Ho Chi Minh City Hall through time

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) 1866–2023 23 photos of this spot

23 photographs taken at the same spot in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), spanning 1866–2023 — 22 of them from before 1980. Line them up and watch the place change.

This 1866 view of Saigon was captured by John Thomson, whose photographs of Cochin China are among the earliest systematic photographic surveys of French colonial Vietnam.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China, Vietnam. Photograph by John Thomson (1866) [L0055789] 1866 This 1866 view of Saigon was captured by John Thomson, whose photographs of Cochin China are among the earliest systematic photographic surveys of French colonial Vietnam.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China [Vietnam]. Photograph by John Thomson, (1) (1866) 1866 Another of John Thomson's 1860s photographs of Saigon, then the capital of French Cochin China and today known as Ho Chi Minh City, taken as the French colonial administration was still taking shape in the region.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China [Vietnam]. Photograph by John Thomson (1866) A 1866 This view of Saigon dates to 1866, when Scottish photographer John Thomson was travelling through Cochinchina documenting the region for a Western audience largely unfamiliar with Southeast Asia. Saigon was then the young capital of the French colonial territory.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson, (neg. 573) (1867) 1866 Photographer John Thomson recorded this scene in Saigon around 1866, during the early years of French colonial administration over Cochin China, when the city was emerging as the region's principal port and administrative center for the new colony.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China, Vietnam. Photograph by John Thomson, (neg. 1085a) (1866) 1866 John Thomson photographed this view of Saigon, Cochin China, in 1866, part of a body of work documenting Vietnam, Cambodia, and southern China that remains among the earliest photographic surveys of mainland Southeast Asia.

EU: Saigon, Vietnam. Photograph by John Thomson (1867) [L0056517] 1867 John Thomson's 1867 photograph of Saigon, Vietnam, taken while the city served as the capital of French Cochin China, part of the pioneering photographer's wider survey of the region in the 1860s.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson (1867) [L0056133] 1867 John Thomson's 1867 photograph of Saigon, taken while the city was under French colonial administration as capital of Cochin China, part of his wider survey of the region.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson (1867) [L0056139] 1867 Another 1867 image of Saigon by John Thomson, whose Cochin China photographs later formed part of his influential travel portfolios documenting Southeast Asia.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson (1867) [L0056137] 1867 A view of Saigon from 1867, recorded by John Thomson as the city developed under French colonial rule in the years following the Treaty of Saigon, which ceded the territory to France.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson, (1) (1867) 1867 One in a series of Saigon views taken by John Thomson in 1867, documenting the young French colonial port that later grew into modern Ho Chi Minh City, in the years when France was consolidating its rule over Cochin China.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson, (2) (1867) 1867 John Thomson's camera recorded this second view of 1867 Saigon, capturing the city under early French colonial rule in Cochin China, part of the wider photographic survey he conducted across Southeast Asia.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson, (3) (1867) 1867 A third photograph from Thomson's 1867 Saigon series, showing the riverside city as France consolidated its hold on Cochin China during the earliest years of colonial administration there.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China [Vietnam]. Photograph by John Thomson, (2) (1867) 1867 This 1867 photograph, part of John Thomson's Cochin China series, depicts Saigon before its transformation into a major French colonial capital and river port in Southeast Asia.

EU: Saigon, Vietnam. Photograph by John Thomson, [L0056517] (1867) 1867 Photographed in Saigon in 1867, this image, Wellcome Collection reference L0056517, is the work of John Thomson, whose Cochinchina photographs later informed his accounts of travel through the region.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson (1867) A 1867 This 1867 photograph of Saigon by John Thomson shows the city during the early years of French colonial administration in Cochinchina, only a few years after the territory passed from Vietnamese to French control.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson (1867) B 1867 Another of John Thomson's 1867 Saigon photographs, taken as part of his documentation of French Cochinchina before he moved on to photograph the temples of Angkor.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson (1867) C 1867 John Thomson photographed Saigon repeatedly during his 1867 visit to French Cochinchina; this image is one of that series, part of an archive that today provides some of the earliest surviving photographic views of the city.

EU: Saigon, Vietnam. Photograph by John Thomson, (neg. 557) (1867) 1867 This 1867 view of Saigon was captured by John Thomson during his travels through Cochin China, work that followed his earlier expedition to photograph the ancient temples of Angkor in neighboring Cambodia.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson, (neg. 1083) (1867) 1867 John Thomson photographed Saigon in 1867, a few years after France established Cochin China as its first colonial possession in Vietnam, with the city serving from the outset as the new colony's capital and chief port.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China. Photograph by John Thomson, (neg. 1082) (1867) 1867 This 1867 photograph of Saigon, taken by John Thomson, forms part of a set of images documenting Cochin China in the years following the French conquest of southern Vietnam, when the city was rapidly being rebuilt under colonial administration.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China [Vietnam]. Photograph by John Thomson, [L0055839] 1867 This 1867 view of Saigon, reference L0055839, was recorded by John Thomson as part of his broader documentation of the city and its people under early French colonial administration.

EU: Saigon, Cochin China [Vietnam]. Photograph by John Thomson, [L0055765] 1867 Among John Thomson's photographs of Cochin China taken in 1867, this Saigon image is catalogued as L0055765 and reflects the city's transformation under French colonial control.

Ho Chi Minh City Hall 2023 A further 2023 photograph of Ho Chi Minh City Hall, its ornate facade and clock tower overlooking the Nguyen Hue boulevard in downtown Saigon. The building still houses the city's People's Committee today.