HO CHI MINH CITY BOOK STREET

Ho Chi Minh City Book Street officially opened on January 9, 2016, and was immediately voted one of the city’s top 10 outstanding events. Located in the heart of District 1 on Nguyen Van Binh Street, the area is shaded by two rows of ancient tamarind trees, creating a lush green space all year round.

Spanning 144 meters in length and 8 meters in width, the Book Street offers a unique sanctuary for book lovers. It features tens of thousands of titles across diverse genres—from politics, society, and science to culture, literature, foreign languages, and children’s books—distributed throughout nearly 30 stalls from 20 participating publishers. Each bookstore and reading area is uniquely designed. The street is built on the philosophy that readers should feel at home, choosing and immersing themselves in books in a friendly, undisturbed atmosphere. This creates a distinctive reading culture found nowhere else in the city: bookshelves placed right in the middle of the street, bus-themed book modules, children nestled among the shelves lost in their stories, and young people spending hours with a cup of coffee and the scent of fresh paper.

The street boasts an open architectural style that harmonizes perfectly with nearby historical and cultural landmarks. Its design is recognized as a rare creative achievement, winning the top prize at the IFLA AAPME Awards 2022 in the Economic Viability category. The IFLA AAPME Awards 2022 – “Climate Crisis Design” is an international design award organized by the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) Asia-Pacific Region, in collaboration with the IFLA regions of Africa and the Middle East.

Ho Chi Minh City Book Street has become a familiar rendezvous for both locals and tourists. It serves as a “bright spot” in the city’s development of reading culture and a place to enjoy spiritual values, introducing the traditional culture and people of Vietnam to international friends.