Cát Hải [kaːt˧˥:ha̰ːj˧˩˧] is an archipelago in the Gulf of Tonkin. Its full name is Cát Hải Special Zone of Hải Phòng CityGov't unveils plan to transform island districts into special zones belonging to Hải Phòng city in the Red River Delta of Vietnam.
History Its name Cát Hải means "Cát Bà Long Châu Hải Dương Thương Chính Quan Phòng" (Hán Nôm: 葛婆、龍珠，海陽商政關防) in common Middle-age Annamese language.
All Cát Hải area's knowledge before the 18th century was legendary and had very little things recorded by royal historians. However, according to the administrative documents of Hải Phòng city, this territory in the past included two archipelagos as Các Bà (the ladies) and Cửa Đức Ông (the gentlemen).Legends of the name of Cát BàIntroduction to Cát Bà - Discover the pearl of the Tonkin Gulf Over time, those names were wrongly called by folk to become Cát Bà and Long Châu.
Middle Ages According to Đồng Khánh địa dư chí lược, at the beginning of the 19th century, the territory of Cát Hải rural district was two cantons Đôn Lương and Hà Liên, belonging Hoa Phong rural district (huyện Hoa Phong), Sơn Định prefecture, Quảng Yên province. Nghiêu Phong district has many different names: Động Phục Long, Ân Phong, Chi Phong. Until the first year of Thiệu Trị (1841), it was renamed Nghiêu Phong to avoid the real name of Dowager Queen Hồ Thị Hoa.
Since the years of Đồng Khánh, Nghiêu Phong rural district (huyện Nghiêu Phong) has included three cantons Đôn Lương, Hà Liên and Vân Hải.
20th century On August 19, 1890, Tonkinese viceroy Hoàng Cao Khải issued a decree to change Nghiêu Phong from a rural district into a prefecture. Because of that, Vân Hải canton has been raised to Vân Hải rural district, at the same time, Đôn Lương was merged with Hà Liên to become Cát Hải rural district. Its capital seated in Cát Bà street (phố Cát Bà), where was later expanded to the township (đại lí Cát Bà), then the town (thị xã Cát Bà).
The territory of Cát Hải island district (huyện đảo Cát Hải) only consisted of two archipelagos Cát Bà and Long Châu. In particular, the area of Cát Bà island was almost the area of the special zone.
21st century On April 22, 2025, to meet promptly the plan to arrange and merge administrative units by the Government of Vietnam, the People's Committees of Hải Dương province and Hải Phòng City passed a resolutionHải Phòng dự kiến thành lập hai đặc khu sau sắp xếp đơn vị hành chính cấp xã on the dissolution of all rural-district level administrative units in new Hải Phòng City, followed by another ResolutionĐồng thuận với chủ trương hình thành Đặc khu Cát Hải on the merger of communes and the establishment of new communes with their new names.
According to the political document officially published for the press, Cát Hải island-district was also dissolved. The entire area and demography have been transformed to commune-level administrative unit, which is called as Cát Hải Special Zone of Hải Phòng City (海防市葛海特區, Đặc khu Cát Hải trực thuộc thành phố Hải Phòng). Cát Hải special zone is directly under the management of expanded Hải Phòng City.
Geography As of 2018 the Cát Hải special zone had a population of 43,187. The special zone covers an area of . Its capital lies in Cát Bà Island.
Economy The islands are subject to major land developments. VinFast has built an automobile factory on the Southern half of the island, and Sun Group is developing a holiday resort on the northern half. A 5.44 km long bridge - the longest sea crossing in Vietnam - connects the island to Hai Phong.
See also
Bạch Long Vĩ Cô Tô Hoàng Sa special administrative region
Notes and references Notes
References
Further reading Bibliography
George Cœdès. The Making of South East Asia, 2nd ed. University of California Press, 1983. Trần Ngọc Thêm. Cơ sở văn hóa Việt Nam (The Foundation of Vietnamese Culture), 504 pages. Publishing by Nhà xuất bản Đại học Tổng hợp TPHCM. Saigon, Vietnam, 1995. Tự điển bách khoa địa danh Hải Phòng. Nhà xuất bản Hải Phòng. 1998. tr. 70. Trần Quốc Vượng, Tô Ngọc Thanh, Nguyễn Chí Bền, Lâm Mỹ Dung, Trần Thúy Anh. Cơ sở văn hóa Việt Nam (The Basis of Vietnamese Culture), 292 pages. Re-publishing by Nhà xuất bản Giáo Dục Việt Nam & Quảng Nam Printing Co-Ltd. Hanoi, Vietnam, 2006. Li Tana (2011). "Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) in the Han period Tongking Gulf". In Cooke, Nola; Li Tana; Anderson, James A. (eds.). ;;The Tongking Gulf Through History;;. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 39–44. ISBN 9780812205022. Tập bản đồ hành chính Việt Nam (Vietnamese Administrative Maps), Nhà xuất bản Tài nguyên – Môi trường và Bản đồ Việt Nam, Hà Nội, 2013. Li Tana, ""Towards an environmental history of the Eastern Red River Delta, Vietnam, c.900–1400", Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 2014. Trần Đức Thạnh (chủ biên), Bùi Quang Sản, Nguyễn Văn Cấn, Trần Đình Lân, Nguyễn Văn Quân, Lưu Văn Diệu, Nguyễn Thị Thu, Trần Anh Tú, Nguyễn Thị Kim Anh. Thiên nhiên và môi trường vùng bờ Hải Phòng (PDF). 2015 : Nhà xuất bản Khoa học tự nhiên và Công nghệ. tr. 25. Samuel Baron, Christoforo Borri, Olga Dror, Keith W. Taylor (2018). Views of Seventeenth-Century Vietnam : Christoforo Borri on Cochinchina and Samuel Baron on Tonkin. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1-501-72090-1.
External links Vietnam to establish 13 special districts after administrative restructuring