President Ho Chi Minh’s relic site is located in the vicinity of Ngoc Ha Ward, Ba Dinh District of the capital city of Hanoi, facing Hung Vuong Road and Ba Dinh Square. The site houses tens of thousands of objects made of various materials that are closely linked with the personal and revolutionary life of President Ho Chi Minh. According to characteristics of architectural structures built here, the relic site is divided into three sections – President Ho Chi Minh’s relic site in the Presidential Palace, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, and the Ho Chi Minh Museum.

President Ho Chi Minh’s relic site in the Presidential Palace, called the Presidential Palace Relic Site for short, is President Ho Chi Minh’s residential and working place in Hanoi between 1954 and 1969. Here in the site are 1,456 objects, with 759 ones on display. In the relic site, wooden house built on stilts is where President Ho Chi Minh lived and worked from mid-May 1958 to 1969. The style of the house was chosen by the President himself after his meeting with representatives of northern ethnic minority groups at the Presidential Palace and visits to some locations in northern Thai Nguyen Province. The wooden tiled roof two-storey house overlooks a garden where scented flowers are planted. On the ground floor lies a set of large-size table and chairs, making it an open-air meeting room. The second floor consists of a working room and a bedroom, with each measuring at 10m². In the working room lie a table and a chair. A bookcase is placed in the middle as a partition to separate two rooms. Here, President Ho Chi Minh wrote many important documents, especially his historic testament. In the bedroom lies a wooden single bed covered with a jute mat. In the winter, the room has a heater and the bed has a mattress and a blanket. Presently, more than 250 documents and objects made of various materials in the stilt house have been kept intact and well preserved to the state they were during President Ho Chi Minh’s last days in life.

Located in the front of the stilt house, fish pond covers more than 3,000m². President Ho Chi Minh visited the pond everyday after working hours to feed fish, mainly carp. Orchard, covering more than 65,000m², goes well with fish pond, and they create green-watery picturesque scenery for the place. The botany here is diverse with 1,271 individuals from 161 species of 54 families, including 36 species of fruit trees, 59 species of shady trees, and 67 species of flowers and bonsai trees. In the orchard, there are Xoai Road - where President Ho Chi Minh did morning exercise and had a walk after working hours in the afternoon and gian hoa Phu Chu Tich which is considered the place as a special open-air living room for President Ho Chi Minh’s meetings with dear guests, both local and foreign, on nice days.

Apart from these, the relic site also houses house 54 - where President Ho Chi Minh lived and worked from December 1954 to mid-May 1958, house 67 - where President Ho worked from 1967 to 1969 and is where he stayed for medical treatment and passed away, a kitchen, a garage where two cars that the President used to drive are kept, the Presidential Palace, the Government’s Office, and surrounding gardens. Currently, the Presidential Palace and the Government’s Office remain as working places of the State.

On August 12, 2009, the Prime Minister signed decision 1272/QD-TTg naming the relic site of President Ho Chi Minh in the Presidential Palace as one of the 10 special national relics (first batch).

Located next to President Ho Chi Minh’s relic site in the Presidential Palace, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (also called Lang Bac) is where the embalmed body of President Ho Chi Minh lies. Construction work on the mausoleum began on September 2, 1973 and completed on August 29, 1975. It was built on the site where the platform of the former Ba Dinh Square used to stay. The structure is 21.6m high, 320m long and 100m wide. The structure is divided into three layers, with the lowest layer being the three-step staircase, the middle layer being a room with the exterior made of grey marble where the embalmed corpse is kept, and the top layer being the sloping roof in the shape of three step staircase. The mausoleum’s portico has the words “Chu Tich Ho Chi Minh” engraved in dark red stone. In the central hall of the mausoleum, the body of President Ho Chi Minh, dressed in fading-colored khaki uniform and a pair of rubber sandal, lies in a glass casket. In front of the mausoleum are 79 cycads plants to symbolize the President’s 79 years old. A memorial site, the mausoleum is guarded with strict security.

The last destination in the President Ho Chi Minh’s relic site is the Ho Chi Minh Museum. It covers 13,000m², with 4,000m² reserved for an exhibition area. It was designed by a group of painters from the Moscow Fine Arts Union in collaboration with Vietnamese professionals working in the fields of architecture, fine arts, history, and museum. Entering the museum is an introduction hall, covering 360m². In the centre of the hall lies a bronze statue of President Ho Chi Minh. Behind the statue are images of the sun and the ancient banyan tree, which symbolize the light and the immortal. On the ceiling are electric lamps arranged in a round shape symbolizing the earth and the universe. In the centre of the floor is a square shape and patterns of flowers made of stone featuring the Vietnamese country. The main exhibition hall of the museum is arranged cohesively, entailing three parts:

Part one features the biography and revolutionary life of President Ho Chi Minh, the process he undertook revolutionary activities, and how the Vietnamese people realized his testament.

Part two depicts the Vietnamese people’s life, their resistance wars and victories in the process of implementing the guidelines for national liberation and national construction under the leadership of President Ho Chi Minh and the Party.

Part three describes major events in the world’s history from late 19th century to today that left effects on President Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary life and the Vietnamese revolution.

More information
- The President Ho Chi Minh’s relic site in the Presidential Palace opens all days except Monday and Friday afternoons. The opening time: from 7h30 to 11h and from 14h to 16h (in the summer), from 8h to 11h and from 13h30 to 16h (in the winter).

- The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum opens on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday mornings from 7h30 to 10h30 (in the summer) and from 8h to 11h (in the winter). The mausoleum is closed in October and November annually for periodic technical maintenance.

- The Ho Chi Minh Museum opens all days except Mondays and Friday afternoons from 8h to 11h30 and from 14h to 16h. The museum is closed in October and November annually for periodic technical maintenance.

Thuy Hang