Red River

Why Red River is special ?

The Red River (Song Hong) begins in China's Yunnan province in the mountains south of Dali. It flows generally southeastward, passing through Dai ethnic minority areas before leaving China through Yunnan's Honghe Autonomous Prefecture. It enters Vietnam at Lào Cai Province. It forms a portion of the international border between China and Vietnam. The river, known as Thao River for this upper stretch, continues its southeasterly course through northwestern Vietnam before emerging from the mountains to reach the midlands. Its main tributaries, the Black River (Da River) and Lô River join in to form the very broad Hồng near Việt Trì, Phu Tho Province. Downstream from Việt Trì, the river and its many distributaries spread out to form the Red River Delta. The Red River flows past the Vietnamese capital Hanoi before emptying into the Gulf of Tonkin.

The reddish-brown heavily silt-laden water gives the river its name. The Red River is notorious for its violent floods with its seasonally wide volume fluctuations. The delta is a major agricultural area of Vietnam with vast area devoted to rice. The land is protected by an elaborate network of dikes and levees.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/

What to explore at Red River?

The Red River delta is about 120 km long and 140km wide, and is expanding an astonishing 100 metres a year. It is the economic centre of northern Vietnam - Haiphong, Vietnam’s main port, lies on a branch of the delta.

Today, around fifteen million people inhabit the area, one of the highest population densities in the world. Rice is the principal crop of the delta, but wheat, beans, rapeseed, corn, and subtropical crops are also grown. Villages specialized in a wide variety of crafts that ranged from the making of conical 'non' hats to the production of lacquerware. The tradition continues to the present day in the form of Vietnam’s famous ‘craft villages’, mostly clustered in the rural areas surrounding Hanoi and now major tourist attraction.

Source: http://www.haivenu-vietnam.com/