Da Nang is the modern face of Vietnam. Where the rest of the country is chaotic, noisy and overflowing, this coastal city in the centre surprises you with wide avenues, clean pavements, seafront skyscrapers and a row of illuminated bridges spanning the Han River. It has one of the longest and loveliest city beaches in Southeast Asia —the famous My Khe, which American soldiers nicknamed 'China Beach'— and just a few kilometres away it hides marble mountains riddled with caves and pagodas, a giant Buddha gazing out to sea and the now legendary Golden Bridge held up by two stone hands.
For years Da Nang was just a stopover on the way to Hoi An or Hue, but on its own merits it has become one of the most comfortable and enjoyable destinations in the country. It's the ideal base: you can eat fresh seafood and local dishes for pennies, sleep well and cheaply by the beach, and from here reach the city of lanterns in half an hour and the old imperial capital in just over an hour, crossing the spectacular Hai Van Pass. All with the Grab app and no headaches.
This guide covers the best of Da Nang with a practical eye: how to plan the trip to the Golden Bridge, when to watch the Dragon Bridge breathe fire, which caves to climb in the Marble Mountains, where to eat the typical dishes of central Vietnam (mi Quang, banh xeo) and how to use the city as a headquarters for discovering the heart of Vietnam. Da Nang is the perfect balance between modern comfort and Asian adventure.
Da Nang has its roots in the kingdom of Champa, the Hindu civilisation that ruled central Vietnam for more than a thousand years: one of its capitals, Indrapura, stood near here, and the city's Cham Museum holds the world's largest collection of its sculpture. Known as Cua Han (the mouth of the Han River), and later as Tourane to the French, the port entered modern history in September 1858, when a Franco-Spanish expedition led by Admiral Rigault de Genouilly landed and seized it: it was the first act of the French conquest of Vietnam, although the invaders found themselves besieged and had to withdraw in 1860. Under France, Tourane grew as a colonial port. Its best-known chapter came on 8 March 1965, when 3.500 US Marines landed on its beaches: they were the first American combat troops in the Vietnam War, and Da Nang became a huge military and air base. My Khe, renamed 'China Beach', was a rest spot for the soldiers. After reunification in 1975, the city was neglected for decades until, in the 21st century, a development plan turned it into the most modern and orderly city in the country. The full story, from the Cham kings to the Marines, is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The historical heart of the country: the Hindu kingdom of Champa and its My Son sanctuary, the imperial capital of Hue, the international port of Hoi An, the caves of Phong Nha and the old border at the 17th parallel.
Read the history of Centre (imperial heritage and coast) →If you book from here we earn a commission and you pay no more. Prices and availability come from Civitatis.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before Da Nang existed, and long before the Vietnamese reached this coast, another people ruled here: the Cham. Between the 2nd and 15th centuries, central Vietnam was the heart of Champa, a Hindu and Buddhist kingdom of sailors and traders who spoke an Austronesian language related to those of Indonesia, not to Vietnamese. At its height, its influence stretched from Hue down to the south, and its kings built red-brick sanctuaries to Shiva topped by slender towers, like the ones you can still see at My Son, not far from the city.
Da Nang sat at the centre of that world. Nearby stood Indrapura, the capital of Champa in the 9th century, and the whole region was scattered with temples and sculptures. When French archaeologists recovered those pieces (dancing gods, apsaras, altars carved in sandstone), they brought together the world's largest collection of Cham art in a museum in the city itself. It is still one of Da Nang's great treasures and the best way to get a glimpse of this lost civilisation.
For centuries, Champa held out against the Vietnamese, who were pushing down from the north in a slow advance known as the 'Nam Tien' (the 'march to the south'). Wars, marriages and conquests kept moving the border, until the Cham kingdom collapsed and its territory was absorbed by Vietnam. What remains of that culture today is a Cham minority still living in the country, its ruins, and that sensual, elegant art that surprises anyone who thought Vietnam was all pagodas and Confucian temples.
The Vietnamese called this place Cua Han, 'the mouth of the Han River', because it sits where the river opens onto one of the best natural bays on the coast. That deep, sheltered bay made the port an increasingly important stop for trade, especially once the nearby port of Hoi An started losing depth as silt built up. Westerners twisted the local name into 'Tourane', and that is the name under which the place entered Vietnam's modern history.
