Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 4, March 2009

Studies on Hanoi Urban Transition in
the Late 20th Century Based on GIS/RSHO Dinh Duan* and SHIBAYAMA Mamoru**

Abstract
This paper describes the urbanization process of Hanoi during the late 20th century using themethods of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and remote sensing technologies. The data
sources for the study compose of historical maps, recent maps, and various satellite images
acquired from 1975 to 2005 (Landsat MSS, TM, ETM, JERS, ASTER, IKONOS and QuickBird).
The main techniques used in our image processing are NDVI and Water Index, combined with adecision-tree classiﬁcation for medium resolution images (Landsat and ASTER). High resolution
images (IKONOS and QuickBird) were used to validate the signature of land use classes and toverify certain urban construction features. The analysis showed that the spatial growth of Hanoi
is limited by natural barriers, such as streams to the northeast and east, water bodies to the north,and a swamp area to the south. The expansion of Hanoi stretches in four directions South,
Southwest, West and East
following main transportation axes connecting the inner city toneighboring areas. Both spatial expansion and in-ﬁll expansion took place in the urbanization of
Hanoi. It is important to relate the urban transition with social-economic mile stones of the cityand to ﬁnd correlations between remote sensing derived maps and indices with other statistics
such as population, population density, road and housing densities, but these have not been
included in our present work.
Keywords : urbanization, remote sensing, land use change, spatial expansion, vegetation index,
physical features, housing density

I

Introduction

Hanoi city, the capital of Vietnam, was founded in 1010 under the name Thang Long and has
been always the political and cultural center of the nation.
the city in 1831 by King Minh Mang.

The name Hanoi was ﬁrst given to

Almost a thousand years have passed since its

establishment, and Hanoi has changed drastically through different periods in the country’s
history.

One aspect of the history of Hanoi that can give signiﬁcant insights into the politicaland socio-economic development of the city is its spatial expansion through the urbanization* Institute of Resources Geography, HCMC, Vietnam.
e-mail: duanhd@gmail.com** 柴山 守，Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University
e-mail: sibayama@cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp532

HO Dinh Duan and SHIBAYAMA M. : Studies on Hanoi Urban Transition in the Late 20th Century

process.

This, in connection with other historical data, can efﬁciently enhance the analysis of

the city’s urban transition through different periods of time.
In this work we focus on the urbanization process of Hanoi during the late 20th century
utilizing the methods of GIS and remote sensing.

The data sources for the study include Hanoi

maps, satellite images as well as other ancillary data that allowed us to focus on the urban
transition of Hanoi during the period from 1975 to 2003.

In these three decades following thereunion of the country after a long period of war and the Doi Moi (Innovation) of the late 1980s,
many changes have occurred in Hanoi.

Furthermore, the availability of satellite images fromvarious sensors and other map data of Hanoi in this period has enabled us to study the urban
transition of the city using advanced techniques of remote sensing and GIS.
Hanoi has a long history of development spanning almost a thousand years.
once core city of Hanoi (Citadel) covers only about 1.2 square kilometers.

Nowadays the

In fact, from the very

beginning of Thang Long, the citadel and the adjacent commercial area (the Old Quarter) weremerged together to form the capital city.

This conjunction justiﬁed the Eastern expressionthành thị which means a combination of a citadel (administration and defense settlement) and abusiness place [Phan Huy Le 2005].

During this time, the city has been bordered to the east by

東南ア4604-4,1a

東南ア4604-4,1b

Fig. 1a Spatial Expansion of Hanoi
Note: Red River (east), To Lich River (west) and a marsh
area (south) have been natural barriers against the
expansion of old Hanoi city. Color composite of
Water Indices in 1993 (blue), 2000 (green), and 2003
(red).

Fig. 1b

Hanoi Administrative Boundary (2002) with Inner
City Road Network Overlaid
on Landsat Satellite Image(2000)
Note: Two new districts, Long Bien andHoang Mai, were established in
2003.
533

東南アジア研究46巻 4 号the Red River and to the west by the To Lich River, as shown in Fig. 1a.

Hanoi has grown instages, gradually expanding into the surrounding area to reach its current size and spatial
distribution.

The boundaries of the city have extended in all directions, but mainly to theSouth, Southwest, West, and later to the East (crossing the Red River), as shown in Fig. 1b.
The city’s expansion in the past has been inﬂuenced very much by the natural barriers such as
rivers, lakes and swamp areas.

