Who ruled Hanoi?

Hanoi lies on the right bank of the Red River in the heart of its delta in northern Vietnam, a flat, flood-prone plain that has fed the Vietnamese heartland for thousands of years. Its name, meaning "inside the rivers", reflects that setting. For most of the last thousand years Hanoi, under the name Thăng Long, was the capital of independent Vietnamese states, and in the 20th century it became the capital first of French Indochina and then of the Vietnamese revolution.

The area has a long history of settlement. Cổ Loa, a huge spiral-walled citadel built in the 3rd century BCE and traditionally linked to King An Dương Vương, lies within today's city limits. After the Han dynasty conquered the region in 111 BCE, the Red River delta was ruled by Chinese dynasties for about a thousand years. Under the Tang dynasty it was the Protectorate of Annam, and in 866 the Tang general Gao Pian rebuilt the provincial citadel and named it Đại La.

Vietnamese independence was secured in 938, and in 1010 Lý Thái Tổ, founder of the Lý dynasty, moved his capital from Hoa Lư to Đại La, renaming it Thăng Long, "ascending dragon". The Temple of Literature, dedicated to Confucius, was founded in 1070, and an academy for training officials followed soon after. As capital of Đại Việt, Thăng Long survived three Mongol invasions in the 13th century, when the Trần dynasty abandoned the city and then drove the invaders out. The Ming dynasty occupied it from 1407 until Lê Lợi defeated them in 1427 and founded the Lê dynasty. Legend links his victory to Hoàn Kiếm Lake, the "lake of the returned sword", in the city centre.

Over the following centuries the old quarter of guild streets grew between the citadel and the river. In 1802 the new Nguyễn dynasty moved the capital to Huế, and in 1831 the city was renamed Hà Nội.

French forces attacked the citadel in 1873 and again in 1882, and Tonkin became a French protectorate in the 1880s. In 1902 Hanoi became the capital of French Indochina. The French demolished most of the old citadel and laid out a European quarter of boulevards, villas and an opera house, while the Long Biên bridge carried the railway across the Red River.

Japan occupied Indochina during the Second World War. On 2 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh read Vietnam's declaration of independence in Ba Đình Square. Fighting with France broke out in the city in December 1946, and the French left only after their defeat at Điện Biên Phủ and the Geneva agreements of 1954. Hanoi then became the capital of North Vietnam. During the Vietnam War it was bombed repeatedly by the United States, most heavily in December 1972.

The war ended in 1975, and when the country was formally reunified the following year as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Hanoi was its capital. The market reforms known as Đổi Mới, launched in 1986, opened the city to foreign investment and rapid building. In 2008 its boundaries were greatly enlarged, and Hanoi now has more than 8 million people and serves as the country's political capital.