St Joseph's Cathedral

St Joseph's Cathedral (2 September 2006)


St Joseph's Cathedral, also known as Nha Tha Lon, is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Hanoi. It is located on Pho Nha Chung, or Nha Chung Street, a short distance from the Ho Hoan Kiem, the Lake of the Returned Sword.

St Joseph's Cathedral was known simply as the "Big Church" among the Vietnamese of Hanoi. It was consecrated on the night of Christmas in 1886. The stained glass windows inside the church are the originals dating from its establishment. To erect the St Joseph's, the French demolished Bao Thien Pagoda, an ancient Vietnamese temple that was standing on the site. It was in fact quite an important pagoda that dates from the 12th century Ly Dynasty.

St Joseph's Cathedral was designed to resemble the Notre Dame of Paris. When the communists took over Hanoi, the Catholic faith suffered three decades of suppression which was only relaxed two decades ago. Mass only resumed at the St Joseph's Cathedral in 1990. Today people once again enjoy freedom of worship. This can be seen on Sundays, when St Joseph's becomes absolutely pack.

Getting there

St Joseph's Cathedral is located on located at Nha Chung Street, or Pho Nha Chung. If you are coming from the direction of Ho Hoan Kiem, go along Le Thai To Street from south to north until it forks into two. The street on the left fork is Pho Hang Trong. A short distance from the fork is a T-junction on the left side. That is Nha Tho Street. St Joseph's Cathedral is located at the end of this street.

St Joseph's Cathedral (2 September 2006)


Inside St Joseph's Cathedral (31 August 2006)

 Latest updates on Penang Travel Tips

Map of Roads in Penang

Looking for information on Penang? Use this Map of Roads in Penang to zoom in on information about Penang, brought to you road by road.

About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.

To get to know me better, do follow me on Facebook!