The total area has now increased to 921 km2 , and the

population has been estimated to be 3.15 million (2005 statistics).

Hanoi now comprises of nine

inner districts (Quận) and ﬁve peripheral districts (Huyện) located on both sides of the Red
River.1) The most signiﬁcant enlargement of the city in the past few decades occurred in 1961
after the nation’s three-year plan to make Hanoi into an industrialized city.

Four of these

districts, Ba Dinh, Dong Da, Hai Ba Trung, and Hoan Kiem, are considered the core urban areaof Hanoi.

Other suburbs were once agricultural areas that provided foods for the city.

Urbanization, generally, can be deﬁned as changes in the territorial and socio-economic
progress of an area that includes a general transformation of land cover/use categories [Weberand Paissant 2002].

Apart from the socio-economic aspect, factors that are relevant to thedevelopment of a city in terms of spatial expansion include physical features, vegetation
coverage, water surface, infrastructure conditions (roads and streets), and housing construction.
These factors change with increased urbanization, and are usually considered key parameters
for studying urban development.
This paper studies the spatial urban growth of Hanoi and analyzes its pattern and trends;
related parameters such as road density, housing density and remote sensing-derived indices,namely, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Water Index (WI), have also
been considered.

The availability of satellite data (Landsat, JERS, ASTER, IKONOS andQuickBird) for different dates from 1975 to 2005 allows us to address the spatial expansion of
Hanoi over this period, in an integrated approach combining remote sensing, GIS and analysis ofancillary data.

In our satellite image analysis, the Landsat MSS, TM, ETM and ASTER

imageries were used principally for mapping land use changes, whereas the radar JERS andhigh resolution IKONOS and QuickBird images were used as supporting data.

II

Study on Hanoi Urbanization and the Use of Remote Sensing

Located along the right bank of a bend in the Red River, in the center of the river delta, Hanoi
represents the center of development for North Vietnam in terms of its economy, society, andurbanization.

In 2005, Hanoi comprised of nine inner districts and ﬁve suburban districts

located on both sides of the Red River.

The ﬁve suburban districts (Soc Son, Dong Anh, Gia

Lam, Thanh Tri and Tu Liem) encompass the city area of Hanoi, the nine inner districts thatoccupy about 28% of the total Hanoi administrative area.
1) This is statistics of 2005.
population.
534

Four of these districts, Ba Dinh,

Recently Hanoi has merged with Ha Tay province to get an enormous size andHO Dinh Duan and SHIBAYAMA M. : Studies on Hanoi Urban Transition in the Late 20th Century

Dong Da, Hai Ba Trung, and Hoan Kiem, are considered the core urban area of Hanoi.

Theperi-urban areas have been gradually converted and absorbed by the city, but a large portion
still remains as agricultural land and plays an important role in supplying food and otheragricultural products to Hanoi [Thapa et al. 2004].
The population of Hanoi is not evenly distributed between the inner city and its
surrounding areas.

In 1960, the urban population of Hanoi accounted for 71% of the total area,

which could have been a consequence of the ﬁrst important urbanization of Hanoi after the
Indochina war.

This followed a 3-year plan for 1958-60 by D.R. Vietnam to boost an industrial-

based economy.

In 1961 large urban population and achievements in economic growth led thegovernment to decide to greatly expand the administrative boundary of Hanoi to a total size of
461 square kilometers (previously it was 152 square kilometers).

This can be considered theﬁrst signiﬁcant expansion of Hanoi in terms of administrative boundary.

During this 3-year

period, industrial sites were created throughout the city (in-ﬁll urbanization) but especially inthe outskirts (expansion).

Outlying quarters like Bay Mau and Van Ho were converted tourban areas and new residential areas sprawled around industrial sites.

A great deal of water

surface was converted to built-up areas in these years.
The 2003 statistics showed that up to 52.9% of Hanoi population (1.5 million) were living in
the inner city, which covers only 9.2% of the total municipal area, making Hanoi the mostdensely populated city of Vietnam with 19,163 persons per square kilometer.

With rapid

economic growth stemming from the Doi Moi (Economic Renovation) from 1986, the annual
GDP of Hanoi increased to 7.1% average in 1986-90, exceeded 10.5% in the following years
1990-93, and peaked in 1994 with 13.1%.
urban area of Hanoi.

