Phu Quoc is Vietnam's tropical paradise: the country's largest island, tucked away in the Gulf of Thailand, with powder-fine white sand, turquoise water, coconut palms and postcard sunsets over the sea. It's where many travellers come to round off their trip with a few days of beach, snorkelling over coral, seafront resorts and the simple pleasure of doing nothing under a palm tree.
But Phu Quoc is an island of contrasts. Alongside the untouched coves of the south and the national park that covers much of its jungle interior, a large-scale tourist Vietnam has sprung up in just a few years: the world's longest over-sea cable car to Hon Thom island, theme parks such as VinWonders, the 'city that never sleeps' complex of Grand World with its Kiss Bridge, and mega-resorts that have transformed the landscape. This breakneck development sits side by side with the traditional life of fishermen and fish sauce and pepper producers.
This guide helps you choose the Phu Quoc you're after: the best beaches (Sao, Khem, Long Beach), the boat trip to the An Thoi archipelago for diving, the record-breaking cable car to Hon Thom, the Duong Dong night market and the big complexes in the north. With real prices, plus tips on when to come depending on the sea and how to get around an island that is bigger than it looks.
Phu Quoc's history is tied to the sea, to the border with Cambodia and to fish sauce. Inhabited since ancient times, the island was disputed for centuries between Vietnam and Cambodia (which has historically claimed it under the name Koh Tral) and was frequented by traders and pirates of the Gulf of Thailand. In the 18th century, the French adventurer and missionary Pigneau de Béhaine took refuge here and sheltered the young prince Nguyen Anh, the future Emperor Gia Long. The island became renowned for its nuoc mam (fermented fish sauce) industry, one of the most prestigious in the country, and for its pepper. During the Indochina and Vietnam wars, Phu Quoc held a large prison where the South Vietnamese regime jailed and tortured thousands of prisoners; it is now a museum. In 1975 it was among the last places to fall. In the 21st century, declared a special economic zone, it went through explosive tourism development that turned it into Vietnam's great resort island. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The south won from the Khmer: the Khmer and Chinese Saigon that was capital of Cochinchina and of the wartime south, the rice bowl of the Mekong Delta, and the prison island of Phu Quoc.
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No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Phu Quoc is, above all, a frontier island, and its history has been shaped by its position in the Gulf of Thailand, much closer to the coast of Cambodia than to the bulk of Vietnam. For centuries the Khmer knew this forested island as Koh Tral, and it belonged to the sphere of the Kingdom of Cambodia. It was thinly settled by fishermen and frequented by traders and pirates who sailed these waters between the Malay, Siamese, Cambodian and Vietnamese worlds.
Its relative remoteness and its island status made it more of a refuge and a waypoint than a major settlement. Covered in jungle, with mangroves and sheltered coves, it offered timber, fish and places to hide. Sovereignty over the island stayed blurred for a long time, in that grey zone where Cambodian, Vietnamese and Siamese influence overlapped.
Vietnamese settlement took hold from the 17th and 18th centuries, as the Nguyen lords expanded south and Vietnamese and Chinese communities settled around the gulf (with links to nearby Ha Tien, a trading principality founded by a Chinese man, Mac Cuu, under Vietnamese protection). Even so, the underlying dispute with Cambodia over who the island belonged to never fully went away, and it would return tragically in the 20th century. Cambodia still maintains historical claims to what it calls Koh Tral.
One of the most novel-like episodes in Phu Quoc's history took place in the late 18th century, in the middle of the Vietnamese civil war between the Tay Son rebels and the Nguyen family. The young prince Nguyen Anh, a survivor of the house of Nguyen and the future Emperor Gia Long, was hunted by the Tay Son and took refuge several times on the islands of the gulf, Phu Quoc among them, to escape his enemies.
This is where a key figure entered the story: Pigneau de Béhaine, a French missionary and bishop who took up Nguyen Anh's cause and became his ally and adviser. Pigneau protected the prince, helped him organise the resistance and sought foreign (French) support to restore him. That alliance had huge consequences: Nguyen Anh went on to reunify Vietnam in 1802 and found the Nguyen dynasty as Emperor Gia Long, and the French involvement that began with Pigneau foreshadowed France's colonial push into Vietnam decades later.
