Why it looks like this

The capital was founded here in 1010 as Thăng Long, 'rising dragon', on land embraced by the Red River and its arms. Its commercial heart, the Old Quarter, is known as the '36 streets': each street belonged to one craft guild and still carries its name — Hàng Bạc (silver), Hàng Gai (silk), Hàng Mã (paper offerings).

South of it, the French built a different Hanoi in the colonial era: a grid of villa-lined boulevards around the opera house. The two patterns — guild maze and colonial grid — sit side by side between the lakes that dot the city.