In August and September 1858, a Franco-Spanish fleet led by Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly, sent by Napoleon III on the pretext of protecting persecuted Catholic missionaries, bombarded and occupied Tourane. It was the first act of the French conquest of Vietnam. The plan was to use the port as a beachhead to advance on the imperial capital of Hue, but things went wrong: the invaders were stuck in the city, harassed by Vietnamese troops, worn down by tropical diseases and the climate, and unable to push inland.
After more than a year under siege, the French pulled out of Tourane in March 1860 and moved their offensive south, towards Saigon, which turned out to be an easier target. Although the 1858 landing failed in its immediate goal, it marked the beginning of the end of Vietnamese independence: over the following decades, France would come to control the whole country. Tourane, with its strategic bay, would sit at the centre of that new colonial era.
When France tightened its hold on Vietnam in the late 19th century, it split the country into three parts: the colony of Cochinchina in the south, and the protectorates of Annam in the centre and Tonkin in the north. Although Tourane was geographically inside Annam, it was run separately as a concession under direct French control, almost like a miniature Cochinchina. Its port made it the main sea outlet for the centre of the country and a key commercial and military enclave.
Under the French, Tourane grew into a modern port city, with new docks, government buildings, churches and a more orderly street plan than the old Vietnamese towns. The port shipped out goods from the region and took in European merchandise, and officials, soldiers and traders all passed through it. It was during these years that the French School of the Far East began rescuing and cataloguing the Cham art scattered around the region, and in 1919 it founded the museum that holds that art today.
The colonial presence left its mark on the architecture, on the layout of some streets and on the very name the West used for the city for nearly a century. But, as everywhere in Vietnam, French rule also fed a growing nationalist feeling. After the Second World War, during which Japan occupied the country, the long war of independence against France broke out. It ended in 1954 with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the division of Vietnam in two.
With the division of Vietnam in 1954, Da Nang, which had taken back its Vietnamese name, ended up in the Republic of South Vietnam, a few kilometres from the line separating the pro-Western south from the communist north. Its location and its large bay made it one of the most important military bases of the conflict that was coming. Da Nang airport became one of the busiest in the world because of military traffic.
On 8 March 1965, 3,500 US Marines landed on the beaches of Da Nang. They were the first American combat troops to set foot in Vietnam, a turning point that changed what had until then been a war of 'advisers' into a massive military intervention. Pictures of the soldiers in full combat gear being greeted on the beach by young women with flower garlands and a welcome sign went around the world. In the years that followed, hundreds of thousands of troops passed through the area, and the city filled up with bases, hospitals and airfields.
American and Australian soldiers renamed My Khe beach 'China Beach' and used it for rest and recreation (R&R) between operations. An informal surf club even started there. That name, later made popular by a TV series, became linked to Da Nang in the Western imagination. For the city, the war ended in March 1975, when northern forces took it during a chaotic evacuation, weeks before the fall of Saigon and the reunification of the country. Like the rest of Vietnam, Da Nang carried the scars of that conflict for years.
After reunification in 1975, Da Nang spent decades as a provincial port city, overshadowed by Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, with an economy hit hard by the post-war years. The big shift came in 1997, when it was split from Quang Nam province and made a centrally governed municipality, with its own autonomy and budget. From then on, an ambitious urban development plan transformed it completely.
Within a few decades, Da Nang built spectacular bridges over the Han River, among them the Dragon Bridge, opened in 2013, which breathes fire at weekends. It developed the My Khe seafront with hotels and resorts, upgraded the airport to international status and built attractions such as the Ba Na Hills mountain complex, where the viral Golden Bridge, held up by two giant hands, opened in 2018. The city earned a reputation as the cleanest, most orderly and most 'liveable' in Vietnam, a striking contrast with the usual chaos of the country.
Today Da Nang is the big city of central Vietnam and one of the fastest-growing tourist destinations in Southeast Asia, with direct flights from much of Asia and an economy that relies more and more on tourism and technology. It is also the natural gateway to the heritage triangle of the centre: old Hoi An, imperial Hue and the Cham ruins of My Son. In a single city you find echoes of Champa, the French imprint, the memory of the war and a modern Vietnam looking to the future, facing the sea.
