Hoa Lo Prison relic is located in the heart of Hanoi. It is built in 1896 by French on the land of Phu Khanh village.

Hoa Lo prison has the area of 12.908 m2, which is the most ancient architecture of Indochina.

The prison is surrounded by stone walls, steels with 4 meters height and reinforced by barbed-wire system of high voltage lines running, through the four corner there have towers are capable of observing the prison.

Hoa Lo Prison began operating from January 1899.

After the capital was liberated on 10th October 1954, Hoa Lo Prison was controlled by the revolutionary government. Period 1964-1973.

A rather gruesome reminder of what happened under French occupation.

Prisoners in Hoa Lu Prison

Prisoners were variously isolated, starved, beaten, tortured for countless hours and paraded in anti-American propaganda. “It is easy to die but hard to ...

Hoa Lo Prison overview

Hoa Lo Prison was built by French colonialism in 1896 to detain those who opposed the colonialist regime. the architecture of this special prison is harsh, with stone walls 4m high and 0.50m thick, and it was also consolidated barbed wire entanglement by the electricity. Inside the prison, various watchtowers monitor and observe all activities of the prisoners at all times.

The original design only allowed Hoa Lo prison to hold approximately 500 prisoners, but as the prison expanded, so did the prisoner population, and there were approximately 2000 prisoners from 1950 to 1953 when the guillotine was typically used in this prison. These guillotines were frequently moved to various prisons, and some were even moved to Yen Bai Province to execute over ten Vietnamese communists, including a national hero at the time, Nguyen Thai Hoc.

Every year, thousands of tourists visit this relic destination, and almost all of them are foreigners, but also many Vietnamese tourists want to learn about our forefathers’ hardships in the past to visit this special prison.

How to travel to Hoa Lo Prison? 

This site is located in the center of Hanoi’s capital, making it very easy for tourists to find and explore this historical site on their own. Tourists also can walk from Hoan Kiem Lake the heart of Hanoi to visit this historical site so don’t miss it if you are in Hanoi, Vietnam. 

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