Con Dao

Con Dao National Park was established in 1993 on an archipelago in the South China Sea, some 230 kilometres south-east of Ho Chi Minh City, and protects some 200 km² of land and sea across sixteen islands and islets.

Its waters hold well-preserved coral reefs, seagrass meadows and mangroves, and are one of the few places in Vietnam where the dugong survives. The archipelago's beaches are the country's main green turtle nesting area, with a nest relocation and protection programme that has been running for decades and has released hundreds of thousands of hatchlings. Endemic subspecies of macaque and squirrel live on the islands.

The archipelago also carries a grim historical charge: during French colonisation and later under the South Vietnamese regime a prison complex operated here where thousands of political opponents were held, notorious for the so-called tiger cages. The buildings are preserved as a memorial and the archipelago is a place of national pilgrimage. As at Asinara or on the islands of the Tuscan archipelago, that prison past kept the area closed and indirectly contributed to its conservation.