Hạ Long Bay or Halong Bay (, ) is a bay located in Northeastern Vietnam, administered by the city of Quảng Ninh. The name Hạ Long means "descending dragon". It features thousands of limestone karsts and islets in various shapes and sizes, for which it is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular travel destination. The bay is also part of a larger area that includes Bai Tu Long Bay to the northeast and Cát Bà Island (administered by Haiphong) to the southwest. These zones share similar geological, geographical, geomorphological, climatic, and cultural characteristics.
Hạ Long Bay has an area of around , including 1,969 islets, most of which are made of limestone. The core of the bay has an area of with a high density of 775 islets.Vịnh Hạ Long. Website chính thức của Ủy ban tổ chức Đại lễ Phật đản Liên Hiệp Quốc 2008 The limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments. The evolution of the karst in this bay has taken 20 million years under the impact of the tropical wet climate.Giá trị địa chất – địa mạo của vịnh Hạ Long. – Trang web chính thức của vịnh Hạ Long The geo-diversity of the environment in the area has created biodiversity, including a tropical evergreen biosystem and a seashore biosystem.Giá trị đa dạng sinh học của vịnh Hạ Long. – Trang web chính thức của vịnh Hạ Long Hạ Long Bay is home to 14 endemic floral speciesBảo tồn đa dạng sinh học vịnh Hạ Long" – Tuổi Trẻ Online. Truy cập ngày 29 tháng 10 năm 2007, 17:26GMT and 60 endemic faunal species."Master plan for Ha Long city to 2040 approved". www.quangninh.gov.vn (in Vietnamese). Retrieved 25 July 2023.
Historical research surveys have shown the presence of prehistoric human beings in this area tens of thousands of years ago. The successive ancient cultures are the Soi Nhụ culture around 18,000–7,000BC, the Cái Bèo culture 7,000–5,000BCGiá trị lịch sử – văn hóa của vịnh Hạ Long. – Trang web chính thức của vịnh Hạ Long and the Hạ Long culture 5,000–3,500years ago."Có một nền văn hóa Hạ Long" – Tuổi Trẻ Online Hạ Long Bay also marked some important events in Vietnamese history, with many artifacts found in Bài Thơ mountain, Đầu Gỗ cave, and Bãi Cháy.
Nguyễn Trãi praised the beauty of Hạ Long Bay 500 years ago in his verse , in which he called it "a rock wonder in the sky"."Từ hơn 500 năm trước, vịnh Hạ Long đã được tôn vinh là kỳ quan" – Tuổi Trẻ Online In 1962, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of North Vietnam listed Hạ Long Bay in the National Relics and Landscapes publication.Vị trí địa lý, khí hậu của vịnh Hạ Long. – Trang web chính thức của vịnh Hạ Long In 1994, the core zone of the bay was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site under Criterion VII, and was listed for a second time under Criterion VIII.
Etymology The name Hạ Long (chữ Hán: 下龍) means "descending dragon".
Before the 19th century, the name Hạ Long Bay had not been recorded in the old books of the country. It has been called other names such as An Bang, Lục Thủy, and Vân Đồn. In the late 19th century, the name Hạ Long Bay appeared on the Maritime Map of France. The French-language Hai Phong News reported "Dragon appears on Hạ Long Bay".
According to local legend reinforced by 1800s Nguyễn dynasty nationalism, when Vietnam had just started to develop into a country, they had to fight against invaders. To assist the Vietnamese in defending their country, the gods sent a family of dragons as protectors. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. Under magics, numerous rock mountains abruptly appeared on the sea, ahead of invaders' ships; the forward ships struck the rocks and each other. After winning the battle, the dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the Earth, and then decided to live in this bay. The place where the mother dragon descended was named Hạ Long, the place where the dragon's children attended upon their mother was called Bái Tử Long island (Bái: attend upon, Tử: children, Long: dragon), and the place where the dragon's children wriggled their tails violently was called Bạch Long Vĩ island (Bạch: white-color of the foam made when Dragon's children wriggled, Long: dragon, Vĩ: tail), present-day Tra Co peninsula, Móng Cái.
Overview
The bay consists of a dense cluster of some 1,600 limestone monolithic islands each topped with thick jungle vegetation, rising from the ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with large caves. Hang Dau Go (Wooden Stakes cave) is the largest grotto in the Hạ Long area. French tourists visited in the late 19th century, and named the cave Grotte des Merveilles. Its three large chambers contain large numerous stalactites and stalagmites (as well as 19th-century French graffiti). There are two bigger islands, Tuần Châu and Cát Bà, that have permanent inhabitants, as well as tourist facilities including hotels and beaches. There are a number of beautiful beaches on the smaller islands.
A community of around 1,600 people live on Hạ Long Bay in four fishing villages: Cua Van, Ba Hang, Cong Tau and Vong Vieng in Hung Thang ward, Hạ Long city. They live on floating houses and are sustained through fishing and marine aquaculture (cultivating marine biota), plying the shallow waters for 200 species of fish and 450 different kinds of mollusks. Many of the islands have acquired their names as a result of their unusual shapes. Such names include Voi Islet (elephant), Ga Choi Islet (fighting cock), Khi Islet (monkey), and Mai Nha Islet (roof). 989 of the islands have been given names. Birds and land animals including bantams, antelopes, monkeys, and lizards also live on some of the islands.
