Tuy Hoa’s Landmarks: Nhan Tower, Nghinh Phong Tower & the Coastal Park

Tuy Hoa doesn’t have a long list of must-see landmarks the way Da Nang or Nha Trang do — it has three, and they couldn’t be more different from each other. These three Tuy Hoa landmarks couldn’t be more different from each other, but together they cover the city’s whole story. One is a brick tower the Cham people built on a hilltop some 900 years ago. One is a pair of granite spires finished in 2022 that went on to win a global design award. And one is a small, purely decorative lighthouse that showed up a few years ago as part of the city’s beachfront park. Together they’re a fast, walkable (or at least short-drive-able) way to get a feel for Tuy Hoa beyond its beach.

Nhan Tower (Tháp Nhạn)

Nhan Tower sits alone on top of Nhan Mountain, a 64-meter hill on the north bank of the Da Rang River in Tuy Hoa’s Ward 1. The Cham built it around the late 11th century, and what’s standing today is the real thing — a 23.5-meter brick tower on a 10-meter-square base, in the classic three-part Cham layout of base, body and roof, with its entrance facing east. It was recognized as a national architectural-art relic in 1988 and upgraded to special national relic status in 2018, which is Vietnam’s highest heritage tier.

What makes the climb worth it isn’t just the tower itself — it’s the view from the top. From the hill you can see the city laid out along the coast, the Da Rang River curling past, and the four railway bridges that cross it. Entry is free and the site is open 6:30am–11pm daily; you can walk up the paved road or pay a small fee (around 10,000 VND for adults, 5,000 VND for kids) for the electric shuttle. Late afternoon, roughly an hour before sunset, is when the light over the river is best. If you’re around on a Saturday evening or during the Nguyen Tieu Poetry Festival on the 15th night of the first lunar month, there are cultural performances held on-site.

Nghinh Phong Tower

Nghinh Phong Tower is the newest thing on this list by about 900 years, and it looks it. It sits at the corner of Nguyễn Hữu Thọ boulevard and Độc Lập street, right where the city meets the beach, and it’s built from hundreds of granite blocks of different sizes stacked into two soaring, asymmetric spires. The name translates roughly to “welcoming the wind” — appropriate, since the design lets sea breeze pass straight through the gap between the two towers.

The two spires aren’t just abstract sculpture — they’re built around the Vietnamese origin legend of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ, the mythical parents said to have had 100 children in a single pouch, 50 of whom followed their father to the sea and 50 their mother to the mountains. Each spire is made of 50 stacked columns for that reason: the taller one (34 meters) represents Lạc Long Quân, the shorter one (28 meters) Âu Cơ. Down at the base, granite panels carved by local Phú Yên artisans show relief scenes from the same story and from the region’s history — worth a slow look before you crane your neck up at the towers themselves.

It took about two years to build and was finished on April 30, 2022, on a plaza covering more than 7,000 square meters. In 2023 it won World Travel Awards’ “World’s Leading City Monument” title and was the only Southeast Asian monument to take home that year’s Asian Urban Landscape award — a fast rise for a structure barely a year old at the time. It’s free to visit any time, but if you can, come after dark: the towers run a 3D-mapping light show synced with the sound of wind moving through the columns.

The Coastal Park’s Miniature Lighthouse

A short walk from Nghinh Phong Tower, inside the same stretch of seafront park, is a small white lighthouse that has nothing to do with maritime navigation — it’s a purely ornamental structure, added during the second construction phase of Tuy Hoa’s coastal park redevelopment alongside a scattering of other themed follies. It’s not a historic site and there’s no real story behind it, but it photographs well against the sky, and the hill it sits on is a quiet, shaded spot to sit for a few minutes between the other two landmarks.

All three are close enough together to cover in one outing: Nhan Tower on its hill overlooking the river, then a short drive to the beach for Nghinh Phong Tower and the lighthouse in the same park. Morning suits Nhan Tower’s view over the water; evening suits Nghinh Phong Tower’s light show. Either way, none of them charge admission, which is one more reason to fit all three Tuy Hoa landmarks in. For official background on the towers, see Phu Yen’s tourism authority. Once you’ve seen the landmarks, the seafront promenade and beachfront cafes are both a short walk away.