With an area of 920.5 square kilometres and a population of 2.16 million, with 1.2 million living in Hanoi proper, the population density of Hanoi is the highest in the country: 2,161 people per square kilometres in Hanoi, and 24,558 people in the inner city area (noi thanh). Average housing space per person decreased from 5.1 square metres in 1954 to 2.3 metres in 1982, and 1.2 metres in 1992. Incomplete statistics for unemployment in Hanoi put it at 140,000 in 1991, and 181,000 in 1992. Theoretically the policy on migration to Hanoi still states that “Only migrants with selected skills or abilities are allowed into the city”.

One of Hanoi's characteristics is its semi-rural nature, developed within the framework of a larger agricultural society. Although established as the capital since ad 1010 it retains some semblance of this characteristic today. For a long time villages existed within the city, the so called thap tam trai (13 stockaded villages) is a case in point. Some place names in Hanoi such as Giang Vo, where the largest labour market is, and Ngoc Ha and Kim Ma, are actually names of villages. Andre Masson, a French scholar, commented early this century, “Strictly speaking, Hanoi in 1873 was not a city but a composite agglomeration where an administrative capital, a commercial town and numerous villages were juxtaposed within the same enclosure”.

Ke Cho, the most ancient name for Hanoi, literately means “the place where markets are”, which was situated opposite to Ke Que — (countryside). It was said that in mid-1954, one family in every two made its living from trade and the trade was linked closely to the surrounding countryside stretching into the provinces around the city. For instance, the well known 36 streets (36 pho phuong) in the heart of Hanoi each specialized in a certain trade or a kind of product, as Samuel Baron described in 1685: “All of the diverse objects sold in this town have a specially assigned street, quite like the different companies and corporations in European cities”.