While South Vietnam is predominantly rural, it does possess several important urban centers. As might be expected, these are found primarily in the densely populated Mekong Delta and along the coastal lowland. Saigon, the nation’s capital and largest city, presently has a population estimated at 3.5 million. Located slightly north of the Mekong River complex and inland from the coast, the city dominates the country in both an economic and political sense. Saigon has excellent port facilities for ocean-going ships, although such traffic must first negotiate the tangled Saigon River which leads inland from the South China Sea. Da Nang, located on the Annamese coast 84 miles below the northern border, is the country’s second largest city. With a population of roughly 500,000 and a protected harbor, Da Nang constitutes the principal economic center in northern South Vietnam. The old imperial capital of Hue (population of roughly 200,000), situated about 50 miles north of Da Nang, historically has exerted a strong cultural influence over the Annamese coast.[1-B] Scores of large towns, such as Quang Tri, Hoi An, Quang Ngai, Can Tho, and Vinh Long, extend down the coast and across the Mekong Delta. Often these serve as provincial capitals. A few lesser population centers, notably Pleiku, Kontum, and Ban Me Thuot, are situated in the Central Highlands. [1-B] The population of most of South Vietnam’s cities and towns has been swollen by the influx of refugees which occurred as the Vietnam War intensified in the middle 1960s. In 1965, for example, refugee population estimates for the three major cities were as follows: Saigon--1.5 million; Da Nang--144,000; Hue--105,000. Most of South Vietnam’s major towns and cities are connected by one highway--Route 1. Constructed by the French during the early 20th century, Route 1 originally extended from Hanoi, the principal city of Tonkin in northern Vietnam, down the coast and inland to Saigon. While Route 1 and a French-built railroad which parallels it helped unify South Vietnam’s most densely populated areas, the country’s road network is otherwise underdeveloped. A few tortuous roads do twist westward from Route 1 into the mountains to reach the remote towns there. Of these the most noteworthy are Route 19, built to serve Pleiku in the Central Highlands, and Route 9, which extends westward into Laos from Dong Ha, South Vietnam’s northernmost town. A number of roads radiate outward from Saigon to the population centers of the Mekong Delta. For the most part, however, the Vietnamese people traditionally have depended on trail networks, inland waterways, and the sea to satisfy their transportation needs. The location of the bulk of the population in the watery Mekong Delta and along the seacoast has encouraged their reliance on waterborne transportation. _Vietnam’s Recent History_