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Founding
Founding of District 5
Urban District of Ho Chi Minh City
- 27 May 1959
- Southeast Asia
Founding
Urban District of Ho Chi Minh City
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
District 5 (Vietnamese: Quận 5) was an urban district (quận) of Ho Chi Minh City, the largest city in Vietnam. The district notably accounted for a significant population of Chinese people in Vietnam; hence its territorial extent still comprises a majority of Chợ Lớn quarter today.
As of 2010, District 5 had a population of 174,154 people, and covered an area of 4.27 km2. District 5 was bordered by District 10 & District 11 to the north, District 8 to the south, District 1 & District 4 to the east, and District 6 to the west.
Immediately prior to its dissolution, the district was divided into 10 wards (phường), numbered: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 14.
The history of District 5 is deeply associated with the founding and development of the Chợ Lớn area, as well as the more than 300-year long history of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City).
In 1623, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên (also known as Chúa Sãi / "Lord Sãi") established the "Prey Nokor tax post" (also referred to as the Sài Gòn tax post) in modern-day District 5. As such, the name "Saigon" — in the strictest sense — is said to have originally referred to District 5’s Chợ Lớn area (alongside District 1's Bến Nghé).
In 1820, the area was part of Tân Lông district, Tân Bình prefecture, Phiên An township. By 1836, Tân Lông district eventually became a constituent division of Gia Định province, which had been established 3 years prior.
On 6 June 1865, a minuscule part of modern-day District 5 was part of the city of Chợ Lớn, which was established following a decree ratified by Pierre-Paul de La Grandière (then interim Governor of Cochinchina), on the territories of numerous villages situated in 3 cantons: Tân Phong Thượng, Tân Phong Trung, and Tân Phong Hạ – all of which were then part of the Tân Long district, Tân Bình prefecture of Gia Định province.
On 27 April, 1931, the French president signed a decree merging the cities of Saigon and Chợ Lớn into a new division, named the "Sài Gòn-Chợ Lớn Area" (Région Saigon - Cholon).
On the 31 August 1933, the French established the historic "District 5" under the Sài Gòn-Chợ Lớn Area, which then encompassed the entirety of pre-1931 Chợ Lớn City (modern-day Districts 5, 6, and 11 of Ho Chi Minh City).
On 30 June 1951, the Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam signed Decree No. 311-cab/SG, renaming the "Sài Gòn - Chợ Lớn Area" to the "Sài Gòn - Chợ Lớn Capital City" (Đô thành Sài Gòn-Chợ Lớn).
The administrative boundaries of District 5 prior to and after 1959 were, evidently, completely different to one another.
A series of reforms were enacted by South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm on the 27th of March, 1959 under Resolution No. 110-NV on dividing the existing 6 districts of Sài Gòn into 8 new districts, now consisting of: 1 (Nhứt), 2 (Nhì), 3, 4 (Tư), 5, 6, 7, and 8. Excluding districts 1-3, all other districts were renamed and their administrative boundaries altered accordingly.
At this point, the newly-established, post-1959 District 5's boundaries overlapped with that of the archaic, pre-1959 District 7 and District 4, north of the Tàu Hủ Channel. District 5 then had 6 wards of its own: An Đông, Chợ Quán, Trung Ương, and Minh Mạng.
In 1962, Trung Ương Ward was dissolved in favor of 5 new wards: Đồng Khánh, Hồng Bàng, Khổng Tử, Nguyễn Huỳnh Đức and Trang Tử; District 5 was now divided into 10 wards.
In 1969, parts of districts 3, 5, and 6 were divided amongst each other to form the newly-established District 10 with 4 wards; this reduced the number of wards in District 5 from 10 to 7.
Following the establishment of the final, eighth ward: Nguyễn Trải in 1974, District 5 would maintain the current number of wards until the 29th of April, 1975 (An Đông, Chợ Quán, Đồng Khánh, Hồng Bàng, Khổng Tử, Nguyễn Huỳnh Đức, Nguyễn Trãi, and Trang Tử).
After the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam took over "Saigon Capital City" (which they'd renamed to "Sài Gòn-Gia Định") on the 30 April 1975, reforms were simultaneously made across several districts whose wards had populations / sizes deemed "too little"; one of them being District 5, where wards Hồng Bàng and Khổng Tủ were merged into Nguyễn Trải and Trang Tử, respectively. This narrowed the number of wards down to 6.
On 20 May 1976, however, the administrative body of Sài Gòn-Gia Định (modern-day Ho Chi Minh City) notably changed course by undergoing a second period of administrative reforms (under Resolution No. 301/UB) which lead to the dissolution of all of District 5's 6 former wards in favor of 24 new wards, numbered '1' to '24'.
On the 26th of April, 1986, under Decision No. 51-HĐBT of the Council of Ministers, District 5's 24 wards were once again rearranged to form 15, which included the following changes:
On 9 December 2020, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly passed Resolution No. 1111/NQ-UBTVQH14 (effective on 1 January 2021), merging District 5's Ward 15 into Ward 12.
On 14 November 2024, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly further passed Resolution No. 1278/NQ-UBTVQH15 (effective on 1 January, 2025), merging wards 3, 6, 8, and 10 into 2, 5, 7, and 11, respectively.
On 16 June 2025, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly — as part of the 2025 Vietnamese administrative reforms — ratified Resolution No. 1685/NQ-UBTVQH15 (effective on 1 July 2025), which was set to dissolve all district-level subdivisions (including urban districts and District 5), as well as enact the following changes locally:
4 notable idioms related to District 5 exist in Vietnamese literature:
Architecture of historical significance are prevalent across District 5, and are often religious sites / places of worship.
District 5 is said to best attract tourists during celebratory events such as the Lantern Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Well-known activities among tourists in District 5 consist of: watching lion / dragon dances, martial arts performances (often performed using a variety of weapons), musical performance variety shows, directly participating in cultural practices such as releasing sky lanterns, putting fai chun, visiting religious temples / pagodas, writing traditional calligraphy, etc.
District 5 has a plethora of healthcare institutes, some of which vary in size.
The following list does not include escalator schools offering high school education.
Text from the Wikipedia article “District 5, Ho Chi Minh City”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.