This has led to a big migration of people into the

Rapid urbanization could be seen to take place during the period

1993-2003 as described in section IV.1.2.
The 2006 statistics plotted a population of 3.2 million for Hanoi, and this is projected to rise
to 4.5 million in the year 2020 with 2.5 million residing in the inner city [Hanoi Department2003].

Other long-term plans for land use structure, functional areas, urban landscape,transport and technical infrastructure systems have also been set.

All these have created agreat demand in Hanoi city for monitoring of urban growth and planning for better land use.
During the urban transition, the change of land use leads to an increase in some spatial
parameters like road density and housing density, and a decrease in other parameters likegreenness and water bodies.

The current road and street system of Hanoi, reported by Tran

Tuan Hiep [2004], has 359 streets with a total length of 254 km in the inner city.
2street density is about 3.01 km/km .

The average

The road density is unevenly distributed, and is highest

in the Hoan Kiem district (10.28 km/km2 ); other districts have much lower road densities,
ranging from 1.10 km/km2 (Tay Ho) to 4.64 km/km2 (Ba Dinh).

Green spaces in Hanoi,

including urban trees, parks, water bodies, and other spaces, cover approximately 20 m2 perperson, and green tree space alone does not exceed 2 m2 per person.
550 hectares.

Large lakes cover about

Satellite images have revealed that the four core urban districts of Hanoi lost

12% of planted tree areas and 64.5% of the water surface area of ponds and lakes but
535

東南アジア研究46巻 4 号

experienced a 22.4% increase in residential area in 10 years of development, from 1986 to 1996
[VACNE 2006].

Urbanization results in the expansion of administrative boundaries, stretchingin various directions and leading to changes in land use, mainly at the periphery.

Agriculturallands, natural vegetation, and other sites are converted to residential areas with enhanced
transportation systems, increased housing density, and lost green space [Tran Mai Anh et al.
2005].
Various works have been carried out concerning the urbanization of Hanoi from different
approaches.

Douglas et al. [2002] considered urbanization a process of transition from anancient city to a modern one, particularly a conversion of cultivated land into settlement sprawl.
Two indicators were used in the study: population density according to levels of urbanization,and vegetation cover based on the NDVI from Landsat data.

Small et al. [2005] used Landsat

and nighttime data sets to identify the possible relationships between light intensity and urban
areas.

They found different linear relationships for periods from 1992 to 2000.

Pham Van Cu

et al. [2004] used ASTER data to detect urban changes based on an analysis of thermal bands.
Waibel [2004] focused on the urbanization process of Hanoi through various periods
corresponding to urban management practices, from ancient quarters in previous centuries tomodern planned-development periods.

Yamagata et al. [1997] introduced the vegetation-soil-

water (VSW) index to better analyze the category-mixing ratio for the three elements ofvegetation, soil and water in one pixel (“mixel”), and this method was used by Pham Minh Hai etal. [2006] to investigate the urban expansion of Hanoi over time based on multi-temporal
Landsat and ASTER data.
Other research has employed more advanced and sophisticated tools on multisensor
remote sensing data.

Tomowski et al. [2006] presented a decision-based data fusion techniquefor detecting settlement areas using a texture-oriented hierarchical segmentation procedure onhigh resolution images combined with medium ones.

Sheeren et al. [2006] proposed an object-oriented knowledge-based approach to create a decision tree classiﬁcation that produced higher
classiﬁcation accuracy for urban mapping.

This method was used with a machine learningalgorithm on multispectral QuickBird, Landsat images to obtain not only classes such as
vegetation, water bodies, soil and build-up, but also further details of classiﬁed sub-categories
like low density or high density build-up areas.
An important aspect in studying urban growth is to combine multi-temporal remotesensing data and socio-economic data.

Statistical analysis of the detected changes including

socio-economic information can give a better understanding of the urbanization process as wellas its driving forces, which can provide a good calibration for land use change models [Goetzke
et al. 2006].

A purely socio-economic review of Hanoi urbanization during the period 1946-73

can be found in Turley [1974] where a brief history of the city’s urbanization in this period ispresented together with important demographic and other statistical data.
Previous studies on the urbanization of Hanoi often focused only on land use changes
related to economical activities, city management policies, and spatial urban planning [Douglas
et al. 2002].
536

Other aspects, such as spatial patterns of urban growth relating to construction

HO Dinh Duan and SHIBAYAMA M. : Studies on Hanoi Urban Transition in the Late 20th Century

density, particularly of housing and roads, have not yet been considered.

