During the annual floating-water season from the seventh to the tenth lunar months, when floodwaters from the upper Mekong pour across the border into the low-lying basin of Đồng Tháp Mười and turn tens of thousands of hectares of alum fields into a vast white inland sea, a boat ride down the Vàm Cỏ Tây River and its Long Khốt tributary in the border commune of Tuyên Bình reveals an extraordinary sight. Amid limitless waters submerging the tops of cajuput forests, a circular earthen mound crowned with dark ancient trees rises above the flood like a sacred island that never sinks, its summit bearing a moss-grown pagoda roof looking straight out over the river landing. This is Nổi Pagoda (Chùa Nổi, the Floating Pagoda), known in Chinese characters as Cổ Sơn Tự (古山寺), linked along the same river corridor with the solemn memorial complex of Long Khốt Temple (Đền thờ Long Khốt) upstream.
Renowned not only for the natural phenomenon whereby however high the floodwaters rise, the pagoda ground appears to rise above them for more than two centuries since Zen Master Thiện Nhiêu founded the temple in the Quý Mùi year (1823), the earth beneath Cổ Sơn Tự holds a remarkable depth of human history. Archaeological excavations at the Chùa Nổi Mound (Gò Chùa Nổi) have uncovered a prehistoric habitation layer dating back 2,500 to 3,500 years directly beneath the brick foundations and sandstone Buddha sculptures of the first-millennium Óc Eo - Funan civilization, making this site a unique cultural and spiritual landmark on the southwestern frontier.
IFrom a prehistoric and Óc Eo archaeological mound to the legend of the Floating Pagoda and memorial space by the Long Khốt River
The heritage cluster of Nổi Pagoda (Cổ Sơn Tự) and Long Khốt Temple in the northwestern borderland of Đồng Tháp Mười represents a harmonious convergence of Southern Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhism (Buddhism) and the moral tradition of ancestor veneration, honoring the founding pioneers who cleared the wetlands alongside the fallen guardians who protected the nation's frontier. The Sino-Vietnamese title Cổ Sơn Tự (古山寺) means Pagoda on the Ancient Mountain (because across the flat, marshy depression of Đồng Tháp Mười, a natural mound rising 3.5 meters high and stretching one hundred meters across was regarded by early settlers as a small mountain), while its original founding name in 1823 was Bửu Sơn Tự (寶山寺, Precious Mountain Pagoda).
The reason people across Southern Vietnam have affectionately called Cổ Sơn Tự by the folk name Chùa Nổi (Floating Pagoda) stems from two layers of collective memory: first, the legend of clay statues that floated without sinking on the Vàm Cỏ Tây River during the pioneering era, and second, the mound's extraordinary ability to remain dry above every historic deluge.
According to local oral tradition passed down by elders in the Tuyên Bình area, in the early nineteenth century when Vietnamese settlers from Central Vietnam and Gia Định first paddled boats along the Vàm Cỏ Tây River into the wild basin of Đồng Tháp Mười to harvest wild rice and gather sedge for weaving mats, young buffalo herders often gathered atop the high earthen mound beside the river. Discovering that the clay on the mound was unusually fine and malleable, the children molded figures of Buddhas and deities and set them up on the mound in play worship. Fearing that the children were committing sacrilege against the spirits, village adults gathered the sun-dried clay figures and threw them into the Vàm Cỏ Tây River to dissolve. Yet a wondrous thing occurred: instead of sinking or disintegrating, the clay statues floated buoyantly on the water's surface, circling in the eddy right at the foot of the mound for days on end. Convinced that this riverside mound was a sacred node inhabited by Buddhas and deities, the settlers erected a small thatched hermitage on its summit. In the Quý Mùi year (1823) under Emperor Minh Mạng, Zen Master Thiện Nhiêu arrived on his wandering pilgrimage and formally founded the pagoda under the name Bửu Sơn Tự, later renamed Cổ Sơn Tự.
The second meaning behind the name Floating Pagoda is a geological and hydrological reality tested across more than two hundred annual flood seasons. The Vĩnh Hưng - Tuyên Bình area lies at the very heart of the Đồng Tháp Mười flood basin, every year from the sixth to the tenth lunar months, floodwaters submerge all surrounding fields and cajuput forests under two to three meters of water. Even during the greatest historic floods recorded in the modern Mekong Delta, such as those of 1978, 1986, and 2000, when virtually every house in the district was submerged, the surface of the Cổ Sơn Tự mound remained high and dry above the inland sea, with peak floodwaters only lapping at the steps of the temple gate and never entering the main hall. Thanks to this floating mound terrain, for centuries whenever the seasonal floods arrived, Cổ Sơn Tự served not only as a refuge where local villagers paddled their boats to shelter from high water, but also as a sanctuary where countless wild birds, snakes, turtles, and field creatures swam from the flooded plains to live peacefully together beneath the ancient trees of the pagoda.
The image of Cổ Sơn Tự sheltering both human beings and wild creatures in peaceful coexistence amidst vast seasonal floodwaters is a living embodiment of the Buddhist vows of Boundless Compassion (Từ bi vô lượng) and the Gift of Fearlessness (Vô úy thí). When the monastic sanctuary of Cổ Sơn Tự downstream is linked with Long Khốt Temple upstream along the same river system within the new Tuyên Bình Commune, the complex fulfills the Buddhist ethic of the Fourfold Gratitude (Tứ trọng ân) (gratitude to parents, to all living beings, to country and society, and to the Three Jewels): pilgrims visit Cổ Sơn Tự to venerate the Buddha and contemplate 3,500 years of ancient settlement, and visit Long Khốt Temple to offer incense in gratitude to the pioneers who opened the land and the fallen heroes who safeguarded the borderland.
Many visitors hearing the name Chùa Nổi (Floating Pagoda) assume the temple is built on wooden rafts floating on the river or constructed of lightweight materials that rise and fall with the tide. In reality, the pagoda is built solidly atop Gò Chùa Nổi, a stable natural geological mound rising approximately 3.5 meters above the surrounding Đồng Tháp Mười floodplain with a diameter of about 100 meters. The marvel lies in how prehistoric inhabitants 3,500 years ago and nineteenth-century Zen masters identified the single geological elevation in the entire flood basin that never submerges even at peak flood levels.
IIA 3,500-year journey from prehistoric settlers and Óc Eo temples to Cổ Sơn Tự (1823) and national heritage status
Few pagodas in the Mekong Delta stand directly atop an archaeological stratigraphy spanning three and a half millennia continuously from the prehistoric Metal Age, through the Funan Kingdom and Óc Eo civilization, to the nineteenth-century Vietnamese pioneering era like Cổ Sơn Tự.
According to official records of the former Long An Provincial Museum and the Tuyên Bình Commune Portal (Tây Ninh Province), in 1996 Japanese archaeologist Nishimura Masanari, in collaboration with Vietnamese archaeologists, conducted the first scientific excavation at the Gò Chùa Nổi (Cổ Sơn Tự) site with two test trenches totaling nearly 15 square meters. The excavation revealed a cultural layer more than 1 meter thick containing an exceptionally rich assemblage of artifacts. In the early cultural layer belonging to the prehistoric and protohistoric period (dated to approximately 2,500 to 3,500 years ago, corresponding to the Gò Ô Chùa culture), archaeologists unearthed thousands of potsherds and intact vessels including pots, small jars, round-bottomed vases, bowls, basins, stemmed plates, lids, and clay stoves (cà ràng) fired at high temperatures, coated with a distinctive white clay slip, burnished smooth, and painted red. Remarkably, this prehistoric layer also yielded animal-bone tools (axes and chisels), crucibles and terracotta molds for bronze casting, numerous spindle whorls for spinning thread, impressions of woven leaf mats on pottery bases, and abundant ancient rice husks and grains mixed into the clay temper, proving that the inhabitants of Gò Chùa Nổi over three millennia ago practiced wet-rice cultivation, bronze casting, cloth weaving, and mat plaiting.
Directly overlying the prehistoric stratum at Gò Chùa Nổi is the Óc Eo and post-Óc Eo cultural layer (belonging to the ancient Kingdom of Funan, roughly the first to seventh centuries CE). Here, as at neighboring mounds along the right bank of the Vàm Cỏ Tây River (such as Gò Ô Chùa, Gò Hàng, and Gò Đế), researchers documented large ancient architectural bricks, roof tiles, lotus-bud tile ends, fragments of Hindu deity statues (such as Vishnu), and notably the pedestal of a seated meditating Buddha statue carved from green sandstone in classic Funan Buddhist sculptural style.
Following the decline of the Óc Eo civilization, the Đồng Tháp Mười basin returned to wilderness for centuries until Vietnamese settlers arrived in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the Quý Mùi year (1823), Zen Master Thiện Nhiêu erected the Bửu Sơn Tự hermitage atop the mound. In the Ất Hợi year (1875) under Emperor Tự Đức, the temple underwent a major restoration into a three-bay timber-columned Three Jewels hall and took the name Cổ Sơn Tự. After twentieth-century historical upheavals during which the structure suffered damage and was rebuilt by monks and villagers, on 28 December 2004 the former Long An Provincial People's Committee issued Decision No. 5164/QĐ-UBND ranking the Gò Chùa Nổi Archaeological and Historical-Cultural Site as a Provincial Heritage Site, complementing the Long Khốt Area National Historical Site (ranked as a National Heritage Site in 1997, with the grand Long Khốt Temple constructed in the 2020s). In 2019, the nearly 200-year-old Sterculia foetida tree (cây trôm) and a cluster of 5 ancient Dipterocarpus alatus trees (cây dầu rái) on the pagoda mound were honored as Vietnam Heritage Trees. Effective 1 July 2025, under Resolution No. 202/2025/QH15 and Resolution No. 1682/NQ-UBTVQH15 dated 16 June 2025, former Tuyên Bình Commune and former Thái Bình Trung Commune (Vĩnh Hưng District, former Long An Province) merged with neighboring communes to form Tuyên Bình Commune of the new Tây Ninh Province, uniting both Nổi Pagoda and Long Khốt Temple within a single commune.
- 3,500 - 2,500 years agoPrehistoric settlement center on the Chùa Nổi MoundAncient inhabitants chose the high mound beside the Vàm Cỏ Tây River to live above the floods, developing wet-rice farming, mat weaving, textile spinning, white-slipped red-painted pottery, and bronze casting.
- 1st - 7th century CEBrick sanctuary and sandstone Buddha statue of the Óc Eo - Funan civilizationAn Óc Eo religious structure rose atop Gò Chùa Nổi featuring large architectural bricks, lotus-bud roof tiles, Hindu deity fragments, and a meditating Buddha statue carved in green sandstone.
- 1823Zen Master Thiện Nhiêu founds Bửu Sơn Tự (Cổ Sơn Tự)In the Quý Mùi year (1823) under Emperor Minh Mạng, linked with the legend of buffalo-herders' clay statues floating on the Vàm Cỏ Tây River, Zen Master Thiện Nhiêu established the Buddhist pagoda atop the mound.
- 1875Major reconstruction into a three-bay timber Three Jewels hallIn the Ất Hợi year (1875) under Emperor Tự Đức, monks and lay followers rebuilt the temple with precious wood columns in three bays and formally named it Cổ Sơn Tự.
- 1996 - 1997Archaeological excavation of Gò Chùa Nổi and National Heritage ranking of Long KhốtIn 1996, Japanese archaeologist Nishimura Masanari and the Long An Museum excavated the 1-meter-thick cultural layer at Gò Chùa Nổi, in 1997, the Long Khốt site was ranked a National Historical Heritage Site.
- 2004 and 2019Provincial Heritage ranking of Gò Chùa Nổi and recognition of Vietnam Heritage TreesDecision No. 5164/QĐ-UBND dated 28 December 2004 ranked Gò Chùa Nổi as a provincial monument, in 2019, the nearly 200-year-old trôm tree and 5 ancient dầu rái trees were recognized as Vietnam Heritage Trees.
- 2025United within Tuyên Bình Commune, new Tây Ninh ProvinceUnder Resolution No. 202/2025/QH15 and Resolution No. 1682/NQ-UBTVQH15 dated 16 June 2025, former Tuyên Bình and Thái Bình Trung communes merged into Tuyên Bình Commune, Tây Ninh Province.
IIIThe Cổ Sơn Tự sanctuary atop the archaeological mound, the grove of Vietnam Heritage Trees and Long Khốt Temple
The architecture and landscape of Nổi Pagoda (Cổ Sơn Tự) possess the rustic, serene beauty of a Mekong floodplain monastery nestled beneath a miniature primeval forest crowning an ancient earthen mound. The entire temple precinct occupies the summit of Gò Chùa Nổi, a circular mound approximately 100 meters in diameter covering more than one hectare and rising about 3.5 meters above the surrounding rice fields. From the boat landing on the right bank of the Vàm Cỏ Tây River, pilgrims step through the triple-arched gate built right at the water's edge (where waves lap directly against the steps during the flood season) to ascend into a temple courtyard shaded year-round.
The Main Hall of Cổ Sơn Tự is built in traditional Southern Vietnamese pagoda style with a two-tiered curved red-tiled roof crowned by twin dragons flanking the Dharma wheel, facing directly toward the Vàm Cỏ Tây River. Inside the main sanctuary are solemn altars dedicated to Shakyamuni Buddha, Amitabha Buddha, Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, and the Founding Patriarch Thiện Nhiêu. In the front courtyard beneath the canopy of ancient trees stand an open-air statue of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva and small shrines to local guardian spirits, creating a warm spiritual haven on the frontier.
Óc Eo brick and stone vestiges, the Vietnam Heritage Trees and the architecture of Long Khốt Temple
What makes walking around the grounds of Cổ Sơn Tự especially compelling is the interplay between multi-millennial archaeological vestiges and a primeval grove of giant trees. Right around the temple foundation and among the massive tree roots, visitors still encounter large ancient architectural bricks from the Óc Eo period, 3,500-year-old prehistoric pottery fragments, and sandstone blocks preserved by the pagoda and provincial museum (notably the green sandstone pedestal of a meditating Buddha statue, lotus-bud tile ends, and ancient ceramic vessels). Sheltering the pagoda roof are rare centuries-old giant trees surviving in the Đồng Tháp Mười flood basin, most notably a nearly 200-year-old Sterculia foetida tree (cây trôm) with immense buttress roots spreading across the mound and a trunk requiring several people to encircle, alongside a cluster of 5 ancient Dipterocarpus alatus trees (cây dầu rái) soaring straight into the sky, all officially honored with plaques as Vietnam Heritage Trees in 2019.
Not far upstream from Cổ Sơn Tự along the border patrol road and the Long Khốt River (an upper tributary flowing into the Vàm Cỏ Tây River, located in Trung Chánh Hamlet, former Thái Bình Trung Commune, now part of the same Tuyên Bình Commune) stands the Long Khốt National Historical Site and Long Khốt Temple. The main memorial temple is built in traditional Vietnamese architectural style with curved red-tiled eaves, sturdy ironwood columns, stele pavilions, a triple-arched gateway, and a riverside lantern-floating wharf on the bank of the Long Khốt River. Amid the quiet frontier bordering Cambodia, Long Khốt Temple and Cổ Sơn Tự form a continuous cultural and spiritual pilgrimage route: visitors contemplate prehistoric and Óc Eo archaeological heritage and pray for peace at the Floating Pagoda, then offer incense in gratitude to founding pioneers and fallen guardians beside the Long Khốt River.
A circular natural mound 100 meters in diameter and 3.5 meters high on the right bank of the Vàm Cỏ Tây River, containing a 1-meter-thick cultural stratum from prehistoric to Óc Eo times that never floods.
The Buddhist sanctuary originating from Zen Master Thiện Nhiêu's 1823 hermitage, where villagers and wild creatures across the Đồng Tháp Mười flood basin have sought refuge during seasonal floods.
Centuries-old primeval trees shading the entire pagoda mound, recognized by the Vietnam Association for Conservation of Nature and Environment as Vietnam Heritage Trees in 2019.
Archaeological artifacts discovered at Gò Chùa Nổi including 3,500-year-old white-slipped red-painted pottery containing ancient rice husks, lotus-bud tiles, and a green sandstone meditating Buddha base.
A traditional curved-roof memorial temple complex within the Long Khốt National Heritage Site (Trung Chánh Hamlet, Tuyên Bình Commune), honoring founding ancestors and borderland guardians.
IVThe lie of the land and the facing
This section is the library's own reading through the eyes of traditional form-school feng shui on the actual terrain of the Đồng Tháp Mười flood basin and the Vàm Cỏ Tây - Long Khốt river system, not something written in the pagoda's stelae. We state this clearly so that readers can distinguish archaeological and historical records from geographical feng shui interpretation.
Examined on the topographic map of the Đồng Tháp Mười depression at verified coordinates 10.82944 degrees North latitude and 105.87056 degrees East longitude (10°49'46" N, 105°52'14" E), Nổi Pagoda (Cổ Sơn Tự) possesses one of the most extraordinary waterland feng shui formations in Southern Vietnam: the Sacred Turtle Floating on Water (Linh quy phù thủy) or Lotus Platform Rising from the Flood (Liên đài xuất thủy). The entire Tuyên Bình - Vĩnh Hưng area is an ancient alum-soil depression formed by marine regression roughly 6,000 years ago, so low and flat that during the monsoon flood season all four quarters become an inland sea. Amid that vast basin, the ancient earth vein along the right bank of the Vàm Cỏ Tây River suddenly rises into a well-rounded mound about 100 meters across and 3.5 meters high, resembling the carapace of a giant turtle or a round lotus pod resting beside the river's edge. In the feng shui of wetland plains (Thủy hương long pháp), where an entire region submerges beneath floodwaters yet a single circular mound never floods, that mound marks a True Node that gathers yang qi (Độc sơn xuất thủy huyệt, Solitary Mountain Rising from Water), where the earth vein is so condensed that tides and floods can only rise to embrace the base of the mound as protective water (hộ huyệt thủy) without ever overwhelming it.
In terms of orientation and water configuration, Cổ Sơn Tự sits atop the mound on the right (western) bank of the Vàm Cỏ Tây River (receiving waters flowing down from the Long Khốt River tributary across the northwestern border), and opens its main facade toward the Vàm Cỏ Tây River to the East and Northeast. During the dry season, the Vàm Cỏ Tây River curving right before the temple gate serves as the inner bright hall (nội minh đường) that channels qi, connected with the historic Phất Tức freshwater confluence nearby. During the floating-water season (from the seventh to the tenth lunar months), when floodwaters spread across the fields to encircle all four sides of Gò Chùa Nổi, the ancient pagoda enters its supreme feng shui phase known as Four Waters Paying Court, the Node Gathered at the Center (Tứ thủy triều quy, trung ương kết huyệt). The towering Vietnam Heritage Trees (the nearly 200-year-old trôm tree and the 5 ancient dầu rái trees) crowning the mound act as natural ceremonial pillars (hoa biểu) and wind-sheltering canopies (tàng phong) that keep the vital qi warm and gathered, explaining why across 3,500 years prehistoric settlers, Funan - Óc Eo builders, and Nguyễn-era Zen masters all chose this exact floating mound as the spiritual heart of the frontier.
VThe flood-season pilgrimage to Nổi Pagoda and annual memorial rites at Long Khốt Temple
Religious and cultural life at the Nổi Pagoda (Cổ Sơn Tự) and Long Khốt Temple complex is deeply shaped by the seasonal rhythms of the Đồng Tháp Mười wetlands, combining major Buddhist festivals at the ancient pagoda with memorial ceremonies honoring founding pioneers and fallen guardians at the Long Khốt National Heritage Site.
| Time of year | Festival or rite | Traditional rituals and distinctive cultural activities |
|---|---|---|
| 15th day of the 1st lunar month | First Full Moon (Thượng Nguyên) peace-prayer rite at Cổ Sơn Tự | Large numbers of residents from the Tây Ninh and Đồng Tháp Mười border region travel by boat and road to Nổi Pagoda to venerate the Buddha and pray for favorable weather and bountiful harvests. |
| 15th day of the 4th lunar month and 19 May (solar) | Buddha's Birthday at Cổ Sơn Tự and Traditional Memorial Ceremony at Long Khốt Temple | Bathing of the Buddha ritual at Cổ Sơn Tự, while around 19 May each year Long Khốt Temple holds solemn incense offerings, requiem prayers, and floating-lantern ceremonies on the Long Khốt River in gratitude to founding pioneers and fallen heroes. |
| 7th to 10th lunar months (peaking on the 15th of the 7th and 8th months) | Floating-water season pilgrimage to Chùa Nổi and Vu Lan Festival | The most distinctive season of the year when floodwaters turn the surrounding plains into a white sea while the pagoda mound rises dry above the water: pilgrims cross the Vàm Cỏ Tây River by boat to worship and enjoy free monastery vegetarian meals of sesbania flowers (bông điên điển), water lilies (bông súng), and wetland herbs. |
| 15th day of the 10th lunar month | Tenth Full Moon (Hạ Nguyên) thanksgiving rite as floodwaters recede | Thanksgiving ceremony to the Three Jewels and guardian spirits as the seasonal flood recedes peacefully, leaving rich alluvial silt for the new rice crop across the Tuyên Bình fields. |
Making a pilgrimage to Nổi Pagoda (Cổ Sơn Tự) and Long Khốt Temple during the floating-water season offers an unforgettable spiritual experience. Crossing the silver expanse of the Vàm Cỏ Tây River by ferry to step onto a 3,500-year-old archaeological mound, listening to the temple bell ring out beneath the two-century-old heritage trôm tree, and sharing a simple vegetarian meal of water lilies and yellow sesbania blossoms in the monastery dining hall, the traveler feels the enduring vitality and deep gratitude toward ancestors that define the people of Vietnam's southwestern borderland.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Ấp Cả Bản và ấp Trung Chánh, xã Tuyên Bình (xã Tuyên Bình cũ và xã Thái Bình Trung cũ, huyện Vĩnh Hưng cũ, tỉnh Long An cũ), tỉnh Tây Ninh
- Getting there
- From the Mộc Hóa - Kiến Tường or Vĩnh Hưng center, follow Provincial Road 831 or the border patrol road along the Vàm Cỏ Tây and Long Khốt rivers to Tuyên Bình Commune (formed by merging former Tuyên Bình and Thái Bình Trung communes), cross the Vàm Cỏ Tây River ferry at Cả Bản Hamlet to reach Gò Chùa Nổi (Cổ Sơn Tự), and continue upstream along the riverside road to Trung Chánh Hamlet to visit Long Khốt Temple.
- Coordinates
- 10.82944, 105.87056
When visiting Nổi Pagoda (Cổ Sơn Tự) and Long Khốt Temple, you are entering a combined archaeological, ecological, and spiritual heritage complex in the border region. Please dress modestly and respectfully inside the Buddha sanctuary and memorial temple, protect the clean river environment, refrain from breaking branches or carving into the trunks of the Vietnam Heritage Trees, and never dig or remove ancient potsherds or Óc Eo bricks from the Gò Chùa Nổi mound.
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VIIContribute To This Page
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?Quick Questions
Why is Cổ Sơn Tự popularly known as Chùa Nổi (the Floating Pagoda)?
The pagoda stands atop Gò Chùa Nổi, a natural earthen mound rising about 3.5 meters above the Đồng Tháp Mười flood basin beside the Vàm Cỏ Tây River. During the annual flood season and even during historic deluges (such as in 1978, 1986, and 2000), when all surrounding fields were submerged under a vast inland sea, the mound and pagoda remained high and dry above the water, with floodwaters only reaching the gate steps and never entering the sanctuary. Combined with the legend of buffalo-herders' clay statues floating on the river, this gave rise to the name Chùa Nổi.
What archaeological discoveries have been made beneath the Gò Chùa Nổi mound?
A 1996 archaeological excavation led by Japanese scholar Nishimura Masanari and the Long An Museum uncovered a cultural stratum over 1 meter thick beneath Gò Chùa Nổi. The lower layer dates to the prehistoric period (2,500 to 3,500 years ago), yielding thousands of white-slipped red-painted potsherds containing ancient rice husks, clay stoves, bone tools, bronze-casting molds, and spindle whorls. The upper layer belongs to the Óc Eo civilization (1st to 7th centuries CE), featuring large architectural bricks, lotus-bud tiles, Hindu deity fragments, and the green sandstone pedestal of a meditating Buddha statue.
Which Zen master founded Nổi Pagoda (Cổ Sơn Tự) and in what year?
The pagoda was formally founded by Zen Master Thiện Nhiêu in the Quý Mùi year (1823) under Emperor Minh Mạng with the initial name Bửu Sơn Tự. Later, in the Ất Hợi year (1875) under Emperor Tự Đức, it was reconstructed into a three-bay timber-columned Three Jewels hall and given the Chinese name Cổ Sơn Tự (Pagoda on the Ancient Mountain).
Which ancient trees in the grounds of Nổi Pagoda are recognized as Vietnam Heritage Trees?
Atop the Gò Chùa Nổi mound survives a rare primeval grove in the heart of Đồng Tháp Mười, among which a nearly 200-year-old Sterculia foetida tree (cây trôm, with massive buttress roots and a trunk requiring several people to embrace) together with a cluster of 5 ancient Dipterocarpus alatus trees (cây dầu rái) were officially recognized as Vietnam Heritage Trees in 2019.
Following the 2025 administrative reorganization, which commune and province do Nổi Pagoda and Long Khốt Temple belong to?
Prior to 1 July 2025, Nổi Pagoda was located in Cả Bản Hamlet, Tuyên Bình Commune, while Long Khốt Temple was located in Trung Chánh Hamlet, Thái Bình Trung Commune, Vĩnh Hưng District, Long An Province. Under Resolution No. 202/2025/QH15 (merging Long An and Tây Ninh into Tây Ninh Province) and Resolution No. 1682/NQ-UBTVQH15 dated 16 June 2025, both former Tuyên Bình and Thái Bình Trung communes merged with neighboring communes to form the new Tuyên Bình Commune of Tây Ninh Province.