Hanoi

Hà Nội Hanoi
City in Vietnam
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History: Firsts
-	Bahá'í to visit	Hippolyte Dreyfus-Barney, 1920
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Hanoi is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam, located on the banks of the Red River in the north of the country. Hippolyte Dreyfus-Barney was the first Bahá’í to visit, arriving in 1920 at a time when the city was the capital of the colony of French Indochina. During this visit, Dreyfus-Barney donated Bahá’í books to the École française d'Extrême-Orient (French School of the Far East).

No Bahá’ís are known to have visited in the following decades, during which conflict erupted between rebels and French colonial forces. Eventually, the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (also called North Vietnam) was proclaimed, with Hanoi as its capital; North and South Vietnam were later reunified in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War. The Bahá’í Faith made very little progress until the 1990s, when prevailing conditions in the coutnry led the Vietnamese government to reach out to the West. Beginning in 1992, Baháʼís were allowed to meet in unofficial meeting halls to practice their religion quietly, and the first Baháʼí group was established in Hanoi. Conditions gradually improved, leading to the full official recognition of the Bahá’í Faith in 2007 and the re-establishment of the National Spiritual Assembly in 2008. In August 2012, the Baháʼís of Hanoi celebrated the 20th anniversary of the religion's establishment in that city with a day-long public celebration, attended by nearly 100 followers from the northern area of the country, 20 foreign Baháʼís representing countries in the region, and government officials.