Hanoi came in second with 13.7 percent of respondents choosing to settle down in the capital while the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong Province, home to the tourism hotspot Da Lat, came third (5.6 percent), according to the Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI 2020) issued Wednesday.

For the 2020 index released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee, nearly 15,000 citizens randomly selected from all 63 provinces and cities in the country were interviewed.

Da Nang, Vietnam's third most important city, ranked fourth and Can Tho City, Mekong Delta economic hub, rounded out the top five migration destinations.

The rest of the top 10 comprised Binh Duong, Dong Nai in southern Vietnam and Hai Duong, Thai Binh and Hai Phong City in the north, all home to major industrial parks and foreign-invested firms.

Family reunion and better jobs are the two main reasons for Vietnamese migrating to major cities and industrial hubs, the report stated.

The Central Highlands, characterized by rugged terrain and poor economic conditions, and central region, regularly threatened by flooding and landslides, had the highest proportion of people wishing to leave their hometowns for a better life.

Dak Nong Province topped the country in terms of the percentage of people wishing to migrate, at 19 percent, followed by Quang Binh.

This year's PAPI report also revealed many people wish to migrate to major cities due to the impacts of climate change, resulting in an influx of migration from the Mekong Delta to HCMC, the country's largest metropolis which is home to more than 13 million people, including four million migrants.

The fear of natural disasters including drought, erosion and salt intrusion has caused more than 1.3 million people living in the Mekong Delta to migrate to HCMC and elsewhere in the past decade, according to the first annual Mekong Delta Economic Report.