Da Nang is nine times bigger, and no longer has any districts

There is a phrase that people in Da Nang still say every day, yet it actually hasn't been correct for more than three months now: "Hai Chau District".

From July 1, Da Nang no longer has any urban districts. No rural districts either. The entire Quang Nam province has been merged in, and the new city now has only two levels: the city, then straight down to wards and communes.

Before that, Da Nang was a small strip of land by the sea: under 1,300 square kilometers, about 1.2 million people, six urban districts and two rural districts. On the map of the whole country, it was just a red dot.

Now that red dot stretches from the sea all the way to the Lao border. Nearly 12,000 square kilometers, more than 3 million people — nine times larger and two and a half times more populous. Hoi An is Da Nang. My Son is Da Nang. Tam Ky, Cu Lao Cham, even the far-off mountains of Tra My are Da Nang too.

In place of six districts and a neighboring province, there are now 23 wards, 70 communes and one special zone — and that special zone is Hoàng Sa.

That's how it is on paper. Out on the road, it's a different story.

The street signs are still the same. Taxi drivers still ask, "Hải Châu or Sơn Trà?" Landlords still write "Ngũ Hành Sơn District" in their listings. Three months isn't enough for a city to change what it calls itself, especially when the old names have been on people's lips for more than twenty years.

The place where the change is most visible is the address. A golf course in Hoi An now lists "Duy Xuyen Ward, Da Nang City". Another course in Thang Binh lists "Thang An Commune, City Da Nang". Reading it for the first time, it seemed strange, as if someone had written it down by mistake. Only on the second reading did I remember: it was not a mistake. Four golf courses around Da Nang are now, quite literally, in Da Nang.

And here's a small but fun thing: the "argumentative" Quảng accent, which used to be the neighboring province's thing, is now officially the accent of this city. There is no longer any boundary separating the people of Da Nang from the people of Quang Nam, even though the two sides will keep telling each other apart for a long time to come.

For those coming from afar

If you book a room in Hoi An and the app shows "Da Nang", that's not a mistake. If you ask for directions to "Hải Châu District" and people understand right away, it's not because the district still exists — it's because no one has managed to break the habit yet. And if you see a city that has thousand-year-old Cham towers, an ancient town, beaches, rice fields, forests, and mountains over 2,000 meters high, then that is Da Nang today.

The name has grown bigger. But the place where we sit down for dinner is still in the very same old alley.

Photos: TUBS, Chemistry(NuTech), Contributeur2019, Vuong Tri Binh, Dragfyre — Wikimedia Commons.