To better understandthe city’s urban transition through a century, we addressed the spatial expansion of Hanoi overtime, considering the pattern of spatial urbanization related to physical features andconstruction density, by analyzing satellite images and ancillary data including historical maps,
land use maps and statistical data.
The objective of this study is to employ an integrated method of GIS and remote sensing tounderstand the urban transition of Hanoi in terms of the spatial expansion and the pattern ofurbanization in the period from 1975 to recent years.

The analysis is supported by otherstatistical data such as the population structure of Hanoi over the years.

Through this study,

an implicit correlation between the urban growth, the trend of spatial expansion of the city andother relevant geographic and socio-economic features can be proposed.

Although a land usechange model derived from the study is beyond the scope of this paper, we believe that a better
understanding of the urbanization process over time would allow a more reasonable and optimalland use planning for the city.

III

Data Used and Processing Method

III. 1 Data Used
For most parts of the world, satellite data are generally available from the 1970s to the present.
In this study we have used Landsat MSS (1975), Landsat TM (1993), JERS (1995), Landsat ETM(2000), IKONOS (2002), ASTER (2003) and QuickBird (2005), all of which are either free todownload from NASA or are provided by the Project on Development of Area Informatics,
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.
Digitized maps of 1 : 10,000 of Hanoi and 1 : 20,000 of the inner city were used as base maps
for rectifying the satellite images, as shown in Figs. 2a and 2b respectively.

東南ア4604-4,2aFig. 2aThe 1 : 10,000 map

東南ア4604-4,2b

Base Map of Hanoi(Scale 1 : 10,000)

Fig. 2bBase Map of Hanoi(Scale 1 : 20,000)
537

東南アジア研究46巻 4 号

was updated based on the QuickBird image 2005 (0.6 meter resolution).

They have been

projected into WGS-84 datum, UTM zone 48 North projection, as are all satellite images.
As urban growth ultimately leads to land use changes, image classiﬁcation is the essential
technique to be used.

Three Landsat scenes of 1975, 1993 and 2000 and one ASTER scene of2003 were rectiﬁed to the same spatial resolution of 14.25 meters (panchromatic band of theETM) for best use.

Supplementary information was obtained from the radar JERS (1995) andthe high resolution IKONOS and QuickBird images, for example to validate the signature forimage classiﬁcation and to verify the derived density maps.

In addition, the NDVI and water

indices were calculated and used in our decision-tree classiﬁcation.

Integration of these index

maps with classiﬁcation provides an effective way of detecting urban growth of the city in thisperiod.

Water masks can also be used to mark the reduction in numbers and size of water

bodies (ponds, lakes, and rivers), a common phenomenon of the urbanization process.
Urbanized areas and the directions in which they are expanding as well as the narrowing or
disappearance of greenness and water bodies can be visualized and depicted.

Signiﬁcant land

use changes that occurred during the periods 1975-92 and 1993-2003 can be revealed andquantiﬁed.
III. 2 Method
To facilitate the comparison of land use changes, the pixel sizes of the images were spatially resampled following the Landsat ETM＋ resolution of 14.25 m (panchromatic band).

This spatial

size was selected based on the minimum mapping unit that yields the highest spatial resolution
from a satellite data set [Jensen 1996], excluding the IKONOS and QuickBird data.
To identify patterns of urban expansion, particularly the actual boundaries of the city, weused the NDVI and WI derived from band ratio calculations.
NDVI was calculated from red and near infrared bands.
NDVI＝(near infrared−red)/(near infrared＋red)
WI was used to separate land from water.

This index was calculated as the band ratio

between wavelengths of 1,600 nm (middle infrared) and 520-600 nm (green) to identify water
bodies.

Bands 5 and 2 of Landsat TM and ETM, and bands 4 and 1 of ASTER were used.

WI＝middle infrared band/green band
The NDVI and Water Index images were layer-stacked to create images of vegetated andwater bodies from 1975 to 2003.
Landsat images in 1975, 1993, 2000 and ASTER image 2003 were classiﬁed using thesupervised Maximum Likelihood method.

The selection of training samples was guided byancillary GIS data and the high resolution imageries IKONOS and QuickBird.
538

Five land use

HO Dinh Duan and SHIBAYAMA M. : Studies on Hanoi Urban Transition in the Late 20th Century

classes were considered: water, vegetation, build-up, fallow and sand. (The water in the Red
River and water in Hanoi lakes and ponds have different signatures.)

