Vietnam's UNESCO Global Geoparks: what the title means on the ground

A UNESCO Global Geopark is an area with geology of international significance, managed with protection, education and local development together. It is not a national park: people live and farm inside it, towns and roads run through it, and there is usually no single gate or ticket. The title is reviewed periodically; Dong Van, for example, was revalidated in 2014 and 2019 and celebrated a third recognition in October 2023.

For a visitor, that means the geopark is the landscape you drive or walk through. The highlights are geosites — a canyon, a cave, an outcrop, a pass — often with information boards, linked by roads.

The first geopark in Vietnam covers 2,356 km² on the Chinese border, with karst on about 60 per cent of the surface. Rocks run from the Cambrian, about 550 million years ago, to the present, and include two mass-extinction boundaries. The plateau is home to 17 ethnic groups and about 200 Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys. Its highest point is Mieu Vac at 1,971 metres, and the Tu San canyon is 700 to 800 metres deep. Details on the Dong Van page.

Recognised by the UNESCO Executive Board in July 2020, the geopark covers about 4,760 km² in the Central Highlands. The government news portal described its craters, waterfalls and a system of hundreds of volcanic caves. Since the 2025 merger, Dak Nong is part of Lam Dong province, so the geopark now sits in the same province as Da Lat.

It is the least visited of the four by foreign travellers and the hardest to explore independently; many cave sites are reached only with local guidance.

• Dong Van: about six to seven hours from Hanoi to Ha Giang city by car or sleeper bus, then mountain roads north through Quan Ba.
• Non Nuoc Cao Bang: about six to eight hours by sleeper bus from Hanoi to Cao Bang city; Ban Gioc is a further 85 to 89 km.
• Lang Son: the nearest of the four to Hanoi, on the main road towards the Chinese border; we have not sourced journey times to individual geosites.
• Dak Nong: in the Central Highlands, now within Lam Dong province; we have not sourced journey times, and local guidance is the practical way to reach the volcanic caves.

Inside each geopark, distances between geosites are long and public transport is thin. Most visitors use a car with a driver or a motorbike, and plan a route rather than a single stop. The UK Foreign Office advice on motorbikes applies here as everywhere: inexperienced riders should not hire one.