Hà Tĩnh is a province in the North Central Coast region of Vietnam. It borders Nghệ An to the north, Quảng Trị to the south, Laos to the west, and the South China Sea (Gulf of Tonkin) to the east.
Hà Tĩnh together with neighbouring Nghệ An province the two provinces are together called "Nghệ Tĩnh", and the locals are known for speaking Vietnamese with a regional accent.Thê ́Anh Nguyêñ, Alain Forest Guerre et paix en Asie du Sud-Est p. 110 1998 " ... the regional way of speaking in the southern part of Thanh Nghệ, the so-called Nghệ Tĩnh (Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh) dialect, ..."Jonathan D. London Education in Vietnam 2011 p. 186 "A teacher from Hà Tĩnh province acknowledged this issue, quipping that his distinctive and “heavy” Hà Tĩnh accent would be tough even for most Việt teachers, let alone students."
Geography Hà Tĩnh is about 340 km (211 miles) south of Hanoi.
The climate is sub-tropical, with cooler temperatures in winter; Vietnam's highest ever temperature, 43.4 degrees Celsius (110 Fahrenheit), was recorded in the province in 2019.
Economy
Agriculture, forestry and fishery takes up 35.5% of total GDP and the province's GDP accounts for 0.7% of Vietnam's GDP. Vũng Áng harbour with some plants, factories and a thermal power station is becoming the most active economic hub. Vietnam Steel operates an iron mine in Thạch Khê District,Geological Survey (U.S.), Minerals Yearbook: Area Reports: International 2008: Asia and the Pacific, pp. 22-12, 26-9. with reserves of 544 million tonnes of iron.
A US$10 billion iron and steel plant was built in Vũng Áng in the 2010s (see Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corporation). The steel plant is part of an industrial park, which is estimated to cost more than US$20 billion. When finished in 2020, the industrial park will have a port, a 2,100-MW power plant and a steel plant with six blast furnaces. In 2016, the Formosa Steel plant released untreated waste water with heavy metals and other toxins into the nearby sea, which caused the 2016 Vietnam marine life disaster.
History
In chữ Hán, the province's name is written as , meaning "quiet river". Beginning in 1930 Hà Tĩnh, along with Nghệ An and Quảng Ngãi, was one of the early grounds for the Vietnamese rural Soviet movement and protests.Patricia M. Pelley Postcolonial Vietnam: New Histories of the National Past 2002 p. 196 "In September 1930, the first Vietnamese soviet (in the village of :vi:Võ Liệt) was formed, and soon it encompassed the three provinces of Nghệ An, Hà Tĩnh, and Quảng Ngãi. By this point, a number of Vietnamese students were already attending ..."Nguyen Công LuanNationalist in the Viet Nam Wars: Memoirs of a Victim Turned Soldier 2011 "... "Soviet" style that led farmers from several villages in Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh provinces to stage mass protests for months after May 1930"
References
External links Hà Tĩnh province People's Committee Poverty alleviation in Hà Tĩnh Province, Vietnam: A public archive of development project documents