The sandy areas in andalong the Red River and the wetland areas in the south happened to be of seasonal change andcan easily be mixed with other classes, so we created masks for these areas prior to image
classiﬁcation.

Also, urban spatial signatures of Hanoi land use are difﬁcult to differentiate, evenhaving different classes mixed in one pixel (“mixel” problem), and therefore we employed adecision-tree algorithm using the above NDVI and WI to support the classiﬁcation.

First theLandsat and ASTER images were classiﬁed using the Maximum Likelihood method and rule
images were created.
NDVI or WI.

The decision-tree method was then based on these rule images and the

The JERS image 1995 was fused with the TM image 1993 to give a better

visualization of water bodies for this image date, as shown in Figs. 3a and 3b.
Several methods can be used to depict the land use changes (hence the spatial urban
growth can be visualized).

One method is to present time-series classiﬁed images.

Thechanges can be quantiﬁed by associated change matrices which tell how much (or percentage)of a class has been converted into others.
To compute the road density and housing density using GIS tools, the base map was
spatially divided into cells of size 100 m×100 m.

For each cell

Road density cell value＝100×Total road length in that cell (km/km2)
Housing density cell value＝100×Total house block area in that cell

東南ア4604-4,3a

東南ア4604-4,3bFig. 3aFig. 3b

Fusion Image from Landsat TM
1993 and JERS 1995
Note: Water bodies are enhanced.

Water Mask Image Created from
Fusion Image on the Left539

東南アジア研究46巻 4 号To create a ﬁner density map we can use smaller cell size instead of 100 meters.

These

two raster maps can be overlaid with the satellite images or the classiﬁcation maps to enhance
the analysis.

IV

Results and Discussion

IV. 1 The Development of Hanoi City in the Past Three Decades
IV. 1. 1 The Period from 1975-93
A remarkable expansion of the urban area occurred during this period, extending far to the To
Lich River in the west and the swamp area in the south.

To the north, the urban area reachedWest Lake, and growth occurred along main transportation axes.

The urban area expanded

about 6 km from the Red River to the west and 8 km from West Lake to the south.
lines in Figs. 4a and 4b show the boundary of area in 1975 and 1993 respectively.

東南ア4604-4,4aFig. 4a東南ア4604-4,5a(a) 1993

東南ア4604-4,4b

Urban Area in 1975

Fig. 4b

東南ア4604-4,5b(b) 2000

Urban Area in 1993

東南ア4604-4,5c(c) 2003

Fig. 5 Urban Expansion of Hanoi during 1993, 2000, and 2003
Note: In-ﬁll and expansion patterns can be seen (processed from Landsat imageries).
540

The solid

Before 1980,

HO Dinh Duan and SHIBAYAMA M. : Studies on Hanoi Urban Transition in the Late 20th Century

there was only one bridge across the Red River in the Hanoi area (Long Bien bridge, built in1902).

Later, two other bridges, Chuong Duong and Thang Long were built.

This explains

why the city’s expansion across the Red River in the east occurred rather late.

The year 1986

also witnessed the launch of a new economic policy as a consequence of Doi Moi, and theeconomy began to grow gradually.

The spatial urban growth could be seen to be of a strongly

linear branch pattern.
IV. 1. 2 The Period from 1993 to 2003
Fig. 5, processed from Landsat images acquired in 1993, 2000 and 2003, gives a visualization of
the spatial extent and pattern of the city’ s expansion.

This period also witnessed theestablishment of two new urban districts, Hoang Mai and Long Bien.

As a result, the total

number of inner districts of Hanoi rose to nine and the area was almost doubled.

Also, acomposite image of NDVIs from three dates is shown in Fig. 6a.

The scattering of white color

in Fig. 5 shows the spread of the road and housing densities.

Based on patterns of its scat-tering, the increase of newly constructed roads and houses can be recognized on Figs. 5(a), (b),and (c).

From 2000 to 2003, the western border crossed over the To Lich River.

Urbanization

occurred around West Lake and along the north side of the Red River in the Gia Lam area.
Based on Fig. 6a, the road density from the inner city to the periphery for south, and southwest
directions has also been increasing as seen with the dark gray and black colors.

Also, newly

constructed buildings and houses can be seen along with the road and inner city in red except
areas in the Red River.

And, the surrounding area in the blue color shows that no change canbe seen in the farmland during this period.

Fig. 6b shows the road density of Hanoi with thepink color overlaid on IKONOS image.

