Ly Thai To Moves the Capital to Thang Long (Hanoi), 1010

In 1010 Ly Thai To, founder of the Ly dynasty, moved the capital of the Vietnamese kingdom from Hoa Lu to the site of Dai La on the Red River, renaming it Thang Long, “Ascending Dragon”. The city he founded is today’s Hanoi, and the move marked the start of more than two centuries of Ly rule that shaped the Vietnamese state.

Background

After the Battle of Bach Dang in 938 ended Chinese rule, independent Vietnam was governed by a series of short-lived dynasties: the Ngo, the Dinh and the Early Le. Their capital from 968 was Hoa Lu in today’s Ninh Binh province, a fortress protected by limestone hills.

The Early Le ended in violence. Its last ruler, Le Long Dinh, was remembered in the annals as cruel, and he died in 1009. The court then raised to the throne Ly Cong Uan (974–1028), commander of the palace guard. He had been raised in a Buddhist monastery in what is now Bac Ninh province, and the influential monk Van Hanh supported his accession. He took the throne in 1009, and is known by his temple name, Ly Thai To.

The move to Thang Long

Hoa Lu was easy to defend but cramped and isolated. In 1010 Ly Thai To issued an edict, preserved in the fifteenth-century Complete Annals of Dai Viet, explaining why the capital should move. It argued that earlier rulers in China had moved their capitals to suit the times, and praised Dai La as a place at the centre of the land, with level, high ground and easy access by river and road.

Dai La had been the seat of the Tang dynasty’s Protectorate of Annam, and its walls had been rebuilt by the Tang governor Gao Pian in the 860s. It therefore already had a history as an administrative centre.

In the seventh lunar month of 1010 the court travelled to the new site. The annals tell that when the emperor’s boat arrived, a golden dragon rose into the sky, and he named the city Thang Long. The story is a legend meant to show that heaven favoured the new capital, but the name endured.

Building the Ly state

Ly Thai To built palaces, a citadel and Buddhist temples in Thang Long, and reorganised the provinces. He reigned until his death in 1028. Under his successors the Ly dynasty, which lasted until 1225, became one of the most stable in Vietnamese history.

In 1054 Ly Thanh Tong renamed the kingdom Dai Viet, “Great Viet”. In 1070 the Temple of Literature was founded in the capital, and in 1075 the first civil service examinations were held. Buddhism enjoyed strong royal patronage, alongside a growing Confucian bureaucracy. In 1075–1077 the general Ly Thuong Kiet fought off an invasion by the Song dynasty of China.

Why the site mattered

The choice of Dai La reflected both practical and symbolic reasoning. The site lay near the point where the Red River and its tributaries spread across the delta, so goods, taxes and troops could move easily by water to and from most of the kingdom’s population centres. The surrounding plain supported intensive rice farming, which could feed a large court and garrison.

The edict also used the language of Chinese geomancy and statecraft. It described Dai La in terms such as the “tiger crouching and dragon coiling”, a traditional image of a well-protected site, and presented the move as following the will of heaven. In this way Ly Thai To borrowed the political vocabulary of China while asserting that Vietnam was a separate realm with its own sacred centre.

The move was also a break with the recent past. Hoa Lu was associated with the Dinh and Early Le rulers and with the violent end of the previous dynasty. A new capital allowed the Ly to start afresh, with buildings, temples and offices organised around their own court.

Archaeology

From 2002, excavations at 18 Hoang Dieu Street in central Hanoi revealed foundations, drainage systems, roof tiles and ceramics from the Ly period and later dynasties, laid over remains of the Tang-era settlement. In 2010, the thousandth anniversary of Thang Long, UNESCO inscribed the Central Sector of the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long as a World Heritage Site.

Timeline

• 938: Ngo Quyen wins at Bach Dang.
• 968: Dinh Bo Linh makes Hoa Lu his capital.
• 1009: Ly Cong Uan becomes emperor, founding the Ly dynasty.
• 1010: Edict on moving the capital; the court moves to Thang Long.
• 1028: Death of Ly Thai To.
• 1054: Kingdom renamed Dai Viet.
• 1070: Temple of Literature founded.
• 1225: Ly dynasty replaced by the Tran.
• 1831: City renamed Hanoi.
• 2010: Thang Long millennium; citadel becomes a World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

The move to Thang Long gave Vietnam a capital at the heart of the Red River delta that has been its political and cultural centre for most of the past thousand years. The edict of 1010 is still taught in Vietnamese schools as a founding document of the nation’s statehood.