Hanoi

Vietnam's capital since 1010, when King Lý Thái Tổ named it Thăng Long — "ascending dragon" — Hanoi layers French colonial architecture, traditional tube houses, and landmarks including the Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, and Hoàn Kiếm Lake into a dense, walkable city with a well-developed café and restaurant scene. The city also carries a long history as a centre of traditional craft villages and northern Vietnamese festivals, and UNESCO designated it a City of Peace in 1999.

• Population8,053,663
• Nearest water2.0 km
• Nearest mountain19.9 km
• UNESCO within 50 km2