Analysis of IKONOS (2002) and QuickBird (2005)

images also indicated that new buildings were constructed in areas that were formerly
agricultural land or lakes.

In particular, parts of West Lake to the north were ﬁlled in.

東南ア4604-4,6a

東南ア4604-4,6b

Fig. 6aFig. 6b

Color Composite of NDVIs of 1993
(blue), 2000 (green) and 2003 (red)Road Density of Hanoi Overlaid
on IKONOS Image541

東南アジア研究46巻 4 号

IV. 2 Spatial Features of Hanoi Urban
Geographically, the Hanoi area is situated on the right bank of the Red River and is subject tothe ﬂow regime and landforms made by this stream.

The Red River is characterized by many

bends, low levees, a shallow channel, irregular ﬂow and a stream channel that has changed
many times.

Flooding often happens in the rainy season during the high water period from

June to October.

Within the ﬂoodplain of the river there are many oxbow lakes and marshes

located at different river sections.

Topographically, the average elevation of the Hanoi area isabout 7.5 m (above sea level) based on 1 : 20,000 Hanoi map [Yonezawa 2009], which in the dry
seasons equals the water level of the river that rises higher in the rainy season.

In thissituation, Hanoi is often lower than the river and would suffer ﬂoods without some means ofprevention.

In order to protect Hanoi from ﬂooding, a system of dikes was constructed along

both river banks, and these have almost become new shorelines, from which the distance to theriver bank can reach 1-2 km depending on the local topography of river segments.
Hanoi, located in the river ﬂoodplain by the West Lake and the Red River, has extended in
opposite directions.
parts of Hanoi.

These two water bodies constitute natural barriers at the north and east

A large marsh, swamp area at Van Dien in Thanh Tri district is the southern

most part of Hanoi.

The To Lich River, running from the lake to south, is considered as theﬁrst border of urban Hanoi, and the Nhue River as the farther second one for the city westward.
These are illustrated in Fig. 1a, which is a color composite for Water Indices of 1993 in blue,2000 in green and 2003 in red.

In general, more space to expand is available to the west andsouthwest of Hanoi than in the north, south and east, which are restricted by large water bodies
and a marsh area.

This is observable by analyzing old maps and satellite images, whichindicate that the border of urban Hanoi has gradually stretched to the west and southwest.
IV. 3 Construction Features of Hanoi
Road and housing density were considered as construction features of urban Hanoi, and thesewere combined with house size and green space with regard to land use.

Integration of thesemakes observable signatures on satellite images of medium spatial resolution such as Landsat
and ASTER.

When QuickBird and IKONOS images were used, these features wereparticularly clearly differentiated, as shown in Figs. 7a, 7b, and 7c.

Based on analyzed results

東南ア4604-4,7a

東南ア4604-4,7b

東南ア4604-4,7cFig. 7aFig. 7bFig. 7c542

High Construction
DensityMedium Construction Density

Mixed Construction Density

HO Dinh Duan and SHIBAYAMA M. : Studies on Hanoi Urban Transition in the Late 20th Century
Table 1

Construction Features of Urban Hanoi
Features

No

Type

1

High Density

Small,
dense

2MediumDensityLarge, tall Larger
buildings than “1”

3

Mixed
Small andDensity (low large
and high)
block

HousesRoads
Narrow,
short

Green
Space

Distribution (typical)

Pattern

Low

Unique,compact

Ancient quarter (excluding the
Citadel), north Hoan Kiem lake,west Hang Co train station, Van
Chuong lake area

High, talltrees

Regular,squareSouth Hoan Kiem lake

Irregular
pattern,mosaic type

Urban fringe, cultivated areas
in suburban zones constructed
before 1995

Small,
main road, Medium
longof satellite images, these features can be basically classiﬁed into the following types as a presurvey on the visual observation, reviewed in Table 1.
Three types of construction density were identiﬁed:
High density: coverage of green space and urban trees (along streets) is very low.

Otherfeatures are small houses, very short, narrow streets, and distances between intersections ofless than 200 m.

The spatial structure is stable and compact.

All these make a relatively

unique spectral reﬂection on satellite images.
Medium density: All features are similar to the above type, but spatial patterns are moreregular with square blocks, larger houses, higher density of urban trees.

In places, small

houses are replaced by tall buildings.
Mixed density: small houses and tall, large buildings are mixed together at the urban
fringe.

Green space remains from cultivated land.