So for a moment this remote island was where the man who would unify the country managed to survive. Phu Quoc keeps the memory of that past alive in temples and sites linked to Nguyen Anh, and the episode shows how, despite its remoteness, the island was tied to the big events of Vietnamese history.
Beyond politics, Phu Quoc's historical identity was built on what it could take from the sea and the land. The island became famous throughout Vietnam, and beyond, for its nuoc mam, the fermented fish sauce that is a cornerstone of Vietnamese cooking. Phu Quoc nuoc mam is traditionally made with anchovies caught in local waters and fermented with salt in large wooden vats for months. It is so highly regarded that it has a protected designation of origin, and its traditional factories (nha thung) are still a classic stop on any visit to the island.
Fish sauce was joined by another famous product: Phu Quoc pepper, grown on plantations in the interior and prized for its quality and aroma. Pearl farming also developed in its waters, and the pearl farms now sell jewellery to visitors. For generations these three products (fish sauce, pepper and pearls), together with fishing, formed the backbone of the island's traditional economy.
That Phu Quoc of fishermen, salting houses and plantations was, until a few decades ago, a quiet and fairly isolated island, with a slow pace of life set by the sea and the seasons. It is very different from the resort island it has become in the 21st century, yet its nuoc mam factories, pepper plantations and fishing villages still keep the memory of that productive past alive.
The 20th century left a dark and painful mark on Phu Quoc. Because it was isolated and hard to escape from, it was chosen as the site of a large prison. During the First Indochina War, the French had already set up a prison camp here. But it was during the Vietnam War that Phu Quoc Prison (also known as the 'coconut tree prison', Nha lao Cay Dua) gained its grim reputation: the South Vietnamese government, with US backing, used it to hold tens of thousands of communist and Viet Cong prisoners.
Conditions were extremely harsh, and the torture and abuse the prisoners suffered are well documented. Today part of the complex is preserved as a museum, with reconstructions that show how brutal that imprisonment was, and it is a site of remembrance for Vietnam. It is a sobering, powerful stop for anyone who wants to understand the hardest side of the island's history, so different from its paradise image.
When the war ended in 1975, Phu Quoc was among the last places to come under the control of the new Vietnam. Shortly afterwards, in the late 1970s, the island and the whole south-western border were attacked by the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia, which claimed these territories and went as far as raiding Vietnamese islands and villages, in the run-up to the Cambodian–Vietnamese War of 1978-1979. The frontier island once again lived through the conflict its geography seemed to have in store for it.
In the 21st century, Phu Quoc has gone through one of the fastest and most dramatic transformations anywhere in Vietnam. Declared a special economic zone and given strong incentives to attract investment, the island went in little more than a decade from a quiet destination for fishermen and backpackers to the country's leading resort island. An international airport, highways, mega-resorts run by international chains, theme parks such as VinWonders, the Grand World leisure complex, a safari park and the Hon Thom cable car, considered the longest over-sea cable car in the world, were all built.
This breakneck development has brought prosperity, jobs and mass tourism, both domestic and international, but also serious strains. Rapid construction has put pressure on the island's environment: deforestation, waste management, coastal development and overstretched resources such as water. Phu Quoc National Park, which protects the jungle in the interior, and the marine areas of the An Thoi archipelago are key to preserving the nature that draws visitors. In 2015, much of the island and its surroundings was recognised by UNESCO as part of the Kien Giang Biosphere Reserve.
Today Phu Quoc is an island with two faces. One is large-scale tourism in the north and parts of the south, with its resorts and attractions. The other is untouched coves, islets with crystal-clear water, fish sauce factories, pepper plantations and fishing villages that keep the island's traditional soul. For travellers, the challenge and the pleasure lie in finding the balance: enjoying its dreamy beaches and turquoise sea while staying aware of how fragile a paradise that has changed at full speed really is.
