The Red River Delta

Song Hong, the Red River, is the largest river in the north of Vietnam. Rising in China’s Yunnan province, the river flows about 1,175 kilometers to the southeast and through deep and narrow gorges to come in Vietnam and then discharge into the Gulf of Tonkin through a large area. When going to Hanoi, the river makes a cure around the city creating the Old Quarter Area of the city. The silt it carries is rich in iron oxide, making it’s water red and giving it its name.

Hanoi old quarter

The Red River Delta

The Red River delta covers an area of 120 kilometers of length and 140 kilometers of wide and continues to expand about 100 meters a year. This is the important economic center of the northern Vietnam.  If you join Halong Bay Tours, you surely will travel through this delta. From your hotel in Hanoi Old Quarter Area, crossing to Long Bien Bridge or Chuong Duong Bridge, then you will on the highway heading to Halong Bay. Sitting on the mordent shuttle bus and enjoying the beautifully peaceful scenery of the delta via the bus window will surely be a great experience.

Long Bien Bridge

The volume of the water flowing down from the river reaches up to 500 million cubic meters per second but may go up by more than 60 times when it is the peak of the rainy season. The delta region is located above from three to five meters than the sea level. This area is subject to frequently flooded: in some areas the high-water mark is 14 meters above the surrounding countryside while somewhere else is at the same. Local people there use dikes and canals to protect the delta from the floodwaters.

Halong bay 

There is a major highway crossing the delta and the coastal strip beyond, an important transportation route linking China and Vietnam. Today, the Red Delta area is one of the highest population densities in the world with around 14 million people inhabit the area. It is obvious that rice is the principal crop of the delta but wheat, corn, beans, rapeseed and subtropical crops are also grown.

Red River

In the past, the Red River Delta had produced a huge number of skillful craftspeople. The yearly rice-growing cycle highlighted a period where farmers left the land fallow, thus freeing them to pursue other money-making speculations.

Villages specialized in a wide variety of crafts that stretched from the making of conical hats to the making of lacquer ware. The tradition remains to the present day in the form of Vietnam’s famous ‘craft villages’, mostly clustered in the rural regions surrounding Hanoi and now major tourist fascination.

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