Biên Hòa is a city in
Dong Nai Province,
Vietnam, about (30 kilometers) east of
Ho Chi Minh City, to which Bien Hoa is linked by
Vietnam Highway 1. In 1989 the estimated population was over 300,000. And now in 2005, population increased to 541,495, and some estimates show that the city has 604,548 people in 2007
History
Bien Hoa grew into a major suburb of
Saigon (later renamed Ho Chi Minh City) as the capital city of
South Vietnam grew. Following the
First Indochina War, tens of thousands of refugees from the northern and central regions of Vietnam—a large portion of them
Roman Catholics—resettled in Bien Hoa as part of
Operation Passage to Freedom.
During the
Vietnam War, the
United States Air Force operated
Bien Hoa Air Base near the city. Nonetheless, a significant number of the city's residents sympathized with, or were members of, the
Viet Cong, and mortar attacks on U.S. and
ARVN targets were frequently staged from residential districts in Bien Hoa.
Like most other areas of Vietnam, post-war Bien Hoa suffered a period of severe economic decline between 1975 and the second half of the 1980s (see also the
Fall of Saigon). In part, because of its high concentration of former refugees and their descendants who had fled the Communist government of
North Vietnam in the mid-1950s, Bien Hoa was the site of small-scale resistance to the Communist government in the months immediately following the fall of the
Republic of Vietnam.
In the 1980s, the Vietnamese government initiated the policy of
doi moi and Bien Hoa experienced an economic resurgence. As the primary city of Dong Nai, Bien Hoa and surrounding areas received large amounts of foreign investment capital, and the area rapidly industrialized.
Present-day Bien Hoa
As of 2005, Bien Hoa is now an industrial center of southern Vietnam, and many factories and warehouses (often funded in collaboration with Japanese, Singaporean, American, Swiss and other foreign investors) operate in the area surrounding the city.
Bien Hoa Sugar is located near the city. With regard to entertainment, the city includes several
amusement parks,
night clubs and
restaurants lining the
Dong Nai River. Construction has increased rapidly (with many Western-style houses and villas under development), and the real estate market has experienced a series of boom cycles since the mid-1990s. The retail market still includes the many
ad hoc bazaar-type markets and shop-fronts common to most of Vietnam, but now also includes air-conditioned, enclosed
shopping malls, one of which, a
Big C branch, includes a
KFC restaurant, a Western-style
grocery store, a
bowling alley and
video arcade, among others.
See also
Category:Provincial capitals in VietnamCategory:Districts of Dong Nai ProvinceCategory:Cities, towns and villages in Dong Nai ProvinceCategory:District capitals in Vietnamde:Biên Hòahak:Piên-fò-sṳhu:Biên Hòanl:Biên Hòano:Bien Hoapl:Biên Hoàsv:Bien Hoavi:Biên Hòawar:Bien Hoazh:边和市
