Thủ Đức

The oldest name what was recorded in this area was Ngãi An (義安), a district-level administrative unit has existed since the Nguyễn lords. However, since October 9, 1868, the French government in Cochinchina has decided to change its name to Thủ Đức or sometimes Thũ Đức^{[note 1]} (守德) to suit the expansion and upgrade plan for the land. That was inherently a pen name of a Minh Hương man called Tạ Huy (謝輝), courtesy name Dương Minh (揚明), who has made meritorious services to this area.^[5] He was ordained "pioneering saint" (前賢, tiền hiền) by Saigonese folk.^{[note 2]}

Thủ Đức city was founded by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on December 9, 2020, from the districts of 2, 9, and Thủ Đức District.^[6][7] Thu Duc City covers 211.56 km², the population as of 2019 was 1,013,795 inhabitants.^[8][9] The establishment of Thu Duc City is hoped to enable it to contribute more to national economic growth and boost development in the Southern Key Economic Zone (SKEZ).^[10]

This new city-within-city model has been used by many places in the world including financial center Canary Wharf in London, Silicon Valley in the United States, Gangnam in Seoul or Pudong in Shanghai, etc. It was suggested that Thu Đức should be given autonomy in decision making and policy incentives to develop innovation capacity to improve competitiveness like what China did to Shenzhen, whose economy now is larger than Hong Kong's.^[11][12]

Thủ Đức lies in the eastern of Ho Chi Minh City, adjacent to:

• Biên Hòa and Long Thành district of Đồng Nai province to the east by Đồng Nai River
• District 1, 4, 12 and Bình Thạnh to the west by Saigon River
• Nhơn Trạch district of Đồng Nai province (by Đồng Nai River) and District 7, Ho Chi Minh City (by Saigon River)
• Dĩ An and Thuận An, Bình Dương to the north

The city has an area of 211,56 km², population as of 2019 is 1,013,795 people, population density is 4,792 people/km².

Thủ Đức was a class-1 city of Ho Chi Minh City and the first city to use city-within-city model in Vietnam.^[13][14]

Thủ Đức City has 34 wards,^[4][5] which is now reformed into 12 wards directly managed by Ho Chi Minh City:

• An Khánh: An Khánh, An Lợi Đông, Thủ Thiêm, Thảo Điền with part in northern Hanoi Highway of An Phú
• Bình Trưng: An Phú, Bình Trưng Đông, Bình Trưng Tây
• Cát Lái: Cát Lái, Thạnh Mỹ Lợi
• Phước Long: Phước Long A, Phước Long B, Phước Bình
• Long Phước: Long Phước, Trường Thạnh
• Long Trường: Long Trường, Phú Hữu
• Long Bình: Long Bình, Long Thạnh Mỹ
• Linh Xuân: Linh Xuân, Linh Trung, Linh Tây
• Hiệp Bình: Hiệp Bình Chánh, Hiệp Bình Phước, Linh Đông
• Tam Bình: Bình Chiểu, Tam Bình, Tam Phú
• Tăng Nhơn Phú: Tăng Nhơn Phú A, Tăng Nhơn Phú B, Tân Phú, Hiệp Phú
• Thủ Đức: Linh Chiểu, Bình Thọ, Trường Thọ, part of Linh Tây (Thủ Đức Market)

After arrangement, Ho Chi Minh City consists of 22 district-level subdivisions including 1 city, 16 urban districts, and 5 rural districts. The further commune-level subdivisions would have 312 in total including 249 wards, 58 communes, 5 commune-level towns.^[15]

Thu Duc City will contribute one third of Ho Chi Minh City's gross regional domestic product (GRDP) and account for 7 percent of the national gross domestic product (GDP), which is only behind Hanoi's GRDP in scale but higher than that of Binh Duong and Dong Nai.^[15][16]