The province's key spiritual tourism area

From the beginning, Lord Nguyen established the Border Guard in Chau Doc. This was not yet a formal administrative organization, but only played the role of a garrison station guarding the Hau River under the military regime. In 1788, after retaking Gia Dinh from the Tay Son Dynasty, Nguyen Anh arranged the administration of the South, putting Chau Doc under Vinh Dinh town. In 1802, it was changed to Vinh Thanh town (including An Giang and Vinh Long). The Nguyen Dynasty History Office documents recorded: "Because many places in that land were abandoned, at the beginning of the year Gia Long recruited people to live there and called it Chau Doc Tan Cuong, and placed the Governor of the Border Guard in Vinh Long province".

During the resistance war against French colonialism, in 1948, the Southern Resistance Administrative Committee merged and demarcated the borders of Long Xuyen and Chau Doc provinces to form Long Chau Tien and Long Chau Hau provinces. Chau Doc provincial capital belonged to Long Chau Hau province. At the end of 1950, Long Chau Hau merged with Ha Tien to form Long Chau Ha province. At the end of 1954, the Southern Regional Party Committee re-established Long Xuyen and Chau Doc provinces. After many times of rearranging and stabilizing the organization according to each revolutionary period, the main task of the Long Xuyen and Chau Doc Provincial Party Committee was to stick to the land and people, lead the masses to fight for the implementation of the Geneva Agreement, demand people's livelihood and democracy to protect the achievements of the resistance war; promote military and political work to recruit people into the enemy ranks; build bases associated with the political struggle movement, prepare forces in all aspects, proactively deal with the enemy...

With the overwhelming momentum of the Great Victory of Spring 1975, on the morning of May 1, the local revolutionary forces rose up and occupied the main offices in Chau Doc city, combining with the armed forces to seize the town government at noon. Immediately after that, Resolution 19 of the Politburo established An Giang province. Chau Doc became the second town of An Giang province, after Long Xuyen provincial capital. On July 19, 2013, the Prime Minister signed Resolution 86/NQ-CP, establishing Vinh Nguon ward in Chau Doc town; establishing Chau Doc city in An Giang province.

Once the provincial capital of the ancient An Giang region, Chau Doc City is highly appreciated for its important position in trade, services, tourism and border economy. The city makes the most of mechanisms, policies and solutions to mobilize capital from enterprises, organizations and individuals in implementing trade promotion activities. Promoting the advantage of being a trade hub, with 4 border economic zones of the province, promoting market linkages inside and outside the province. Regarding new rural construction, Vinh Chau is the first commune of the city and the province to complete this goal in 2013. Chau Doc is also the first district-level unit of the province to complete new rural construction in 2017; Vinh Te commune meets the standards of advanced new rural commune in 2021.

With local budget and socialized capital, the city focuses on investing in social welfare projects, such as: Building bridges, inter-commune roads, concreting all intra-field roads. The locality promotes investment in agricultural production in the direction of serving and linking tourism development, with products produced using high technology (vegetables, rice, fruits, ecological gardens, etc.). From there, the landscape, the rural environment is spacious, the living conditions, labor, production, study, etc. of the people are significantly improved.

For a long time, Chau Doc has become a famous place near and far when possessing a complex of ranked cultural and historical relics and unique natural landscapes. Most notably, at the end of 2024, the Via Ba Chua Xu Festival on Sam Mountain was recognized by UNESCO as a representative intangible cultural heritage of humanity. Every year, Chau Doc welcomes millions of domestic and foreign visitors to visit and make pilgrimages. Combining culture (especially spiritual culture) with tourism development, the locality increasingly improves the spiritual life of the people; focusing on building a civilized urban lifestyle, Chau Doc people are friendly and affectionate, "each citizen is a tour guide". With creative thinking and ways of doing, Chau Doc City increasingly affirms its position as a pillar of tourism development of the province, a key tourism and pilgrimage center of the Mekong Delta.

Looking back on the development path after so many years of peace, Chau Doc City is truly at ease, as 100% of policy households have stable lives; becoming the leading locality in the province in reducing poor and near-poor households sustainably (a district-level unit with no poor households since 2015, and no near-poor households by 2024). This is also the leading unit in the province in terms of schools meeting national standards continuously since 2015.

Promoting the existing achievements and experiences, with aspirations, will, determination, bravery and creativity, the Party Committee and People of this borderland will certainly continue to write new history pages, glorify the century-old tradition, and reap many new marks in the new era.

GIA KHANH