Vietnam's intangible heritage: what UNESCO lists, and what it does not

The short answer

UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage page for Viet Nam lists 17 inscribed elements as of 11 October 2026.[1] Fourteen are on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Three are on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding: Ca trù singing (2009), the pottery-making of the Chăm people (2022) and the craft of Đông Hồ folk woodblock printing (2025).[1]

Three more appear on the same page but are not inscribed. Mo Mường is an ongoing nomination for the Urgent Safeguarding List in the 2026 cycle, and Chèo and Bình Định traditional martial arts are files pending treatment for the Representative List.[1] Until UNESCO's committee inscribes them, they are nominations, not listed heritage.

Water puppetry is not on the list: none of the 17 elements or three nominations on UNESCO's page is water puppetry.[1]

The 17 elements, by year

The two 2008 dates are a technicality worth knowing. UNESCO's pages say Nhã nhạc was originally proclaimed in 2003 and the space of gong culture in 2005, and both were carried onto the Representative List in 2008.[3][2] That is why Vietnamese sources sometimes give 2003 for court music: the Thăng Long – Hà Nội Heritage Conservation Centre, for example, writes that "Nhã nhạc cung đình Huế" was recognised in November 2003.[20]

Court, ritual and festival

Nhã nhạc. "Elegant music": the music and dance of the Vietnamese royal court from the fifteenth to the mid-twentieth century, which UNESCO says developed under the Lê dynasty (1427–1788) and became highly codified under the Nguyễn monarchs (1802–1945).[2] UNESCO's page does not name a city; the Thăng Long centre ties it to Huế, the Nguyễn capital.[20] See Huế.

The Gióng festival. UNESCO places it in outlying districts of Hanoi and describes the festival at Phù Đổng temple, in the fourth lunar month, in the village where the hero Thánh Gióng is said to have been born: a white horse, a flag dance that stands for the battle, and 28 girls aged 9 to 13 chosen to play the enemy generals.[6] The Gióng festival at Phù Đổng and Sóc covers it in more detail; for the city, see Hanoi.

Worship of the Hùng kings. Centred on the Hùng temple at Nghĩa Lĩnh mountain in Phú Thọ, with the Ancestral Anniversary festival lasting about a week at the beginning of the third lunar month; UNESCO lists offerings of square and glutinous rice cakes, bronze-drum beating and Xoan singing among its rites, and notes secondary worship at sites across the country.[7]

The Mother Goddesses of Three Realms. Worship of the mother goddesses of heaven, water, and mountains and forests, including Liễu Hạnh, the Mother of the World; UNESCO names the spirit-possession ritual and festivals such as Phủ Dầy, held at temples dedicated to the Mother Goddesses.[11] Mother Goddess worship explained goes further.

The Bà Chúa Xứ festival. Held from the 22nd to the 27th day of the fourth lunar month at Sam Mountain, observed together by the Kinh, Khmer, Cham and Hoa communities of Châu Đốc, with a palanquin procession and a ceremony to bathe and re-dress the goddess's statue.[18]

Then. A ritual of the Tày, Nùng and Thái in which a male or female Then master leads a sung journey from the earth realm to heaven, playing the tính lute.[15]

Tugging rituals and games. A multinational element shared with Cambodia, the Philippines and the Republic of Korea, in rice-farming communities; UNESCO notes that the contest is deliberately uncompetitive.[10]

Song, music and dance

Quan họ Bắc Ninh. Sung between twinned villages in the provinces UNESCO names as Bắc Ninh and Bắc Giang: two women from one village alternate verses with two men from another, across more than 400 lyrics and 213 melodic variants, and custom forbids marrying a singing partner.[4]

Đờn ca tài tử. A music of southern Viet Nam, with both scholarly and folk roots, that UNESCO says evokes life on the land and rivers of the Mekong Delta; performers improvise on a "skeletal melody", and the repertoire rests on twenty principal and seventy-two classical songs.[8]

Ví and Giặm. Unaccompanied songs of Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh, sung while farming rice, rowing, making conical hats or lulling children to sleep.[9]

Bài Chòi. Two forms in central Viet Nam: a card game played from bamboo huts during the Lunar New Year, and a performance by Hieu artists; UNESCO counts nearly 90 teams, groups and clubs.[12] Bài Chòi and where Hội An plays it follows it to one town.

Xoan singing. Singing, dancing, drumming and clapper beating linked to the worship of the Hùng kings, kept by four guilds led by male and female Trùm.[13] Xoan has moved between lists: it was inscribed on the Urgent Safeguarding List in 2011 and transferred to the Representative List in December 2017, when UNESCO reported that practitioners had risen from about 100 to 200 and their average age had fallen from over 60 to 35.[14]

Xòe. The dance of the Tai people, in ritual, circle and presentational forms, performed at rituals, weddings and village festivals.[16]

The space of gong culture. Not a single instrument but a cultural space across several provinces of the central highlands and seventeen Austro-Asian and Austronesian communities, where the gong is present in all the rituals of community life.[3]

The three on the Urgent Safeguarding List

Ca trù (2009). Sung poetry of the north, performed by a female singer with clappers and two instrumentalists on a three-stringed lute and a praise drum, in fifty-six musical forms. UNESCO's page says artists now teach it to anyone who wishes to learn, but that it is still at risk from the diminishing number and age of practitioners.[5]

Chăm pottery (2022). Made by women who, instead of using a turntable, revolve around the piece to shape it; the pots are unglazed and fired in the open with firewood and straw for seven to eight hours at about 800 °C. UNESCO names urbanisation, the market economy and the lack of interest among younger people as the threats.[17]

Đông Hồ woodblock printing (2025). Prints made entirely by hand in a village that UNESCO places in Bắc Ninh province, on paper coated with scallop powder, closely linked to the Lunar New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival; UNESCO says a small number of families continue the craft.[19]

Place names in UNESCO's texts

UNESCO's element pages name the provinces as they were when each file was written: Bắc Giang for Quan họ, Phú Thọ for Xoan and the Hùng kings, Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh for Ví and Giặm.[9][13][4] Vietnam reorganised its provinces in 2025, so some of those names may no longer be the current administrative unit; XTOUR keeps UNESCO's wording and does not guess the new one. The 2025 province mergers and place names explains the change.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR has not read the nomination files, the periodic reports or UNESCO's decisions on the three pending files, and does not know when or whether they will be inscribed. It does not publish festival dates for a particular year, performance schedules or venues; the lunar dates above are UNESCO's general descriptions. The Lunar New Year, to which UNESCO ties Bài Chòi and Đông Hồ printing, is not itself among the 17 elements; Tết Nguyên Đán as official bodies describe it covers the holiday. For the tangible sites, see Vietnam's World Heritage sites; for the country, Vietnam.