We started the (very hot) day at the Hue Historic Citadel—it is a walled fortress that served as the capital of the Nguyen Dynasty, the last feudal dynasty in Vietnam, from 1802 to 1945. It is situated on the northern bank of the Perfume River.
In the 19th century. Emperor Gia Long relocated the nation's capital from Thang Long (today’s Hanoi) to Hue. He built a palace complex in Hue that was modeled after Beijing's Forbidden City. Geomancers were consulted to determine the ideal location for the new capital. The construction of the Hue Historic Citadel started in 1803, and it took nearly 30 years to finish this massive complex.
The central structure is the Hue Citadel area which was the administrative centre of southern Viet Nam during the 17th and 18th centuries CE. Within the Hue Citadel were located not only administrative and military functions of the Empire, but also the Imperial Residence, the Hoang Thanh (Imperial City), the Tu Cam Thanh (Forbidden Purple City) and related royal palaces.
Tran Binh Dai, an additional defensive work in the north-east corner of the Capital City, was designed to control movement on the river. Another fortress, Tran Hai Thanh, was constructed a little later to protect the capital against assault from the sea.
The structures of the Complex of Hue Monuments are carefully placed within the natural setting of the site and aligned cosmologically with the Five Cardinal Points (centre, west, east, north, south), the Five Elements (earth, metal, wood, water, fire), and the Five Colours (yellow, white, blue, black, red).
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