From 34 new provinces and cities, resources are concentrated, requiring localities to build regional cultural strategies to promote potential and strength, contributing to the country’s socio-economic development.
Building identity and brand in the new context
In the national socio-economic development strategy, the Party and State always pay attention to cultural factors. Resolution No.76/2025/UBTVQH15 dated March 15, 2025 of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the arrangement of provincial-level administrative units in 2025 sets out the task: The development of plans for the arrangement of provincial-level and commune-level administrative units must preserve and promote the historical, cultural and ethnic traditions of each locality; ensure the solidarity of the community.
Previously, Resolution No.18-NQ/TW dated October 25, 2017 of the 12th Party Central Committee on continuing to innovate and arrange the organisation of the political system to be streamlined and operate effectively and efficiently stated that the arrangement of grassroots-level administrative units must be consistent with local characteristics, including cultural factors. This demonstrates the consistent viewpoint of the Party and State in identifying culture as a driving force for sustainable development, helping localities build their identity and brand in the new context.
The policy of merging provincial-level administrative units is an inevitable step, in line with development requirements in the new era, overcoming the limitations of the current administrative system, especially the situation of resource dispersion and inefficiency in small-scale provinces. The merger into 34 new administrative units not only helps reduce the budget burden, but also creates opportunities to re-plan local and regional development space.
Merging provincial-level administrative units does not mean losing local identity, but to elevate the locality. It is not to erase history, but to write a new chapter with a larger scale and higher stature.
Dr. Nguyen Si Dung
However, the reorganisation process poses challenges because each province and city has its own cultural identity, crystallised over hundreds of years of history, closely linked to community life. Changing boundaries, names, or administrative centres can reduce space and resources for traditional cultural activities in residential areas, villages, and hamlets.
A greater concern arises at the provincial level, where cultural values not only have community significance but also play a strategic role in economic-cultural-social development. If this issue is not properly addressed, there is a risk of focusing resources on cultural development only in the central area while neglecting mountainous areas, remote areas, and isolated areas, causing cultural identity to fade away or even disappear.
To address this concern, the preservation and promotion of cultural values must be placed at the center of the institutional reform process. Authorities at all levels and functional sectors need to proactively research and develop appropriate plans to ensure two requirements: One is to improve the efficiency of management of the apparatus after streamlining; two is to preserve and promote the traditional cultural values of the new locality, so that culture is truly the spiritual foundation of society, both a goal and an endogenous strength, a driving force for national development.
Vice Chairman of the Committee for Culture and Society Ta Van Ha analysed that the Vietnamese people have a culture of more than 4,000 years, each locality and region has its own cultural identity, each ethnic group has its own culture, customs, practices, and long-standing historical traditions associated with the land. Therefore, when merging, we must pay attention to the factors of geography, history, nature, economy, political, social, ethnic, and religious factors... These factors are the glue that binds the community and creates the unique cultural features of the region.
According to Meritorious Artist Dang Cong Hung, Vice Chairman in charge of the Gia Lai Province Literature and Arts Association, without deep understanding and openness, it is easy to lead to a situation of “going hand in hand but not meeting”.
Maximising regional advantages
In order to maintain and promote traditional cultural values in the context of administrative mergers, it is necessary to implement synchronous solutions. First of all, new provinces and cities need to proactively develop regional cultural development strategies that fully reflect the characteristics of member localities, have appropriate development and conservation plans, and create competitive advantages.
This strategy needs to focus on prioritising investment in cultural heritage, traditional festivals, craft villages, and folk arts. For example, in the case of merging Hai Duong and Hai Phong, it is necessary to ensure that Hai Duong’s unique cultural values such as Chu Dau pottery, Hong Phong water puppetry, or Con Son-Kiep Bac festival continue to be supported with material and human resources, and are organised on a commensurate scale. At the same time, it is necessary to design a fair cultural budget allocation mechanism, prioritising localities that are no longer administrative centres to maintain cultural activities.
In addition, it is necessary to encourage the public-private partnership model, mobilising businesses to participate in the conservation and exploitation of cultural heritage, both helping to preserve heritage and creating jobs for people, bringing revenue to the local budget.
According to Dr. Tran Huu Son, the newly merged provinces and cities are the confluence of many cultural sub-regions, so he proposed forming cultural sub-regions from communes with similar geographical and historical characteristics, forming a community of cultural owners, in order to maximize regional advantages in the socio-cultural development of the locality. Poet Van Cong Hung is optimistic: “When culture develops, it will lead to the general development of the society and economy”.
Equally important is to promote the application of digital transformation in cultural conservation. This is an effective tool to manage and promote cultural values in the context of administrative mergers. Building a digital cultural database - including information on historical relics, festivals, craft villages and ethnographic materials - helps preserve local cultural memories.
A provincial “digital cultural map” can be established, allowing residents and visitors to easily access information on unique cultural values, while supporting the promotion of sustainable tourism. Technologies such as virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) can be applied to recreate festivals, relics and craft villages, bringing vivid experiences to the younger generation. This is a way to preserve intangible culture, which is easily lost when there is no longer a traditional venue.
On the other hand, it is necessary to promote education and communication to contribute to arousing pride in local cultural identity as well as national culture. Press agencies and social networks need to play a role in spreading cultural values, telling stories about heritage and local people in a vivid, attractive and inspiring way.
Communication campaigns should focus on building a positive cultural image, encouraging people to participate in heritage conservation and be proud of regional identity. Community participation, especially among young people, will turn cultural conservation into an endogenous need, instead of just applying top-down policies.
Culture is a pillar of sustainable development. Institutional reform through merging administrative units to help restructure the apparatus is an opportunity for Viet Nam to affirm the power of culture in connecting communities and shaping the future. Preserving and promoting cultural identity in institutional reform should be considered the responsibility of the entire political system as well as the common mission of the whole society. When culture is placed at the center of all policies, today’s reforms will create a solid foundation for Viet Nam to develop sustainably, create a strong national identity and confidently assert its position in the international arena.
