Names of Ho Chi Minh City Names of Ho Chi Minh City The city now known as Ho Chi Minh City ( ), or Saigon (its antecedent), has gone by several different names during its history, reflecting settlement by different ethnic, cultural and political groups. Originally known as "Prey Nôkôr" while a part of the Khmer Empire, it came to be dubbed "Sài Gòn" () informally by Vietnamese settlers fleeing the Trịnh–Nguyễn War to the north. In time, control of the city and the area passed to the Vietnamese, who gave the city the name of "Gia Định". This name remained until the time of French
Ho Chi Minh Thought Ho Chi Minh Thought Ho Chi Minh Thought (; literally "Thoughts of Ho Chi Minh") is the political philosophy of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Since 1991, the contents of Ho Chi Minh's thought were formed and developed in association with the periods of Ho Chi Minh's activities in the revolutionary movement of Vietnam and internationally as integral to the curriculum of fundamental instruction for civil servants in Vietnam. At the beginning and the middle of the 20th century, Ho Chi Minh thought was the crystallization of Vietnamese culture, French revolutionary ideas, liberal ideas, Marxist–Leninist communist ideals and Ho Chi