Phuoc Binh National Park

In the west of what was Ninh Thuận province, the high forests of the southern Trường Sơn range meet a dry, parched land. This is Phước Bình National Park. Across the old province lies Núi Chúa National Park, where forest meets sea on the eastern coast. Two parks, two very different ecological worlds, inside one former province.

Phước Bình became a national park in 2006, when the prime minister signed the decision that upgraded the Phước Bình Nature Reserve. It covers 19,814 hectares. The land rises from about 300 meters in the lowlands to 1,926 meters at the highest peak.

Older legal records place the park in Phước Bình commune, in the Bác Ái area. That area was then part of Ninh Thuận province. After the administrative reorganization of 2025, the park belongs to Bác Ái Tây commune in Khánh Hòa province. The forest, the streams and the villages did not move. Only the way the address is written has changed.

What sets Phước Bình apart from many other national parks is three layers of value together.

The first layer is the forest. The founding decision names the kinds of high-mountain forest it aims to protect. They are closed tropical evergreen rain forest, mixed forest of broadleaf and conifer trees from the subtropics, conifer forest, and open forest of the dipterocarp family in the dry zone. The names sound academic. In practice, a walker climbing from low ground to high sees the forest change clearly, as if passing through several climates in a single day.

The second layer is community culture. The buffer zone around the park is home to the Raglai and Chu Ru communities. According to the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism, community tourism here includes walking through villages, sleeping in stilt houses and tasting local food. Visitors can also listen to instruments such as the mã la and the khèn hơi. Another is the đàn Chapi. This is the real livelihood and daily life of people who have lived close to the forest for generations. It is not a show put on for visitors.

The third layer is history. The buffer zone still holds traces of the CK19 war zone, with its trenches, its smokeless field stoves and the assembly grounds of the war years. Here too belongs the story of the Pi-năng Tắc stone trap. It was a wartime tactic used by the people of Phước Bình and Bác Ái. The People's Army newspaper recalls it as a memory of this land's history.

The eco-tourism spots here include Gia Nhông stream and Đá Bàn waterfall. There are also Đá Đen waterfall and a spot called Hầm Tàu Lửa. Each has its own character, from a cool, quiet stream under the forest canopy to a great block of rock with white water spilling over it.

Phước Bình is a place to sit down and listen to the stream. The forest changes its colors and its greens with the height. Beside it runs the rhythm of a community that has lived there for generations.