Phan Thiết

Phan Thiết is the former capital of Bình Thuận Province on the southeast coast of Vietnam. Most inhabitants live in the city centre, while others live in the four urban coastal wards that run from Suối Nước beach in the northeast towards cape Kê Gà in the southwest. Fishing and the manufacture of fish sauce were the main source of the local economy, but tourism, which began with the first resorts opened along the beaches of Hưng Long and Phú Thủy wards in the mid-nineties, is rapidly overshadowing the fishing industry. Rang Beach in Hàm Tiến ward was discovered by foreigners in 1995 while they watched a solar eclipse, and visitors often call every region east of the city centre Mũi Né. The area was under the kingdom of Champa before it was absorbed into Đại Việt, and the name Phan Thiết comes from Hamu Lithit, the name the people of Champa gave the land, in which Lithit means near the sea. Phan Thiết has a relatively dry tropical savanna climate, Köppen Aw, with a wet season from May to mid-November.