Con Dao prison was built on the largest island named Con Lon belonging to the Con Dao archipelago. Because of its isolation from the manland (180 km from Vung Tau), as soon as the French established its colonial regime in Vietnam, they started to built the prison on the island to house and torture Vietnamese political prisoners.


This was the first prison built by the French in Vietnam. In 1954, after French signed the Geneva Treaty to end its colonial rule in Vietnam and entire Indochina, the prison was then handed over to the South Vietnam Government ending 100 years of crime commited by the French colonialist. However, under the new rule of the US backed - South Vietnam Government, the prison was again used with the same primitive purpose to keep Vietnamese patriotic revolutionaries until April 1975 when South Vietnam was completely liberated.

More than one century of existence, Con Dao prison notorious for the so called “Tiger Cages” and “Cow Cages” was considered as a ”hell on earth”. The prison kept over 200,000 patriotic activists, soldiers and revolutionaries including the late chiefs of the Vietnamese Communist Party Le Duan and Nguyen Van Linh, late Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, Võ Thị Thắng, former Chairwoman of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, and especially Vo Thi Sau, a hero of the poor district of Dat Do, Long Dien, Ba Ria-Vung Tau province. Under the merciless treatment in the prision, nealy 20,000 prisoners heroically died.
Con Dao Prison - Vietnam
After the war, the prison has been several times restored to make it a national historical and revolutionary relic which attracts many visitors. Models of political prisoners, tiger cages and cơ cages have been set up to tell visitors more about the history of the place once known as a “hell on earth”.

Please contact Ms. Hanh for Vung Tau - Con Dao Tours 
Mobile: +84389546426
Email: taucaotoccondao@gmail.com