Vietnam's most provincial international beach city

Quy Nhon is the capital of Binh Dinh province, about halfway between Da Nang and Nha Trang. Quy Nhon shares some similarities with its fellow cities in the South Central Coast region. They are major cities that have a municipal beach, and they all have international airports. Quy Nhon, though, is still a domestic destination at heart, and it has a different vibe from its coastal contemporaries.

I had been in Da Nang and Nha Trang in March and April of 2025, and both cities are benefiting from the record-breaking year of international tourist arrivals. I visited Quy Nhon after visiting Da Nang and Nha Trang, and the difference in tourism numbers couldn’t be more stark.

Quy Nhon felt much quieter than Da Nang and Nha Trang, and there were hardly any international tourists around. I checked with the airport flights, and there are currently no international flights to Quy Nhon. The easiest way to tell if there are any foreigners around is to look at the beach. The beaches of Da Nang and Nha Trang are full of people during the day, who are mostly international. Vietnamese (sensibly) do not go to the beach in the middle of the day. I realised this when I didn’t see anyone lying on the beach in Quy Nhon during the day.

This was a refreshing change of pace after being in the busy tourist cities on the coast, but Quy Nhon has aspirations to become more of an international tourism city.

I was last in Quy Nhon at the start of 2023, not long after the shock of the FLC stock manipulation scandal. FLC are a real estate developer that also launched Bamboo Airways. The airline planned to use Quy Nhon as one of its major hubs, bringing international visitors to FLC-branded resorts on the Quy Nhon coast.

Other developers have overreached in Quy Nhon, so the city has not kept pace with Da Nang and Trang (who have development scandals of their own).

I got the train from Da Nang to see how some of the big projects in Quy Nhon are progressing. I spent a day wandering around the city, and another day riding around to visit the derelict new urban areas along the coast.

Provincial mergers

I was in Quy Nhon not long after the government announced the radical plan to merge 63 cities and provinces to 34.

As part of the merger plan, Binh Dinh province will merge with Gia Lai province in the Central Highlands. The new province will be called Gia Lai, and Quy Nhon will be the capital of this merged province. The current capital of Gia Lai (Pleiku) will lose its capital status.

This merger will be an enormous administrative exercise, as layers of government are being removed, wards and communes are being redrawn, and thousands of government workers are being retired.

In Quy Nhon, there are many institutions named after the province. The new convention centre is named after the province instead of the city, so that will need a name change. And how long will it take for places like the Binh Dinh General Hospital to change names?

Quy Nhon City

I stay near the beach when I visit Quy Nhon. One thing I noticed on this trip is that Quy Nhon is kept in a tidy state, even if there are still many old houses. I think this was the first time I’ve seen a mechanical beach cleaner in Vietnam as well.

Quy Nhon feels extra provincial after being in Da Nang and Nha Trang, with hardly any international chains in Quy Nhon. In a sign that things are changing, I arrived in Quy Nhon the day after the first Starbucks in the city opened.

Another thing I noticed was that a local taxi company are using these small Chinese cars for their fleet. They must have committed to these vehicles before the Vinfast VF3 mini cars took over the country.

Here are some of the main construction projects in the city.

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