Almost all these islands are as individual towers in a classic fenglin landscape with heights ranging from , and height/width ratios of up to about six.
Another specific feature of Hạ Long Bay is the abundance of lakes inside the limestone islands. For example, Dau Be island has six enclosed lakes. All these island lakes occupy drowned dolines within fengcong karst.
Location Hạ Long Bay is located in northeastern Vietnam, from E106°55' to E107°37' and from N20°43' to N21°09'. The bay stretches from Quang Yen town, past Hạ Long city, Cẩm Phả city to Vân Đồn District, is bordered on the south and southeast by Lan Ha Bay, on the north by Hạ Long city, and on the west by Bai Tu Long Bay. The bay has a coastline and is approximately in size with about 2,000 islets. The area designated by UNESCO as the World Natural Heritage Site incorporates with 775 islets, of which the core zone is delimited by 69 points: Dau Go island on the west, Ba Ham lake on the south and Cong Tay island on the east. The protected area is from the Cái Dăm petrol store to Quang Hanh ward, Cẩm Phả city and the surrounding zone.
Climate The climate of the bay is tropical, wet, sea islands, with two seasons: hot and moist summer, dry and cold winter. The average temperature is from , and annual rainfall is between . Hạ Long Bay has the typical diurnal tide system (tide amplitude ranges from ). The salinity is from 31 to 34.5MT in the dry season and lower in the rainy season.
Population Of the 1,969 islands in Hạ Long, only approximately 40 are inhabited. These islands range from tens to thousands of hectares in size, mainly in the East and Southeast of Hạ Long Bay. In recent decades, thousands of villagers have been starting to settle down on the pristine islands and build new communities such as Sa Tô Island (Hạ Long City) and Thắng Lợi Island (Vân Đồn district).
The population of Hạ Long Bay is about 1,540, mainly in Cửa Vạn, Ba Hang and Cặp Dè fishing villages (Hùng Thắng Ward, Hạ Long City). Residents of the bay mostly live on boats and rafts buoyed by tires and plastic jugs to facilitate the fishing, cultivating and breeding of aquatic and marine species. Fish require feeding every other day for up to three years, when they are eventually sold to local seafood restaurants for up to 300,000 Vietnamese dong per kilogram. Today, the lives of Hạ Long Bay inhabitants have much improved due to new travel businesses. Residents of the floating villages around Hạ Long Bay now offer bedrooms for rent, boat tours, and fresh seafood meals to tourists. While this is an isolating, back-breaking lifestyle, floating village residents are considered wealthy compared to residents of other Hạ Long Bay islands.
At present, the Quảng Ninh provincial government has a policy to relocate the households living in the bay to resettle, in order to stabilize their life and to protect the landscape of the heritage zone. More than 300 households living in fishing villages in Hạ Long Bay have been relocated ashore in Khe Cá Resettlement Area, now known as Zone 8 (Hà Phong Ward, Hạ Long City) since May 2014. This project will continue to be implemented. The province will only retain a number of fishing villages for sightseeing tours.
History
Soi Nhụ culture (16,000–5000 BC) Located within Hạ Long and Bái Tử Long are archaeological sites such as Mê Cung and Thiên Long. There are remains from mounds of mountain shellfish (Cyclophorus), spring shellfish (Melania, also called Thiana), some freshwater water mollusc and some rudimentary labour tools. The main way of life of Soi Nhụ's inhabitants included catching fish and shellfish, collecting fruits and digging for bulbs and roots. Their living environment was a coastal area unlike other Vietnamese cultures, for example, those found in Hòa Bình and Bắc Sơn.
Cái Bèo culture (5000–3000 BC) Located in Hạ Long and Cát Bà island its inhabitants developed to the level of sea exploitation. Cái Bèo culture is a link between Soi Nhụ culture and Hạ Long culture.
Hạ Long culture (2500–1500 BC)
Classical period
Hạ Long Bay was the setting for historical naval battles against Vietnam's coastal neighbors. On three occasions, in the labyrinth of channels in Bạch Đằng River near the islands, the Vietnamese army stopped the Chinese invaders from landing. In 1288, General Trần Hưng Đạo stopped Mongol ships from sailing up the nearby Bạch Đằng River by placing steel-tipped wooden stakes at high tide, sinking the Mongol Kublai Khan's fleet.
Modern period
Hạ Long Bay was the site of the first ever raising of the new national flag of the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam on 5 June 1948 during the signing of the Halong Bay Agreements (Accords de la baie d’Along) by High Commissioner Emile Bollaert and President Nguyễn Văn Xuân.Réalités vietnamiennes (Les réalités permanentes), Saigon, 1969, p. 52 (in French).
During the Vietnam War, many of the channels between the islands were heavily mined by the United States Navy, some of which continue to pose threats to shipping routes in the present day.
Geology and geomorphology