Ha Tay Province

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**Hà Tây**
*"West of the River"*
Administration
Provinces of Vietnam
People's Council Chair	Khuất Hữu Sơn
People's Committee Chair
Geography
Capital	Hà Đông
Region	Red River Delta
Area	2,192.1 km²
Demographics
Population • Density	2,500,000(2004) 1,100/km²
Ethnicities	Vietnamese, Mường, Dao, Tày

Calling code	343
ISO 3166-2	VN-15
Website

Ha Tay (Vietnamese: Hà Tây; pronunciation (help·info); Hán Tự: 河西) is a Province of Vietnam.

1 Geography
2 Administrative divisions
3 Festivals
4 Culture, history and religion
5 Handicrafts
6 Natural Ecosystem
7 External links

Hà Tây Province is located in the Red River Delta surrounded by Hanoi municipality and Hưng Yên, Hà Nam, Hòa Bình, and Phú Thọ provinces. The Kinh account for 99% of the province's population; the remaining population is from the Muong and Dao ethnic groups.

The tropical monsoon climate is divided into three microclimates according to landscape: the plain zone, with a hot and humid climate affected by marine winds; the hilly zone, with a continental climate affected by western winds; and the Ba Vi mountainous zone, with a cool climate and an average temperature of 18°C.

Famous sites include Hương (Perfume) Pagoda, Tay Phuong Pagoda, and hundreds of caves, which were used as homes. Most festivals and activities in Hà Tây take place during the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd months after Tết. The most famous are the pilgrimage to Hương Pagoda, and the Thay Pagoda and Tay Phuong Pagoda Festivals

Hà Tây Province lies to the southwest of and at the entrance to the capital city of Hanoi. For this reason all the tourist attractions of province are around 50km from the centre of Hanoi and easily accessible by land.

Ha Tay Province comprises two cities (Hà Đông and Sơn Tây), and twelve districts:

Ba Vì
Chương Mỹ
Đan Phượng
Hoài Đức
Mỹ Đức
Phú Xuyên
Phúc Thọ
Quốc Oai
Thạch Thất
Thanh Oai
Thường Tín
Ứng Hòa

In Hà Tây, it is worthy to mention festival tour first because it lasts all the year round. All the festivals bear typical characteristics of traditional festivals of North delta (Red River) which show the religious belief or respect of the inhabitants for different gods and heroes. Each festival can be considered as a living museum containing culture, traditions of the nation to be represented by different ceremonies such as statue-bathing, fish-catching, etc. or by folk games as wrestling, water pulpet, Cheo Singing, Do Singing, cooking contests, etc.

Some festivals in Hà Tây Province are well known in Vietnam and the world of which Perfume (Hương) Pagoda is the most noteworthy because it is the longest and most interesting, attracting about half a million visitors every year. Next attention should be paid to Do Singing Festival in Quocoai district which is only organised once in the every 36 years; Chinese Cheo Singing Festival being performed once in every 30 years; Other famous festivals are Thay pagoda festival, Kite-Flying festival in Bagiang- Danphuong, Tayphuong Pagoda festival, Dau Pagoda festival, Va temple festival, Hatmon temple festival.

Hà Tây Province is a very old land, having long history, which leads to the appearance of 2388 cultural, historical, and religious relics of which 12 relics are famous and being classified by Ministry of Culture and Information as especially important. These are: Perfume Pagoda with the most wonderful cave in Vietnam; Thay Pagoda being closely linked to a famous monk Tu Dao Hanh; Boi Khe Pagoda, Tram Gian (100 room) Pagoda being stick to the hero Nguyen Binh An; Tayphuong Pagoda - cultural essence of Tây Sơn regime time; Mia Pagoda, which has the most Buddhist statues in Vietnam (287); Dau Pagoda is unique in the sense that it has two real (corpse) statues of two monks; several renowned communal houses such as Taydang, Chuquyen, Daiphu, Hoaxa.

All above mentioned relics is an important part in the country cultural heritage which on the one hand links closely to different folk, belief legends and other hand are typical for art and sculpture standard (development level) of Vietnam Nationals in general and of old people living in the province in particular.

Most of these relics have been built on beautiful locations, which are very worthy and suitable for visitors to combine different activities .

Thanks to lying adjacent to the capital of Vietnam for centuries, which always has high demand for different handicraft products from neighbouring areas, Hà Tây has long become the land of hundreds of trade.

At present, Hà Tây province has 120 handicraft villages (accounting for 10% of total handy craft villages of the country) with products being special and loved by customers such as Vanphuc silk, Chuong hats, hand fans of Vac, pearl inlaying of Chuyenmy, bamboo articles of Phuvinh, carpentry products of Changson and Sondong wood statues. Each handicraft village is not only a production unit but also a cultural community with pagoda, temple, traditional festivals so coming here tourists can enjoy watching artists work and buying the products for festival activities.