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Lào Cai
Former provincial city in Vietnam From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Lào Cai ([làːw kāːj] ⓘ) was a city in the Northwest region of Vietnam. It was the capital of Lào Cai Province. The city bordered Bảo Thắng District, Bát Xát District, Sa Pa and the city of Hekou Yao Autonomous County, in Yunnan province of southwest China. It was situated at the junction of the Red River (Sông Hồng) and the Nanxi River (Yunnan), approximately 160 miles (260 km) northwest of Hanoi.[2]
 | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Vietnamese. (August 2010) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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It is a market town for timber, and the Lào Cai Railway Station is located on the Kunming–Haiphong railway to Yunnan Province in China.
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History
The town was invaded by China in 1979 and the border was closed until 1993.[3][4]
On 20 February 2025 the Vietnamese parliament approved an $8 billion railroad investment to upgrade under Xi Jinping's Belt and road initiative the old French-built Kunming–Haiphong railway, which serves the Chinese border city Hekou Yao, Lao Cai, Hanoi and Haiphong.[5]
On 1 July 2025, according to the plan to arrange and merge administrative units in Vietnam, Lào Cai province and Yên Bái province merged together to form the new Lào Cai province. Furthermore, due to the [[the disestablishment of the "provincial city" tier, Lào Cai city was divided into 2 wards (Cam Đường, Lào Cai) and 2 communes (Cốc San, Hợp Thành). They also lost the position of being the capital as it was given to Yên Bái ward, which was a part of the old Yên Bái province.
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Climate
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Lào Cai has a dry-winter humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa), similar to most of Northern Vietnam.
Topography and geology
The city has diverse topographical and geological features, including hill, mountainous, half mountainous, coastal plains and coastal sand dunes.
The hilly region is in the west, stretching from north to south (in parts of communes: Dong Son, Thuan Duc) with an average elevation of 12–15 m, with total area of 64.93 km2, 41.7% of the city total area. Residents here live on agriculture, forestry, farming. The soil in this area is poor in nutrition, infertile and subject to continuous erosion due to its slope of 7–10%.
The half hilly region surrounds a plain with an average elevation of 10 m from north-east - north to north-west – south-west and south – south-east.[clarification needed] This region covers communes and wards of Bắc Lý, Nam Lý, Nghĩa Ninh, Bắc Nghĩa, Đức Ninh, Đức Ninh Đông, Lộc Ninh and Phú Hải with total area of 62.87 km2, or accounts for 40.2% of the city total area. Residents here lives on industrial, handcraft, trading and a small percentage lives on farming. This region is not very fertile, subject to alum. However, thanks to the heavy distribution of rivers and lakes, ponds and pools, it's better for agriculture than the hilly region. The plain with the average of 2.1 m, with little slope, accounting for 0.2% of the city area (5.76 km2). Most of the city's commercial, administrative and main streets concentrate in this narrow regions. Coastal sand dune area is on the east of the city, with an area of 21.98 km2, making up 14,3% of the total area.[citation needed]
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Demographics
As of 2020 the city had a population of 130,671, covering an area of 282.13 km2.[1]
Ethnic minorities in Lào Cai used to speak Southwestern Mandarin and Vietnamese to each other when their languages were not mutually intelligible.[9]
Administrative divisions
Lào Cai City was officially divided into 17 commune-level sub-divisions, which included 10 wards (Bắc Cường, Bắc Lệnh, Bình Minh, Cốc Lếu, Duyên Hải, Kim Tân, Lào Cai, Nam Cường, Pom Hán, and Xuân Tăng) and 7 rural communes (Cam Đường, Cốc San, Đồng Tuyển, Hợp Thành, Tả Phời, Thống Nhất, Vạn Hòa).[1]
References
External links
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