Bình people are noted for their practical and clever character.

Old days

Thai Binh is the homeland of the most prolific and famous Vietnamese savant in the Middle Ages: Lê Quy Dôn. Tran Thu Do, the founder of the Tran Dynasty, was born in Hung Hà district. Bùi Vien, the founder of Haiphong city, was a famous reformer in the 19th century. He was the first Vietnamese who visited the United States and also served as ambassador to the United States under the Nguyen Dynasty.

Heroes

The first Vietnamese to travel into outer space was the cosmonaut Pham Tuân, a native of Thái Bình. Two other natives of Thái Bình are the ones who finalized the two famous wars in Vietnam: Ta Quoc Luat, who captured Christian de Castries and raised the victory flag in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (the First Indochina War) and Bùi Quang Than, who led a group of Northern tanks and entered the headquarters of South Vietnam’s government to make president Duong Văn Minh unconditionally surrender (the Second Indochina War).

Politicians

Thái Bình is also the homeland of several famous Vietnamese political dissidents and humanitarians. Thích Quang Đo is a Vietnamese Buddhist leader and critic of the Vietnamese government. In 2006, he won the Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize and was also a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. Duong Thu Huong, arguably the most famous postwar Vietnamese writer. Her novel Paradise of the Blind (Nhung thiên đuong mù, 1988) became the first Vietnamese novel in the United States available in English. In addition, she is also a famous political dissident. Nguyen Huu Đang, born in Kien Xuong district, was the leader and prominent victim of the Nhân Văn affair – a movement for political and cultural freedom of Vietnamese intellectuals. This affair is one of the most tragic events in modern Vietnamese history.

Businessmen

Some Thái Bình people are among the richest in Vietnam, including Vu Quang Hoi who is the founder of Bitexco group (who owns The Financial Tower in Ho Chi Minh City, The Manor luxury building in Hanoi, etc.), Vu Van Tien, founder of Geleximco – the largest private company in Hanoi and AB Bank, a large private bank. Quách Tuan Ngoc, a native of Đông Hung, while a professor of computer science at Hanoi University of Technology, authored the first successful commercial domestic software: BKED (Bach Khoa Editor) – a system for processing Vietnamese text, in the 1980s.

Etymology

The province’s name derives from Sino-Vietnamese meaning “great peace”.

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