Ben Thanh is the commercial heart of central Saigon, the dense quarter of District 1 that wraps around the city's most famous landmark — the Ben Thanh Market, whose clock tower has been the symbol of the city since the French built it in 1914. The area around the market is where the colonial grid, the backpacker streets, and the modern downtown all meet, and it is the busiest pedestrian zone in the city.
The market itself is the centre of gravity: a covered hall of more than a thousand stalls selling fabrics, lacquerware, coffee, dried fruit, and souvenirs by day, and a sprawling street-food night market that takes over the surrounding roads after dark. Around it, the streets toward the river hold the city's newest skyscrapers — the Bitexco Financial Tower with its helipad, and the developments rising along Le Loi and Ham Nghi. The new metro line surfaces here, and the plaza in front of the market has been reshaped around it.
This is the part of the city most visitors pass through first, and it rewards a slow circuit: a bowl of pho or a banh mi from a market stall, the textile and souvenir floors, and the contrast between the 1914 market hall and the glass towers behind it.