Con Dao National Park

Few places in the world hold both a "hell on earth" and an "ecological paradise" on a single archipelago. Côn Đảo is one of them.

The history of Côn Đảo has been told before: a prison that stood for 113 years, and more than 20,000 people who died there. This story turns to the other side. It is about primary forests and a coral reef 1,000 hectares wide. It is about the sea turtles that come back to nest every year. And it is about the sea cow, an extremely endangered animal that still glides through the blue-green water of these islands.

The Prime Minister established Côn Đảo National Park in 1993. It covers almost 20,000 hectares, and 14,000 of them are sea. In Vietnam, it is a rare national park that joins forest and sea in one.

Three international titles. Three layers of meaning.

In 2013, the Ramsar Convention recognized the park as the first marine Ramsar site in Vietnam. It is Ramsar site number 2,203 in the world and the sixth in Vietnam. Ramsar is a major international title for wetlands of special importance.

In April 2023, on the 30th anniversary of the park's founding, the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity awarded Côn Đảo the title of ASEAN Heritage Park. The park had met nine of the ten criteria.

On November 29, 2025, the park became the 101st protected area in the world on the Green List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In Vietnam, only three areas have reached this standard. The other two are Vân Long and Cát Tiên.

But the most astonishing numbers are not the titles. They are the turtles.

Côn Đảo is the place in Vietnam where the most green sea turtles come to nest. The main nesting season runs from April to October. From 2023 to November 2025, more than 2,100 mother turtles came ashore and laid eggs in more than 6,300 nests. The park's management board released more than 436,000 young turtles into the sea. In the first six months of 2025 alone, nearly 120,000 hatchlings were set free.

A hatchling smaller than a hand, just out of the egg, swims straight toward the horizon. It follows an instinct shaped over millions of years of evolution. Few places in Vietnam still allow people to watch this with their own eyes.

Besides the sea turtles, the waters of Côn Đảo are also home to the sea cow, or dugong. It is an extremely endangered animal that feeds on seagrass, and it has been recorded especially around Hòn Bảy Cạnh.

Under the water, the park has about 1,725 species of marine life. Of these, 360 are coral. The old coral reef is about 1,000 hectares wide, and its density and diversity are among the highest in Vietnam.

On land, the primary forest on Côn Sơn island has more than 1,077 plant species. Somewhere in those treetops lives the Côn Sơn black squirrel, found only on Côn Đảo and nowhere else in the world.

The Côn Đảo archipelago has 16 islands. Hòn Bảy Cạnh is famous for its turtles. Hòn Cau is an island that joins ecology and history, and Hòn Trứng is a kingdom of seabirds.

From July 1, 2025, Côn Đảo became the Côn Đảo Special Zone, part of Ho Chi Minh City. Its area is 75.79 square kilometers, and its population is about 13,000. It is a special zone with biodiversity rarely seen in Vietnam.

Anyone who comes to Côn Đảo finds a beautiful paradox. Right beside the silent prison buildings stand cool green forests. Beneath the sea that was once a prison lie coral reefs and large groups of turtles. The people of Côn Đảo say this is a place where green trees cover the gravestones, and the sea holds every memory in its arms.