Ward Names and the Merger: Why Your Map Says District 1

What actually changed?

The district tier was abolished nationwide, dissolving 696 district-level units, and this city absorbed two neighbouring provinces on the same day.

Vietnam went from 63 provinces and cities to 34, and from a three-tier local government structure — province, district, ward — to two tiers. All 22 of this city's districts ceased to exist as government units. So did Thủ Đức City, which had been created in 2020 by merging three districts and lasted less than five years; its territory was redistributed into twelve new wards.

Saigon Ward is the one new name we can confirm against the resolution, and it is the interesting one. It covers 3.04 km² with a population of 47,022, was established on 16 June 2025, and takes in the Opera House, City Hall, Notre-Dame, the Central Post Office, Đồng Khởi and the Nguyễn Huệ walking street. More than three-quarters of its perimeter is river or canal.

What we are not going to print

The full list of new ward names for the other former districts. We have a mapping; we have not been able to confirm it at source.

A complete table of all 22 former districts and their new wards would be one of the most useful things on this site, and we are not publishing it yet. Only Saigon Ward is confirmed against Resolution 1685/NQ-UBTVQH15. The other three new District 1 ward names appear consistently across secondary sources and are probably right — but "probably right" is not good enough for a table people would use to fill in a visa form or address a parcel.

There is also a live discrepancy in the totals. Most sources give 113 wards, 54 communes and one special zone; one government-adjacent outlet gives 112 wards, 50 communes and Côn Đảo. Some units may have been adjusted after the initial resolution. The safe phrasing, which is what we use, is 168 wards and communes plus the Côn Đảo special zone.

When we can confirm the mapping at source, it will go up here with the date it was verified.

Vũng Tàu is now Ho Chi Minh City

Legally, yes — and so are Côn Đảo, Hồ Tràm and Long Hải. The city went from landlocked-feeling to having beaches.

This is the change with the strangest consequences. Former Vũng Tàu City became a single ward, 95 km southeast of the centre. Nghinh Phong Cape — the old French Cap Saint-Jacques — is now officially the southernmost point of the city's mainland. Côn Đảo, once a district of Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu, is now a special zone of this city, so Ho Chi Minh City contains a remote national-park archipelago you reach by a 45-minute flight. Vũng Tàu on Google Maps shows the distance better than any sentence does.

Practically: a booking site may now offer you a Vũng Tàu hotel as "Ho Chi Minh City". It is two hours away by road. Legally the city, practically not — and the Biên Hòa–Vũng Tàu expressway that opened fully on 18 May 2026 has cut the drive to roughly 90 minutes without changing the weekend traffic.

Two more consequences worth carrying. Cu Chi is no longer "Cu Chi District" — it is a set of communes within the city, so anyone writing the old form is working from pre-2025 data. And Mũi Né is now in Lâm Đồng province, sharing a province with Đà Lạt, which quietly changes how a multi-day itinerary gets framed.

Thảo Điền and Thủ Thiêm are now one ward

Both are now An Khánh Ward, despite being completely different propositions. No competitor has flagged this.

Thảo Điền is the expat brunch-and-craft-beer neighbourhood with a metro station. Thủ Thiêm is a largely empty half-built financial district across the river from the centre. Since July 2025 they share one administrative name, so a search or a filter by ward returns both. If you are booking somewhere to stay by ward name, this is the one that will bite you.

Two things people get wrong in the other direction

This city has not banned petrol motorbikes, and the buses are not free yet.

The motorbike ban is Hanoi's, not this city's — and even Hanoi's is smaller than reported. What began on 1 July 2026 in Hanoi is a weekend trial ban covering eleven downtown streets, not a blanket ring-road ban. Ho Chi Minh City has a proposal, targeting 2028. If you read that Saigon has banned petrol motorbikes, the source is wrong, and you can safely rent or ride. If you would rather be driven, Klook covers the city's tickets and transport in one place.

Free city buses are the other one. A proposal covering roughly 135 routes at around 7 trillion đồng a year has been widely reported as though it were already in force. It was pending People's Council approval and we have not been able to confirm that it has passed, so budget for fares. If it does pass, it is a genuinely big story and this page will say so.