The Museum of Independence plays an important role in the history of the Vietnamese. The building is the very place where the Declaration of Independence was drafted in 1945. The Museum, located in the Old Quarter, is a small house where Ho Chi Minh, the president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, also lived and worked.

Suffusive Art Gallery opened in 2005, with an aim to create a unique space for young Vietnamese talents. It is here where several young talents evolve and collaborate with other artists. The gallery features exhibitions from famous artists such as Doan Hoang Lam and Le Anh Quan.

Green Palm Gallery is located in the very heart of the capital city. Green Palm is a contemporary art gallery which prefers to promote art work from local artists. Visitors will have the opportunity to admire and even buy the works of art from such acclaimed painters as Nguyen Thanh Binh and Trinh Quoc Chien.

Apricot Gallery, the first private gallery in the city of Hanoi, is another three-story high gallery with a lovely waterfall on the first floor. Apricot proudly presents art work from the best artists in Vietnam. The gallery also displays paintings from less-known young talents. The former president of the United States, Bill Clinton, was once the customer of the gallery as he was very impressed with a landscape piece by Hoang Hai Anh.

The Codo Gallery contains an enormous collection of ceramics, lacquer ware, small canvases, and even framed prints. Codo is truly an endless art treasure. Visitors are amazed by the diversity of its exhibits as well as the number of objects that are very rare and sacred.

Mai Gallery, founded in 1993, exhibits work from over 40 Vietnamese artists. The gallery dwells in a three-store building, as the first two floors are decorated with colored paintings while the third floor displays modern masters from such artists as To Ngoc Van, Buu Chi, and Nguyen Tu Nghlern.

One of the oldest museums in Hanoi, the Army Museum, also called the Military History Museum is a tribute to the Vietnamese army that fought to preserve the unity, integrity and independence of Vietnam against the French and during the U.S. offensive.
The Military History Museum is located at the center of Hanoi near the statue of V.I. Lenin. The Cot Co Hanoi Flag Tower, one of the city’s monuments stands on the grounds of the museum. The 31 meter high tower was built between 1805 and 1812 and offers a panoramic view of the surroundings. It is also the last remaining structure from the citadel built by the Vietnamese emperor Gia Long.
Visitors are greeted outside the museum by an artistic arrangement of wrecked American B-52s. The main exhibition hall in the Military History Museum has photographs, scale models and maps showing the struggle for independence against the French colonial rulers, from the 1930 uprising to the victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. In another exhibition hall, the victory in the Vietnam War by the Vietnamese Army is described. The unique weaponry used by the Vietnamese including bamboo spikes, crude firearms, buffalo horns and indigenous torpedoes to defeat enemies who fought with more sophisticated arsenal, make interesting exhibits at the museum.

The Hanoi Fine Arts museum is a repository of the art and cultural heritage of Vietnam. It has exhibits from the Bronze Age to contemporary works by modern artists. Many of the exhibits are reproductions of artifacts lost during the Indochina Wars.
The Hanoi Museum of Fine Arts is housed in a beautiful colonial building. The architecture of the building is a combination of classical European style with native Vietnamese details. At first the building was a school for girls belonging to families of high ranking officers in the colonial government. Later the building was used by the French Ministry of Information.
The ground floor of the museum has ancient artifacts. There are many sandstone sculptures from the Champa and the Funan Kingdoms. The evolution of the art of lacquer in Vietnam is beautifully depicted at the museum. The second floor has twentieth century paintings by Vietnamese artists including unique lacquer based paintings. The new wing of the museum has Chinese watercolors on the first floor and the second floor has costumes and decorative arts of the different Vietnamese ethnic groups. The most fascinating exhibit is the, ‘One Thousand Eye, One Thousand Arm Guan Yin’, a sculpture of a Hindu Goddess backed by a disk into which one thousand arms are carved.
The museum is open to visitors, Tuesdays to Sunday. There are souvenir shops selling paintings and other gift articles in the elevated walkway from the old museum to the new wing.

This museum is dedicated to the life and times of Vietnam’s founding father, Ho Chi Minh. The museum has five floors full of memorabilia belonging to or related to the great leader of North Vietnam. It was opened on the 2nd September 1990, a hundred years after the birth of Ho Chi Minh.
The building housing the Ho Chi Minh museum combines Vietnamese architectural elements with Russian architectural styles. The facade has a large relief of the hammer and the sickle. Exhibits in the museum include military orders, photographs, memorabilia of the October and August revolution, the struggle for independence and the many movements led by Ho Chi Minh. The top floor has a large metal sculpture of a lotus flower in gold and many objects relating to the revolutionary leader. A labyrinth of murals tells the story of Vietnam from past struggles to future hopes. National totems surround a bright red volcano that symbolizes the Vietnamese revolutionary movement. It has a library, a large hall, meeting rooms and research rooms.
The museum stays open from Tuesdays to Thursdays and on weekends. Bags and cameras are not allowed and visitors are required to follow a strict dignified dress code and maintain silence while viewing exhibits.