Excluding the two mountain ranges of Ba Vi and Huong Son and Sai Mountain Range, the suburban region of Hanoi has Soc Son Mountain located in Tam Dao Mountain system which includes many small mountains situated in Me Linh and Soc Son districts. Among those, Ham Lon Mountain or Chan Chim is the highest, 462m.
Regarding Sóc Mountain of 308m, or called Ma Mountain, Den and Ve Linh Mountains in Phu Linh commune, Soc Son district, was the place that Thanh Giong rode a horse to fly to the sky.
Cau Lau Mountain: Or called Tay Phuong Mountain or Trau Mountain located at Thach Xa commune, Thach That district. Tay Phuong Pagoda is situated on the mountain and near the mountain is other mountains namely Loi Am and Nua.
Thanh Tuoc Mountain: is 59m high at Thanh Lam commune, Me Linh district. This was the place where Apostle Nguyen Danh Phuong set up an outpost to fight against Trinh King. There is saying handed over from the old days that “Three Ke Dam villages (Dam Noi, Tien Chau village), eight Ke He villages (Xuan Phuong, Phuc Thang commune) could not defeat the apostle at Thanh Tuoc Mountain.
Tu Tram Mountainis located at Phung Chau commune, Hoai Duc district. History of the unification of Great Vietnam recorded that: “In the middle of flat land do several very high mountains rise, caves beneath and Vo Vi pagoda above, and mountain and water close to each other. In the ancient time, Le King built royal step-over place here, lakes on the edge of mountain for sailing. Therefore, it was called Long Chau and Phung Chau mountains. There were Yin stones and Yang stones on the mountain. Legend has it that when the Yang stones sounded, it meant sunny, but Ying stones sounded, it meant rainy. There were several stones carved in the 17th century in Tram cave.
Ma Mountain: Or called as Tien Lu Mountain, located at Tien Phuong, Hoai Duc. It is 50m high. On the mountain is Tram Gian Pagoda which lies among ancient canari, particularly several tens of old pipe trees which have hundreds of leaf canopies shading the whole mountain.
Sai Mountain at Thuy Loi village, Thuy Lam commune, Dong Anh District, is also called as Quy Me Mountain, one of seven mountains like seven dragons. On the mountain is Huyen Thien temple, or known as Chua Sai. Legend has it that the deity helped An Duong Vuong build Co Loa Citadel.
There are also mountains in the inner city, but they are not over 20 meters high, mostly found in Ba Dinh district, including:
Sua Mountain is 16m high and has many dalbergia tonkinesis (cay sua). The mountain is now located at the botanical garden. On the mountain top is Huyen Thien Hac De temple (people often call the mountain as Khan and Nung mountains).
* Nung Mountain: or called as Long Do which means belly-button of the dragon as there is a hole running to the ground in the middle (?). Ly Thai To built sanctum on the mountain. At Le dynasty, in 1430, Kinh Thien Palace was built on the mountain. The mountain no longer exists today and only four dragon daises were traces of the old Kinh Thien Palace.
* Khan Mountain:is the low-lying land mountain in the north of Thang Long Citadel. During the Le dynasty, the mountain was used as the place for the King to see parades and then gradually, it was called as Khan. The mountain was smoothed at the end of the 19th century. It lied in front of the current president palace. In addition, located within the area between Thuy Khue street and Hoang Hoa Tham in Ba Dinh district the following mountains:
– Cung Mountain: is the highest of 18m. Legend has it that the palace was built here.
- Cot Co Mountain: 13m high
– Voi Mountain: or called as Thai Hoa Mountain, 14m high in the east of Cot Co Mountain.
– Truc Mountain: 11m high in Van Phuc village
– Bo mountain: 8m high next to Thu Le zoo.
*Ba Vi mountain area
Ba Vi mountain area covers an area of around 7,000 ha, including an ecological zone which is from 100m high and comprising the communes of Ba Vi, Minh Quang, Tanh Linh and Ba Vi National Park.
Tan Vien Mountain, the highest with 1,281m, is quite narrow in the middle and wider, thus, it was called Tan Vien. The eastern mountain side is rather sloping and the western mountain side is more sloping. Hum (Tiger) and Da Da caves are located on the mountain at the height of 840m and 705m respectively. The eastern mountain was called Ngoc Hoa or Ba Mountain of l,220m and the western mountain was 1,120m high. The mountain system of Ba Vi includes waterfalls like Ao Vua in the north of 25m and Huong of 20m. The district is also home to streams namely Oi, Mit and Soan, and particularly Khoang Xanh where has Tien spring of nearly 7km long.
The mound terrain under the foot of Ba Vi Moutain is bowl-shaped like Vai hill of 113m high which is the biggest one in the north east. Curved hills in Xuan Son commune are closed to one another like a herd of running tortoise, forming Dum hill range. Legend has it that While Son Tinh was carrying soil to build fortifications to fight against Thuy Tinh, his basket handle broke, making soil fall to the ground, creating Dum hill.
This is the natural preservation zone which has many rare animals and trees, including 80 families with over 780 species. Of those, more than 200 are rare medicine types, hundreds of forest vegetable and rate orchid types. Thousands of hectares of trees are grown on the Ba Vi mountainous region. The fauna is very diversified, including 114 bird species of 44 families, 17 sets and many species of bear, fox, pangolin and squirrel. Currently, from the height of 600m above are multi-layer natural forests. From the height of 400m, the clime is moderate and has an average temperature of over 200C for the whole year. In the middle of the summer, temperature is sometimes at 180C. The region has a big volume of minerals such as ores, pyrite ore and asbestos as well as many precious and construction stones. Ba Vi also houses many cultural and historical relics, including Tay Dang, Chu Quyen, Tuong Phieu and Mia Pagoda and especially K9 zone storing many traces of President Ho Chi Minh.
*Nuong Ngai mountainous area – Huong Son
This is a branch of the mountainous area from Suoi Rut, Hoa Binh province, to Hon Ne offshore Kim Son, Ninh Binh. It is 120km long and its width covers the whole region of Da River and the eastern edge is Tich River and Day River.
Two Nuong Ngai and Huong Son mountain ranges run 30km along the direction of north west and south east 30km, being the frontier between Hoa Binh and the expanded Hanoi in My Duc district from Mien Mon to Hop Tien commune. Road 73 to Ben market runs between Nuong Ngai and Huong Son. Nuong Ngai stands vertically like a wall and fields enroach into mountain foot. The region is mostly formed by limestone with mountain tops of between 100m and 300m high.
Nuong Ngai Mountain range, or called as Rang Mountain, has two tops which are 281m and 233m respectively. Huong Son Mountain range has Thien Tru top of 378m high. The two mountain ranges cover 5,770ha.
A total number of nearly limestone which have bizarre shapes like Truong Mountain, Su Tu Mountain, Ham Long Mountain, Trong Mountain, Chieng Mountain, Ga Mountain and Yen Ngua Mountain. Water-rain makes limestone into caves of different postures like the cases of Doi, Ran, Truot, Linh Son, Bong Lai, Tien Canh and Ngoc Long. Long Van is a branch of Yen Stream. Tuyet Stream flows into Day River in Phu Yen. Going against the stream is Bao Dai Pagoda then to Tuyet Son Pagoda. Huong Son has over 15 famous cases and pagodas covering a natural area of more than 3,000ha which were made into stone funnels and holes and separate from old mountains into relic mountains round valleys. Coming into Huong Tich cave, looking down inside the cave, we see the two valleys connected to each other and the old mountain wall became a relic limestone mountain.
Visit: Hanoi tours
