Dien Hai Citadel: A Cannon Found Under Da Nang's Old Fort

On the morning of 21 October 2026, workers at Dien Hai Citadel, in Hai Chau ward in central Da Nang, were digging to move the base of a light pole. Up to about 1.5 metres down, they found a cannon of cast iron, made in one piece, 2.95 metres long.

The Da Nang Museum says it was made under the Nguyen kings, and it is still working out the exact age. It is the 10th cannon found inside the citadel. Nine came out of the ground in 2005, when the site was cleared of old bombs before a museum was built there.

How Dien Hai Citadel was built

In 1813, King Gia Long built a fort of earth near the mouth of the Han River. The sea kept washing it away. So in 1823, King Minh Mang had it built again in brick, about 200 metres further south, on higher ground.

By 1858 the fort was a square with four corners that stick out. The walls were more than 5 metres high and the moats more than 3 metres deep. There were places for 30 cannons.

The attack of 1858

Early on 1 September 1858, French and Spanish warships opened fire on Da Nang, and the citadel was hit hard. The next day a corner of the wall fell and the gunpowder store blew up. The French called it the West Fort.

Da Nang's side, led by General Nguyen Tri Phuong, kept fighting until 1860. When the French left, they wrecked the forts, Dien Hai among them.

In 1888, Da Nang was handed over to France, and the French army used the citadel as a military hospital until 1954. They pulled down every building inside, kept only the brick walls and the moats, and added a chapel with a tall tower.

After 1975, a medicine factory worked inside the walls. Later, the Da Nang Museum opened there. In 2017, the government listed Dien Hai as a Special National Relic Site. In April 2026, workers began taking down the old museum building inside.

Rebuilding the citadel, and how to see it

Since late 2025, workers have been rebuilding the inside from old drawings of the citadel kept in France: the gates, the flag tower, an underground display hall, a house for the cannons, and a temple for Nguyen Tri Phuong, his soldiers and Da Nang's war dead.

The opening is planned for December 2026.

The new cannon will go into the cannon house after it is cleaned and recorded. The museum's director says the Dien Hai cannons are not like the nine cannons in Hue, which are symbols. These were part of the fort's defence in the fighting of 1858 to 1860.

Before the opening, you can see the citadel on Game Tourane, a one-hour tour of four old places within about 1 km, part of the city's DACC 2026 art event.

It is held at the Da Nang Museum, 31 Tran Phu, on Saturday 31 October and Saturday 7 November, 9am to 10am, for up to 30 people each time. The organisers' email is dacc.danang@gmail.com.