Dai Nam Van Hien

One fence encloses 450 hectares. Inside it stand a temple compound, an artificial mountain, a safari park, a racetrack, a water park and a huge wave pool called Đại Nam Sea. Nowhere else in Vietnam gathers all of this together inside a single boundary.

This is the Đại Nam tourist area, whose full name is Lạc cảnh Đại Nam Văn Hiến. Since July 1, 2025, when Bình Dương province merged into Ho Chi Minh City, it has been one of the largest attractions inside the new megacity.

The story begins with a man named Huỳnh Uy Dũng, born in 1961 in Bình Định. People often call him "Dũng Lò Vôi," because he started out making lime, and then moved on to ceramics and concrete. In 1999 he began building what he described as a tribute to the history and culture of the nation. It took almost ten years. On September 11, 2008, the park officially opened.

The announced investment was about 6 trillion dong, or 6,000 billion, roughly 220 million US dollars at the time work began. This is a figure quoted in the press, and it has not been independently audited.

The first part of the park, and the most sacred, is Đại Nam Quốc Tự. It is about nine hectares, enclosed by walls in the style of a royal court, with temples and statues inside. It is a private spiritual site, named and built by Huỳnh Uy Dũng. It is not a state historic monument, and it is not an old temple. It is an entirely new work, built between 1999 and 2008.

Next comes Núi Bảo Sơn, an artificial mountain with five peaks. It is inspired by Ngũ Hành Sơn, the Marble Mountains near Da Nang. A nine-story pagoda stands with it, and an artificial river runs around the whole. This too is entirely man-made.

Then there is Đại Nam Sea, which is not a sea. It is an artificial swimming pool of 21.6 hectares, more than 200,000 square meters. A mechanical system makes waves that can rise as high as 1.6 meters. The clear water is fresh water that has been treated.

The safari park covers 12.5 hectares and holds more than 100 species of animals. Visitors ride electric cars through areas where the animals roam freely. There are lions and tigers, including white tigers, along with zebras, rhinoceroses and kangaroos.

The amusement area has a roller coaster and other daring rides, suited to young visitors and teenagers. Đại Nam Raceway adds a racetrack, with horse racing, dog racing, go-karts and motorbikes.

The park now belongs to the new Phú An ward of Ho Chi Minh City. Before July 1, 2025, it stood in Hiệp An ward, part of the city of Thủ Dầu Một in Bình Dương. It lies about 40 kilometers north of the city center.

Đại Nam is a very particular place, and a very Vietnamese one. It has great ambition, enormous scale, and a style that joins temples with entertainment, a mix found nowhere else. Some people love it. Others are not used to it. Waves on Đại Nam Sea set swimmers drifting, and a white tiger passes behind the glass of a safari car.