Hai Phong
Banners, celebrating the forty-fifth
anniversary of the liberation of the city from French
colonial power on May 13, 1955, adorn
the theatre in the central square of Hai Phong.
Bicycles, pedestrians and carts constitute
the majority of the traffic boarding the ferry to cross Bach Dang.
The port city, located twenty kilometres
from the open sea, is intersected by sixteen rivers.
Haiphong, northern Vietnam's principle
port, has long had great strategic value. It was near here that
Ngo Quyen
defeated a fleet of Chinese invaders
in 938. Mongol invaders experienced a similar fate in 1288. French
warships
arrived here in 1872 and one of the
major incidents precipitating the final war for independence arose
from a dispute
between the French and the Viet Minh
over the right to collect customs duties in Hai Phong. During
the war against
the United States the port was the
target of intensive bombing and the harbour was mined by American
aircraft.
© Grose Educational Media, 2001
