Thủ ÃÂức () is a former sub-municipality in Ho Chi Minh City of the Southeast region of Vietnam.
Thủ ÃÂức ceased to exist as a municipal city on 1 July 2025, following the elimination of district level units in Vietnam.
The oldest name what was recorded in this area was Ngãi An (義å®Â), a district-level administrative unit has existed since the Nguyá» n lords. However, since October 9, 1868, the French government in Cochinchina has decided to change its name to Thủ ÃÂức or sometimes Thà © ÃÂức (å®Âå¾·) to suit the expansion and upgrade plan for the land. That was inherently a pen name of a Minh Hðáng man called Tạ Huy (è¬Âè¼Â), courtesy name Dðáng Minh (æÂÂæÂÂ), who has made meritorious services to this area. He was ordained "pioneering saint" (Ã¥ÂÂè³¢, tiá»Ân hiá»Ân) by Saigonese folk.
Thủ ÃÂức city was founded by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on December 9, 2020, from the districts of 2, 9, and Thủ ÃÂức District. Thu Duc City covers 211.56 km<sup>2</sup>, the population as of 2019 was 1,013,795 inhabitants. The establishment of Thu Duc City is hoped to enable it to contribute more to national economic growth and boost development in the Southern Key Economic Zone (SKEZ).
This new city-within-city model has been used by many places in the world including financial center Canary Wharf in London, Silicon Valley in the United States, Gangnam in Seoul or Pudong in Shanghai, etc. It was suggested that Thu ÃÂức should be given autonomy in decision making and policy incentives to develop innovation capacity to improve competitiveness like what China did to Shenzhen, whose economy now is larger than Hong Kong's.
Thủ ÃÂức lies in the eastern of Ho Chi Minh City, adjacent to:
The city has an area of 211,56 km<sup>2</sup>, population as of 2019 is 1,013,795 people, population density is 4,792 people/km<sup>2</sup>.
Thủ ÃÂức was a class-1 city of Ho Chi Minh City and the first city to use city-within-city model in Vietnam.
Thủ ÃÂức City has 34 wards, which is now reformed into 12 wards directly managed by Ho Chi Minh City:
After arrangement, Ho Chi Minh City consists of 22 district-level subdivisions including 1 city, 16 urban districts, and 5 rural districts. The further commune-level subdivisions would have 312 in total including 249 wards, 58 communes, 5 commune-level towns.
During the existence of the Republic of Vietnam regime, it was the location of Thu Duc Military Academy.
Thu Duc City will contribute one third of Ho Chi Minh City's gross regional domestic product (GRDP) and account for 7 percent of the national gross domestic product (GDP), which is only behind Hanoi's GRDP in scale but higher than that of Binh Duong and Dong Nai.
There are eight innovation centers in total of Thu Duc city: