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Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City

3 2.8
The largest city in southern Vietnam, formerly called Saigon
  • proper noun
translation icon : Ciudad Ho Chi Minh
  • "Saigon," Dad muses, "has been swallowed by Ho Chi Minh City."
  • Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon
  • Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
  • streets of Ho Chi Minh City

Examples

  • Our first night in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, we went to a private screening of filmmaker Quang's newest production, The Singing River.

    Fiction book (1991)
  • A number of artists of Vietnamese heritage who grew up in the United States have relocated to Ho Chi Minh City and transformed the local art scene.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Saigon surprised Dad as much then as Ho Chi Minh City does now.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Meanwhile, I open a letter that arrives in the mail, postmarked Ho Chi Minh City.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • Meanwhile, our cruise ship slowly makes its way up the Mekong Delta to meet us later at Ho Chi Minh City.

    Academic text (1995)
  • Dad struggles to reconcile the enormous size of Ho Chi Minh City with the intimacy of Saigon, my Vietnam with his.

    Academic text (2011)
  • On our last night in Vietnam, the Ho Chi Minh City Writers Association treated us to a farewell banquet aboard the Cosevina 2, a floating restaurant-cum-riverboat.

    Fiction book (1991)
  • The monk spent ten years under house arrest, but in March 1992 moved to Ho Chi Minh City, to Thanh Minh Monastery, to work on translating Buddhist texts.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • In Vietnam, spaces such as Nha San Due in Hanoi and San Art in Ho Chi Minh City have acted as liaisons between collectors and buyers, curators and museums.

    Academic text (2011)
  • The bustling markets of Ho Chi Minh City offer a vibrant glimpse into Vietnamese culture.

Synonyms

Saigon
vsHo Chi Minh City
66 4.0

An old name for Ho Chi Minh City, the large city in southern Vietnam

is the modern official name for the same southern city and largest in Vietnam

Surface Forms

Morphology

Ho + Chi + Minh + city

The word 'city' transparently signals that the phrase refers to an urban place, so part of the meaning (that it is a city) is recoverable from the constituents. However, 'Ho', 'Chi' and 'Minh' are proper-name elements with no compositional meaning for most learners, and the specific referent (largest city in Vietnam; formerly Saigon) requires cultural or lexical knowledge beyond the parts, making the expression only partially predictable.

Etymology

Ho Chi Minh City takes its name from the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, who helped lead the country to independence. After 1975 the city called 'Saigon' was renamed to honor him, so the name today remembers that leader.