Apartments for rent in Thanh Xuân (Thanh Xuan), Hanoi

Thanh Xuân is a mostly residential area south-west of the centre, built along Nguyễn Trãi and the elevated Line 2A metro. It pairs dense apartment neighbourhoods and several universities with Royal City's huge underground mall.

About 293,000 people lived in the district's nine square kilometres in 2019, and it is mostly residential. It is also a university belt, home to VNU's University of Science and University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi University and Hanoi Architectural University.

Most renters here are Vietnamese professionals and families, along with students and staff from the universities, and Hanoi's expatriate community is centred on Tây Hồ instead. What Thanh Xuân offers is a modern flat with a lift, a security desk and a supermarket downstairs.

Royal City at 72A Nguyễn Trãi is the everyday hub: its Vincom Mega Mall fills two basement levels with a WinMart supermarket, more than 50 restaurants and cafés, a 10-screen CGV cinema and an ice rink. For fresh air, Thanh Xuân Park on Lê Văn Lương, opened in 2018, has an eight-hectare lake, sports courts, exercise equipment and playgrounds.

Royal City is best thought of as a small town rather than a building, with its towers, mall, supermarket and school on one site. That makes daily life easy, with everything indoors, but self-contained developments like it are not very walkable to the ordinary street life outside.

Landmarks

• Vincom Mega Mall Royal City: Vietnam's largest underground complex, at 230,000 square metres, beneath the Royal City towers.
• Vincom Ice Rink Royal City: A 3,000-square-metre indoor rink that takes up to 150 skaters.
• Thanh Xuân Park (Công viên Thanh Xuân): A 13-hectare park around an eight-hectare lake, free and open around the clock.

Shops, health and schools

• Supermarkets: WinMart in Vincom Mega Mall Royal City, 72A Nguyễn Trãi, opens 8 am to 10 pm.
• Cafés and dining: Royal City's level B2 has more than 50 restaurants and cafés serving Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and Western food.
• Gyms and sport: California Fitness & Yoga has a club at Royal City (level 2, R3). Thanh Xuân Park has football, basketball and volleyball courts plus outdoor fitness equipment.
• Healthcare: Bạch Mai Hospital, one of Vietnam's largest, is at 78 Giải Phóng in neighbouring Đống Đa. Military Hospital 103 is at 261 Phùng Hưng in Hà Đông.
• International schools nearby: British Vietnamese International School Hanoi is at Royal City, 72A Nguyễn Trãi. It teaches a British curriculum through to IGCSE and A Level, bilingually in English and Vietnamese.

Getting around

• Metro Line 2A (Cát Linh–Hà Đông), running since 6 November 2021, has two stations here, Thượng Đình and Vành Đai 3, linking Thanh Xuân with Đống Đa and Hà Đông.
• The main roads are Nguyễn Trãi, Khuất Duy Tiến, Trường Chinh and Ring Road 3 (Vành đai 3).
• Lê Văn Lương and Tố Hữu are lined with apartment towers, about 40 on two kilometres of road by one count, and rush-hour traffic there is notorious. A 2022 Ministry of Construction inspection faulted the planning along them, finding no green space in 12 of the 13 apartment projects it checked, though Hanoi's planning department disputed much of the conclusion. Before you choose a building here, try the journey out at half past eight on a weekday.
• Hanoi's BRT bus line, between Kim Mã and Yên Nghĩa, passes through the area; it is heavily used at rush hour and quiet at other times.

Good to know

• On the night of 12 September 2023, a fire in a mini apartment building on Khương Hạ street, in this area, killed 56 people. The building had a permit for six storeys and had been built to ten. Under a 2024 national directive, buildings of small flats had to finish their fire-safety work by 30 March 2025, and one that has not must stop operating until it does. In any smaller building, ask whether that work is done, and ask to see the proof.
• BVIS is bilingual rather than fully English-medium, which suits some families more than others.
• The CGV cinema at Royal City keeps late hours, until 1 am.
• Thanh Xuân Park used to open only mornings and evenings but is now free and open 24 hours.