Lạng Sơn

Lạng Sơn is a former city in far Northern Vietnam and the capital of Lạng Sơn Province. It is accessible by road and rail from Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, and it is the northernmost point on National Route 1. As the gateway of Vietnam to China, just across from Guangxi, the city and its ancient citadel have lain in the path of many invasions and were the site of three French defeats during the colonial era. Occupied by Qing forces before the Sino-French War, the city was taken by France after the two-week Lạng Sơn Campaign in February 1885, and the hasty French retreat from Lạng Sơn became the most controversial aspect of the war and led to the fall of the ministry of Jules Ferry. French forces again retreated after clashing with the Japanese 5th Division in the Battle of Lạng Sơn on 22 September 1940, and the city was evacuated in 1950 during the offensive of Võ Nguyên Giáp against the French border forts, considered a turning point in the Indochina War. It was the centre of fighting in the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, when it fell to the Chinese military.