Yen My Lake

About 60 kilometers southwest of Thanh Hóa city, where the mountains begin to give way to the plain, lies a wide stretch of water that few people know. It is Yên Mỹ Lake.

Yên Mỹ is a freshwater reservoir, built in 1978. A tourism page for the province gives its catchment area as 137 square kilometers. The Thanh Hóa newspaper puts the water surface at about 2,800 hectares. The lake lies in a zone of low hills, with mountain ranges closing it in on the east, west and south. Around it are forest, natural valleys, hillsides, and inlets and peninsulas that reach into the water.

This is a landscape that still feels close to its natural state, and that is exactly what draws people. It is not easy to find a place where nature has not yet been given a name, or packaged as a tourist product.

The newspaper describes the lake as especially beautiful in the early morning, when the light is soft and a thin mist still lingers. The water reflects the mountains and patches of forest, and the picture is still and deep. Just standing on the shore and looking is already worth something.

A newer landmark is the Yên Mỹ Bridge, which carries the North-South Expressway across the lake. The paper says the bridge gives the scene a fresh way of being seen: a modern straight line laid over water, mountains and forest that have stood for ages.

Looking ahead, the province's list of investment projects for 2026 to 2030 includes an ecological area at Yên Mỹ Lake. It is planned at 1,660 hectares, with a total planned investment of 32,000 billion dong. Those figures say that this water is still at the start of its journey.

The lake lies flat and still, birdsong carries from the far forest, and a white bridge fades into the haze. Yên Mỹ Lake is not crowded yet and not noisy, and that may be the rarest beauty a lake can still keep.