Bai Tu Long Bay is a concave area in the Tonkin Gulf, located in the Northeast of Vietnam, covering sea area of Ha Long City, Cam Pha Town and Van Don Island District. The southwest of Bai Tu Long is nearby Halong Bay, the east is conterminous with sea, the west is contiguous to mainland of Cam Pha Town and the northeast is next to Coto Island District.

Bai Tu Long Bay includes hundreds of small and large islands, in which there are many big islands and people live there. Resident on bay mainly live in Van Don Island District and Quan Lan Island, Ban Sen island, Ngoc Vung island, coastal region of Ben Do, Cua Ong …. People here live based on fishing and aquaculture planting.
 

Quan Lan with the softly white sand beach and emerald oceanic water
 

Bai Tu Long Bay is an island area where owns two markedly differentiated seasons climate, hot and humid in summer, cold and dry in winter. The yearly average temperature is from 15°C to 25°C, average rainfall is between 2.000mm and 2.500mm / year. It also has tidal system with tide levels around 3.5- 4m / day. Islands on this bay are often limestone islands and schist islands, the terrain has tectonic age of 300 million years by the raised and lowered advocacy process several times turned continent into sea.

The process of karstic erosion and weathering created special forms like a water-color painting. On the stone islands of Bai Tu Long Bay also have karst caves, especially Quan cave (or Navy cave) where ancient ships were often taken a shelter in the billowy seas. The famous and attractive islands and other cluster of islands for tourists are: Cap Ky Nhay, Cap Ky Gia, The Vang (Golden Ticket), Hon Chong, Hon Van Don, Hon On, Hon Ba Sao, Chan Nghia mountain, etc. 
 

The diversified karst of Bai Tu Long Bay always brings to visitors the excited experience

There are a lot of soil islands on Bai Tu Long bay so many residents live here and breed, cultivate as in Quan Lan, Minh Chau, Ngoc Vung, Dong Chen, The Vang, etc; differently Monkey island is not far from Cam Pha Town, where a lot of yellow monkey species are cultured for pharmaceuticals to make vaccines against cerebral palsy.

Bai Tu Long Bay is closed with Vietnam’s history with celebrated landmark Van Don commercial port where is very crowded “boats are above, wharf is under” under Ly King. It is also a place to commemorate the heroic feats of Tran Khanh Du and three cousins of Pham family (people of Quan Lan Commune) who defeated the enemy fleet's food of Nguyen Mong enemy General Truong Van Ho (1288).
 

Tran Khanh Du Shrine
 

Tran Quoc Tang Temple is a famous temple on Bai Tu Long Bay (also known as Suot Temple) to worship Tran Quoc Tang Hero (called Hung Nhuong Vuong, the third son of Hung Dao Vuong Tran Quoc Tuan). Tran Quoc Tang had a very large merit in battles with Mongol invaders. He was also a liberal writer and a deep thinker about Zen Buddhism. People built the temple and celebrate every year on the fifth day of Jannuary (lunar calendar). Tinh Hai border guard station, the Mac citadel (on Ngoc Vung Island), peak of Quan Lan (on Quan Lan Island), 100-compartment temple in Thang Loi commune (Van Don District - Quang Ninh Province) also are famous cultural historical monuments here.

Besides, Bai Tu Long bay is a place highly concentrated biodiversity with typical ecosystems such as mangrove ecosystem, coral reef ecosystem, tropical forests ecosystem. An abundant flora and fauna system is existed on Bai Tu Long bay. The flora consists of 780 species, 468 genera, 135 families belonged to 5 branches high vascular plants. In which 21 rare species recorded in Vietnam Red Book (1996) and 10 species listed in the Annexes IA, IIA of the Decree 32/2006/ND-CP of the Government about rare animals-plants need protected list.
 

The bright coral in Bai Tu Long National Park

Marine animals contains 391 species, mostly marine species have high economic value and great scientific value. There are some rare species such as abalone, sea cucumber, Sipunculus nudus, etc.

Bai Tu Long National Park where is situated in Bai Tu Long populations, considered as a forest and sea reserve area. The marine ecosystem is occupied 2/3 total area of national park and regarded as place of storing many genetic samples of rare animals, plants and listed in Red Book species.

Moreover, there is 2 kilometers long of natural beach with smooth white sand in Bai Tu Long National Park populations. It is marked as one of the most beautiful beaches of Tonkin Gulf. Above the beach is primeval aquilaria crassna forest stretching over 14 hectares that very suitable area for eco-tourism development.
 

Swan Islet - a graceful shape among the vast water sea of Bai Tu Long Bay