Biên Hòa
Biên Hòa (Northern accent:
listen, Southern accent:
listen) is a city in Đồng Nai Province, Vietnam, about 20 miles (32 km) east of Hồ Chí Minh City (formerly Saigon), to which Biên Hòa is linked by Vietnam Highway 1.
Demographics
In 1989 the estimated population was 273,879. In 1999, the population was 435,400. 701,194 in 2009. In December 2012, the population of the city crossed the one million mark.
History
Before and during the Nguyen Dynasty
The area around Biên Hòa was part of small kingdom prior to being annexed by Chenla. It was an agricultural and fishing region.
The capture of Biên Hòa on December 16, 1861 was an important allied victory in the Cochinchina Campaign (1858–62). This campaign, fought between the French and the Spanish on the one side and the Vietnamese (under the Nguyen Dynasty) on the other, began as a limited punitive expedition and ended as a French war of conquest. The war concluded with the establishment of the French colony of Cochinchina, a development that inaugurated nearly a century of French colonial dominance in Vietnam.