Quảng Trị () is a
district-level town in
Quảng Trị Province in the
North Central Coast region of
Vietnam
Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...
. It is second of two municipalities in the province after the provincial capital
Đông Hà.
History
The Sino-Vietnamese name Quảng Trị (廣治) was given by Vietnamese Confucian administrators.
A major feature of the town is the Quảng Trị Citadel, built in 1824, as a military bastion during the 4th year of the reign of
Minh Mạng. It is an example of
Vauban architecture and it later became the administrative head office of the
Nguyễn dynasty
The Nguyễn dynasty (, chữ Nôm: 茹阮, chữ Hán: 朝阮) was the last List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty, preceded by the Nguyễn lords and ruling unified Vietnam independently from 1802 until French protectorate in 1883 ...
in Quảng Trị Province (1809–1945).
Quảng Trị was an area of early Catholic presence and by 1913, the nearest railway station to the starting point of the
La Vang pilgrimage.
[''Catholic Vietnam: A Church from Empire to Nation'' Charles Keith - 2012 -- Page 164 "... the La Vang pilgrimage were new modes of travel, communication, and publicity. In 1913, the future bishop Hồ Ngọc Cẩn wrote an article in Nam Kỳ Địa Phận giving directions to pilgrims coming to La Vang on the newly built colonial railway.... get off (Quảng trị), what roads to take to get to Cổ Vưu (the starting point of the pilgrimage), what sights to see along the way ...]
During the Vietnam War, when the province was the South's border with North Vietnam, it suffered a
major attack in the January 1968
Tet Offensive and it was the only South Vietnamese provincial capital to be
captured by the North Vietnamese forces in the 1972
Easter Offensive
The Easter Offensive, also known as the 1972 spring–summer offensive (') by North Vietnam, or the Red Fiery Summer (') as romanticized in South Vietnamese literature, was a military campaign conducted by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN, t ...
before being
recaptured in September 1972. During the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
the city became what some regard as the most bombed city in the world.
Notable residents
*
Hieu Van Le, Governor of the Australian state of
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...
, was born here in 1954.
*
Vân Khánh (born 1978), folk singer
References
External links
The 1968 Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue
Districts of Quảng Trị province
County-level towns in Vietnam
{{QuangTri-geo-stub