2. Ha Noi Flag Tower
Lady and gentlemen, welcome to Ha Noi Flag Tower- our first tourist attraction in Thang Long imperial citadel vestige today.
The Ha Noi Flag Tower is located inside Army Museum on Dien Bien Phu Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi which was built in 1812 under King Gia Long’s reign, Nguyen Dynasty. The Flag Tower has become a symbol of Ha Noi.
The Flag Tower includes three-tier basement and a tower. Each storey is a square pyramid, tapered slowly, overlapping each other, covered by bricks. Each side of the first storey is 42.5 m length, 3.1 m height, leading up to by two brick storeys. Each side of the second storey is 27 m length, 3.7 m height, with 4 doors.  Except the North one, the other three are inscribed with two characters relevant to its direction: East door – Nghênh Húc (meaning to welcome dawn’s sunlight), South door – Hướng Minh (meaning Directed to the sunlight), West door – Hồi Quang (meaning to reflect light).
Each side of the third storey is 12.8 m length, 5.1 m height, has a door leading up to the stairs forward the northern.
The flag tower’s body is laid on this storey, about 2 m. Inside the body, there is a stairs with 54 spiral up to the top. The whole inside flashed and ventilated by 39 persimmon- shape. A special thing is that during the hottest days in Hanoi, the atmosphere inside the Tower is always cool. The structure of doors is so scientific that the rainwater cannot flow into the Tower however heavy the rain is. The top of Flag Tower was laid an octagon pavilion, on the center of pavilion was a place to pitch the flag.
Hanoi Flag Tower is one of the rare architectural works in Hanoi’s ancient Citadel, that fortunate enough to not be destroyed by the French domination administration between 1894 and 1897. During this time, Hanoi Flag Tower was used as an observation tower by French Army. In American war, it was also an observation tower of Hanoi’s air defense forces. At that time, from the top of the tower, it was possible to observe the whole Hanoi and the suburb.
On October 10, 1954, the red flag with a gold star was flying for the first time on the top of the Hanoi flag tower to welcome the Festival of Victory.
For more than half of a century, on the top of Hanoi Flag Tower, the red flag with yellow star has filed in the sky of Hanoi Capital as a symbol of glory and pride of an independence and freedom Vietnam.
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