Asia
Hoi An’s location at the mouth of the Thu Bon River made it a natural harbour, and by the 2nd century it was already functioning as a port for the Champa kingdom. The My Son temple complex 40 kilometres inland gives a sense of how sophisticated the Cham civilisation was.
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The 16th to 18th centuries were Hoi An’s peak. Japanese merchants built the famous Covered Bridge in the 1590s. Chinese merchants endowed elaborate assembly halls. The tube houses, narrow at the front and extending deep, were designed to minimise tax (calculated by street frontage) while maximising storage.
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The river silted up in the late 18th century and shipping moved to Da Nang. This froze Hoi An in time — no money and no reason to demolish old buildings. When UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in 1999, it recognised one of the best-preserved examples of a traditional Asian trading port.
