The four cultures of the delta

The Khmer lived in the delta long before Vietnamese settlement reached it, and at the 2019 census their largest communities were in the former provinces of Soc Trang, Tra Vinh and Kien Giang, with smaller ones in An Giang. Their religion is Theravada Buddhism, the same school as in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, and their pagodas follow Cambodian forms: steep layered roofs, naga serpents along the ridges, guardian figures, and a compound with an ordination hall, a sala for community meals and meetings, and monks’ quarters.

In 2014 VnExpress counted more than 140 Khmer pagodas in Tra Vinh alone. Some are very old by delta standards: Chùa Âng is traditionally dated to the tenth century, Kh’leang in Soc Trang to the mid-sixteenth, Nodol to 1677. Others were rebuilt in the twentieth century, like Sà Lôn with its broken-ceramic walls (1969). The great public moment of the Khmer year for visitors is Ok Om Bok at the full moon of the tenth lunar month, with a moon offering, water lanterns and the ghe Ngo long-boat races in Soc Trang; it has been national intangible heritage since 2022.

Where to see it: the Khmer Delta journey, and the Tra Vinh and Soc Trang pages.

The Kinh, the ethnic Vietnamese majority, settled the delta from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries onwards and brought with them Mahayana Buddhism, ancestor worship, Confucian learning and a rich folk religion. Sam Mountain outside Chau Doc shows all of it. The temple of Bà Chúa Xứ, the Lady of the Realm, draws pilgrims from across the south; UNESCO describes the festival as an expression of gratitude to a Mother Earth goddess believed to protect and bring prosperity, health and peace. Nearby, Tây An pagoda (1847) is Buddhist, and the tomb of Thoại Ngọc Hầu (1822) honours a nineteenth-century official.

The Confucian thread is at Vinh Long, where Văn Thánh Miếu was built between 1864 and 1866 at the initiative of the scholars Phan Thanh Giản and Nguyễn Thông, one of three Confucian temples raised in the south in the nineteenth century.

In Can Tho, the city’s own heritage page says families from Guangzhou and Zhaoqing in Guangdong settled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and built Ông pagoda — the Quảng Triệu assembly hall — between 1894 and 1896. Guan Gong stands in the main hall, with Thiên Hậu, protector of seafarers, and Quan Âm beside him. A national relic since 1993, it sits on the riverfront where those merchants traded.

Further west, Ha Tien is a Hoa story of a different scale. Mạc Cửu, from Leizhou in Guangdong, led Chinese and Vietnamese settlers on the Gulf of Thailand coast under the Cambodian king and in 1708 turned to the Nguyễn lords, who named him governor of Ha Tien. The tombs of his family on Bình San hill are a national relic. In Soc Trang the Hoa legacy is most visible in food: bánh pía, the flaky pastry introduced by Chinese migrants.

Many visitors do not expect to find Muslims in the delta. The Cham communities of An Giang live mainly along the Hau River near the Cambodian border: Chau Giang and Chau Phong across the water from Chau Doc, and Da Phuoc on National Road 91C. Their villages are of stilt houses, mosques and weaving workshops.

The Mubarak mosque at Chau Giang was built in 1750, altered in 1808, rebuilt in 1922 and again in concrete in 1965; it is the only mosque in An Giang recognised as a national historical and cultural relic. Jamiul Azhar nearby dates from 1959. Da Phuoc village is about 120 years old and has received visitors since 1992. Visiting means dressing modestly, women covering their hair, and staying outside during prayers.

Where to see it: Chau Doc, on the Four Cultures, Festival and Delta to the Sea journeys. Our etiquette page covers mosque visits.

Before any of these communities reached their present homes, the delta had a port city. At Oc Eo, below Ba Thê mountain in An Giang, the French archaeologist Louis Malleret began excavating in February 1942 and uncovered a settlement of the Funan period, occupied from roughly the first to the seventh century AD. The Óc Eo – Ba Thê site was ranked a special national relic in 2012, covers about 433 hectares, and on 29 January 2026 Vietnam submitted a dossier to UNESCO seeking World Heritage status.

Many of the finds are in museums, including the Museum of Vietnamese History in Ho Chi Minh City. On site you see the landscape, the excavation areas and an exhibition house — enough, with a good guide, to place the pagodas and mosques of the rest of your journey in a much longer history.