Dong Da Mound

DONG DA MOUND

Dong Da Mound was originally one of the mounds in the Dong Da region. Over the years, trees grew densely on those mounds, mostly banyan trees, so local people usually called those mounds Dong Da Mound. The place with those mounds was called the Dong Da region.

After the battle on the 5th day of the Ky Dau Lunar New Year (1789), enemy corpses lay scattered everywhere in the Dong Da area, from Nam Dong and Khuong Thuong villages to Thinh Quang village. King Quang Trung ordered the dead bodies to be collected and buried in 12 pits and piled high into a mound. In 1851, when roads and markets were opened, people again found many enemy remains, so they collected and buried them in a large pit next to Oc Mountain (also called Loa Son), then piled earth high so that it joined the old mountain and it was also called Dong Da Mound. Later, when Hanoi city was expanded, the French colonialists leveled 12 mounds, leaving only the mound at Oc Mountain. Therefore, Dong Da Mound today is the 13th remaining mound, also called "Kinh Nghe Quan" (meaning a mound burying fierce enemy bodies like whales and nghe fish in the sea).