District-level town

The district-level town or county-level town (Vietnamese: Thị xã) is a kind of second level administrative units in Vietnam, under the governed by the province or the central-controlled municipality. District-level towns are officially categorized as Class III or Class IV of urban regions by Vietnam government. In July 2010, Vietnam has 45 district-level towns. A district-level town may be the administrative center of a province, but can not be a district administrative center of a central-controlled municipality.

District level

In Vietnam, there are other kinds of district-level urban administrative units: urban districts (Vietnamese: quận) and provincial cities. The urban districts is within urban and only consists of wards, but provincial cities and district-level towns can consist of the wards (within urban) and rural communes (within suburban). District-level towns is similar with provincial cities, but district-level town is smaller than provincial cities in population density. Moreover central-controlled municipality can include county-level town (Sơn Tây (Hanoi), but can not include provincial cities.

The type of the district-level town is categorized as urban and its residents is classified as urban population, although there may still be a part of residents living in agriculture. Main economical activities in district-level town are such as industry, services and business.

Upgrade and downgrade

Regularly, a commune-level town (Vietnamese: thị trấn) can be upgraded to a district-level town (Vietnamese: thị xã), and district-level towns can develop into provincial cities.

But the district-level town can also be downgraded to a district capitals, especially when there is a merger of the provinces. That are the cases of the An Lộc (provincial capital of former Bình Long Province), Sông Cầu (formerly the provincial capital of Phú Yên Province) ...

Some district-level towns were downgraded into commune-level towns for some time and then be re-established, as Nghĩa Lộ, Bắc Cạn, Đồ Sơn (from 2007, became urban district of Đồ Sơn), Phúc Yên, Hà Tiên, Vị Thanh, Gia Nghĩa.

When a district-level town is downgraded, the urban become a commune-level town, and the suburban is merged into other districts or established rural communes. Some district-level towns have became commune-level towns and not re-established, so far as: Đô Lương, Tiên Yên, Ninh Giang, Cát Bà, Vĩnh An of Đồng Nai Province.

There is a rare case: Phan Rang as district-level town is divided into two commune-level towns, Phan Rang and Tháp Chàm in 1977. Each commune-level town belonged to a county (Ninh Hải and An Sơn), and in 1981 the two commune-level towns was merged and re-established as county-level town named Phan Rang–Tháp Chàm (now as provincial city).

Kiến An, a former county-level town, located in the central-controlled municipality in Hải Phòng from 1962 to 1980, later downgraded into a commune-level town and was recovered between from 1988 to 1994 and is now an urban district of Hải Phòng.

Đồ Sơn ever (after 1994) was the only county-level town within a central-controlled municipality (Hải Phòng), until September 12, 2007 it became the new urban district of Hải Phòng.

Sơn Tây is a district-level town governed under Hanoi in the period 1978 to 1991, then merged into Hà Tây Province. August 2007 this district-level town was upgraded into provincial city. In 2008 Hà Tây Province was merged into Hanoi, Sơn Tây was moved back into district-level town.

List of district-level towns

No.	Name	Province/Centrall-controlled municipality	Urban level	Year became county-level town	Population (person)	Area (km2)
1	An Khê	Gia Lai	4	2003	63.118	199,12
2	An Nhơn	Bình Định	4	2011	178,817	242.64
3	Ayun Pa	Gia Lai	4	2007	35.058	287
4	Bắc Kạn	Bắc Kạn	4	1990	29.277	131,95
5	Bỉm Sơn	Thanh Hóa	4	1981	56.893	66,88
6	Bình Long	Bình Phước	3	2009	60.233	126,29
	Bình Minh	Vĩnh Long		2012
7	Buôn Hồ	Đắk Lắk	4	2008	101.554	282,06
9	Châu Đốc	An Giang	3	1785	112.155	99,95
10	Cửa Lò	Nghệ An	3	1994	55.000	28
11	Chí Linh	Hải Dương	4	2010	164.837	281,09
12	Dĩ An	Bình Dương	4	2011	297,435	60.1
13	Đồng Xoài	Bình Phước	3	1999	71.200	169,6
14	Gia Nghĩa	Đắk Nông	4	2005	35.559	86,64
15	Gò Công	Tiền Giang	4	1987	97.709	102
17	Hà Tiên	Kiên Giang	4	1998	39.957	88,5
18	Hồng Lĩnh	Hà Tĩnh	4	1992	36.805	58,55
19	Hồng Ngự	Đồng Tháp	4	2009	74.569	122,16
20	Hương Thủy	Thừa Thiên–Huế	4	2010	96.525	458,17
21	Hương Trà	Thừa Thiên–Huế	4	2011	118.354	518,53
22	La Gi	Bình Thuận	4	2005	112.558	182,82
23	Lai Châu	Lai Châu	4	2004	18.089	70,8
24	Long Khánh	Đồng Nai	4	2003	181.242	195
25	Mường Lay	Điện Biên	4	1971	14.379	114,03
26	Ngã Bảy	Hậu Giang	4	2005	61.024	78,9
27	Nghĩa Lộ	Yên Bái	4	1995	26.000	29,66
28	Ninh Hòa	Khánh Hòa	4	2010	233.558	1197,77
29	Phú Thọ	Phú Thọ	4	1903	62.000	64,5
30	Phúc Yên	Vĩnh Phúc	4	2003	104.092	120,29
31	Phước Long	Bình Phước	3	2009	50.019	118,83
32	Quảng Trị	Quảng Trị	4	1989	22.760	44,03
33	Quảng Yên	Quảng Ninh	4	2011	139.596	314,2
34	Sa Đéc	Đồng Tháp	3	1785	103.646	57,86
35	Sầm Sơn	Thanh Hóa	4	1981	51.417	18
36	Sông Cầu	Phú Yên	4	2009	101.521	489,28
37	Sông Công	Thái Nguyên	4	1985	44.444	83,64
38	Sơn Tây	Hà Nội	3	1903	181.831	113,5
39	Tam Điệp	Ninh Bình	4	1982	53.649	110,9
40	Tân Châu	An Giang	4	2009	184.129	175,7
41	Tây Ninh	Tây Ninh	4	before 1975	130.008	140
42	Thái Hòa	Nghệ An	4	2007	66.000	135
43	Từ Sơn	Bắc Ninh	4	2008	143.843	61,33
44	Vĩnh Châu	Sóc Trăng	4	2011	163.918	473,4
45	Kiến Tường	Long An	4	2013	64.589	204,28