Large new blocks of buildings and small

houses alternate, creating an irregular mosaic of high and low density.
It is noted that while the space between the main dyke and the river bank can beconsidered unsuitable for urban development, but the housing density in this corridor is as highas areas of type 1.

The Citadel area is not classiﬁed in any category as it retains most urban

trees including parks. Two areas of type 1 are connected together via the train station and they
form one of the main axes of urban growth to the environs.

To the north of the West Lake, a

new direction of growth has emerged and it surpassed the administrative border of the urban
core.
As a result obtained in this study, it was found that the type of density based on theconstructed building and houses, and roads can be categorized into three types, as shown in
Table 1, and the spatial growth of Hanoi is limited by natural barriers, such as streams to thenortheast and east, water bodies to the north, and a swamp area to the south.
Hanoi stretches mainly in four directions

South, Southwest, West and East

The expansion offollowing main543

東南アジア研究46巻 4 号

transportation axes connecting the inner city to neighboring areas.
in-ﬁll expansion took place in the urbanization of Hanoi.

Both spatial expansion andThis result has been obtained from ananalysis on several kinds of satellite images and overlaying with both base maps scale 1 : 10,000
and 1 : 20,000 using GIS technologies.

It is important to relate the urban transition with social-economic mile stones of the city and to ﬁnd correlations between remote sensing derived maps
and indices with other statistics such as population, population density, road and housing
density, but these have not been included in our present work. This subject is beyond the scopeof the present paper.

V

Conclusions

Over time, urban Hanoi has greatly expanded to the west and southwest.

Although urban

Hanoi was initially located by the West Lake, its space has passed over the north side of the lake
in recent years.

Until 1993, land use types around the lake were mainly cultivated land.

Until

2000 and then 2003, 2005 on this fringe area agricultural land type still remained, but newly
constructed buildings have encroached, indicating that urbanization is in progress.
Urbanization of Hanoi largely occurred in 1993-2000, and continues today at a low rate,
primarily on the south side of the Red River.

Namely, increasing of the area in 2003, as shownin the red color except the river bank in the Red River, can be recognized in the inner city
compared with the black-colored area which was urbanized in 1993-2000, as shown in Fig. 6a.
And, the surrounding area as shown in the blue color for the inner city in 1993 is still being usedas farmlands.

The urban growth is realized in expansion, in-ﬁll and linear branch patterns.

To the north, growth is limited by West Lake.

Two main growth axes run in the northeast-

southwest and north-east directions, as shown in Fig. 5.

The west axis appeared late, perhaps

after 2003, following the construction of the national stadium My Dinh, as shown in Fig. 5 (c).
The current development of the city does not seem to match the city’s Master Plan.
Our results indicate that the spatial growth of Hanoi is limited by natural barriers, such as
streams to the northeast and east, water bodies to the north, and wetland to the south.
Spatially, the expansion of Hanoi stretches in the obvious directions, and the urbanization
process follows the main transportation axes connecting the inner city to neighboring areas,
while the administrative boundaries have expanded in other directions.
A combination of index images is very useful for detecting changes, urban margins, andphysical limits, particularly to identify urban borders. The combination of indices used in thisstudy illustrated a large difference between the urban center and the surrounding areas.

Thewater index combination can help detect changes in streams, such as the Red River, which
represents a signiﬁcant northern limit to urbanization.

However, this index was unable toidentify small water bodies within the urban area, due to shadows cast by tall buildings, whichwere conﬁrmed by a comparison of QuickBird and IKONOS images.
To validate and conﬁrm these results, it is necessary to analyze more high-resolution
satellite images, such as IKONOS and QuickBird, from which information on housing density544

HO Dinh Duan and SHIBAYAMA M. : Studies on Hanoi Urban Transition in the Late 20th Century

can be extracted.

Such an analysis would support the identiﬁcation of growth patterns ofHanoi over time.
Acknowledgment
This study has been made supported by a visiting research grant from Center for Southeast Asian Studies,
Kyoto University; satellite images and historical maps were provided by project Grant-in-Aid, ScientiﬁcResearch (S) Development of Area Informatics: With Emphasis on Southeast Asia, Subject ID 17101008,
CSEAS, Kyoto University. We wish to thank Professor Venkatesh Raghavan of Osaka City University forhis generous help and valuable suggestions, which have contributed to this paper.

We have also used agreat deal of material from the paper by Pham Bach Viet et al. [2006], to whom we wish to express our
sincere thanks.
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