The oldest name what was recorded in this area was Ngãi An (義安), a district-level administrative unit has existed since the Nguyễn lords. However, since October 9, 1868, the French government in Cochinchina has decided to change its name to Thủ Đức or sometimes Thũ Đức[note 1] (守德) to suit the expansion and upgrade plan for the land. That was inherently a pen name of a Minh Hương man called Tạ Huy (謝輝), courtesy name Dương Minh (揚明), who has made meritorious services to this area.[5] He was ordained "pioneering saint" (前賢, tiền hiền) by Saigonese folk.[note 2]
Thủ Đức city was founded by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on December 9, 2020 from the districts of 2, 9, and Thủ Đức District.[6][7] Thu Duc City covers 211.56 km2, the population as of 2019 was 1,013,795 inhabitants.[8][9] The establishment of Thu Duc City is hoped to enable it to contribute more to national economic growth and boost development in the Southern Key Economic Zone (SKEZ).[10]
This new city-within-city model has been used by many places in the world including financial center Canary Wharf in London, Silicon Valley in the United States, Gangnam in Seoul or Pudong in Shanghai, etc. It was suggested that Thu Duc should be given autonomy in decision making and policy incentives to develop innovation capacity to improve competitiveness like what China did to Shenzhen, whose economy now is larger than Hong Kong's.[11][12]
Geography
Thu Duc is a class-1 city of Ho Chi Minh City and the first city to use city-within-city model in Vietnam.[13][14]
After arrangement, Ho Chi Minh City consists of 22 district-level subdivisions including 1 city, 16 urban districts, and 5 rural districts. The further commune-level subdivisions would have 312 in total including 249 wards, 58 communes, 5 commune-level towns.[17]
^The record of local voice in Saigon. This rule was circulated regularly before 2000.
^Nguyễn Liên Phong, Nam Kỳ phong tục nhơn vật diễn ca (Customs and figures in Cochinchina by poetry), Phát Toán publishing house, Saigon, Cochinchina, 1909.
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