New 155Authorities of the central province of Quang Nam recently approved to earmark 253 billion VND (about 10.91 million USD) for a Hoi An ancient town conservation project in the 2020-2025, with orientation to 2030.

The old town area of Hoi An, lit with glowing lanterns (Source: CNN)

With its values, Hoi An has been recognised by the UNESCO as a world’s cultural legacy and honoured by many famous travel magazines. It is also the first tourist site in Vietnam honoured by Google Doodles.

The sum will be allocated to protect the heritage’s integrity, authentication and global outstanding values. Of which, 200 billion VND will be spent on the reparation of constructions, especially special relic sites, religious establishments, ancient houses and public places.

Hoi An has been known internationally with various names like Lam Ap, Faifo and Hoai Pho. The only Southeast Asian port-market in Vietnam and very rare in the world, Hoi An keeps almost intact 1,360 architectural relics like streets, houses, assembly halls, communal houses, pagodas, shrines, clan houses, ancient wells and tombs. They bear both the Vietnamese traditional art characteristics and the convergence of eastern and western cultures.

Through centuries, yet customs and practices, rites, cultural and belief activities as well as traditional foods of Hoi An are still kept and preserved along with generations of ancient street dwellers.

Hoi An also boasts a natural environment which is healthy and peaceful with small suburban villages engaged in crafts like carpentry and pottery.

The cultural and economic exchanges that ran from the 16th to the 19th centuries have left in Hoi An ancient town most of the forms of Vietnam’s ancient architectures, grouping traditional national arts enriched with sketches of foreign arts.