Biên Hòa (Northern accent:  listen, Southern accent:  listen) is a city in Đồng Nai Province, Vietnam, about 20 miles (32 km) east of Hồ Chí Minh City (formerly Saigon), to which Biên Hòa is linked by Vietnam Highway 1.

Demographics

In 1989 the estimated population was 273,879. In 1999, the population was 435,400. 701,194 in 2009. In December 2012, the population of the city crossed the one million mark.

History

Before and during the Nguyen Dynasty

The area around Biên Hòa was part of small kingdom prior to being annexed by Chenla. It was an agricultural and fishing region.

The capture of Biên Hòa on December 16, 1861 was an important allied victory in the Cochinchina Campaign (1858–62). This campaign, fought between the French and the Spanish on the one side and the Vietnamese (under the Nguyen Dynasty) on the other, began as a limited punitive expedition and ended as a French war of conquest. The war concluded with the establishment of the French colony of Cochinchina, a development that inaugurated nearly a century of French colonial dominance in Vietnam.

Bien Hoa Air Base is a Vietnam People's Air Force (Không quân Nhân dân Việt Nam) military airfield located in South-Central southern Vietnam about 25 kilometres (16 mi) from Saigon near the city of Biên Hòa within Đồng Nai Province.

During the Vietnam Wars (1955–75), the base was used by the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF). The United States used it as a major base from 1961 through 1973, stationing Army, Air Force (USAF), Navy, and Marine units there.

Origins

Bien Hoa is located on quiet, flat grounds in a rural area 25 kilometres (16 mi) northeast of Saigon. The French Air Force established an air base, the Base aérienne tactique 192, which was very active during the First Indochina War. On 1 June 1955, Bien Hoa Air Base became the VNAF's logistics support base when the French evacuated their main depot at Hanoi. At that time the VNAF was in its final days as an auxiliary air arm under total French control.

Not long after it was established as a VNAF base the facility took on a tactical role as well as that of a depot. It was here that the VNAF's 1st Fighter Squadron (later renumbered the 514th FS) was formed on 1 June 1956. From this point Bien Hoa became the base of newly formed and continually growing air units. The VNAF 2311th Air Group, later to become an Air Wing, and the 311th Air Division were also stationed there. and the base supported the greatest number of air combat units than any other have throughout South Vietnam.

An military airbase (sometimes referred to as a military airfield, military airport, air force station, air force base or short airbase) is an aerodrome used by a military force for the operation of military aircraft.

Airbase facilities

An airbase typically has some facilities similar to a civilian airport—for example air traffic control and firefighting. Some military aerodromes have passenger facilities; for example RAF Brize Norton in England has a terminal used by passengers for the Royal Air Force's flights by TriStar to the Falkland Islands. A number of military airbases also have a civil enclave for commercial passenger flights, e.g. Beijing Nanyuan Airport (China), Ibaraki Airport (Japan), Burlington International Airport (USA).

Some airbases have revetments, hardened aircraft shelters, or even underground hangars, to protect aircraft from enemy attack. Combat aircraft require storage of aircraft ordnance. An airbase may be defended by anti-aircraft weapons and force protection troops.