Chùa, đền, đình, miếu, lăng: Vietnamese heritage words as official bodies use them

The short answer

A Vietnamese heritage name usually says what a building is for. Đình is a village's communal house and the centre of its worship; đền is a temple to a specific person, hero or spirit; miếu is a shrine-temple; chùa often names a Buddhist pagoda; hội quán is a community's assembly hall; nhà thờ họ is a family's ancestral hall; lăng is a royal tomb. Văn Miếu is a proper name, the temple of literature in Hanoi.

Those glosses are XTOUR's readings of how Vietnamese heritage bodies use the words on their own pages, set out below with the page that shows each use. They are not dictionary entries, and names can mislead: in Hội An, the "chùa" on the old-town ticket is a bridge.[4]

Đình: the village communal house

On the Tràng An management board's list of ranked relics in Ninh Bình, Đình Lược is described as "the centre of belief and culture" of the people of Lược village, and Đình làng Yên Thành as the đình of the old village of Yên Thành, where the villagers worship two kings, Đinh Tiên Hoàng and Lê Đại Hành. Another, Đình làng Hoàng Sơn, is dated to 1738 and was ranked a provincial relic in 2010.[1] The pattern is a village's own building, holding the cult of a figure the village honours.

XTOUR translates đình as "communal house", the English term UNESCO uses when its 2017 news item on Xoan singing says the songs were traditionally performed "in holy places such as temples, sanctuaries and communal houses".[11] In Hội An the heritage centre lists đình làng (village đình) and đình Hội An, at 27 Lê Lợi, among the places where Nguyên tiêu rites are held.[5] The style is recognisable enough to be borrowed: the Củ Chi relic site describes the gate of its war memorial as carrying "the motifs and curved roofs of village đình gates".[7]

Đền: a temple to someone

A đền honours a particular figure. UNESCO's pages give the clearest examples: the Phù Đổng and Sóc temples, where Thánh Gióng is honoured as "mythical hero, god and saint", and the Hùng temple at Nghĩa Lĩnh, where people commemorate the Hùng kings as ancestors.[9][8] At Hoa Lư, the Tràng An board describes the temples of King Đinh and King Lê, built on the site of the old capital: each has a worship hall (bái đường), and the inner hall is a hậu cung (rear sanctuary) at King Đinh's and a chính cung (main sanctuary) at King Lê's.[2] UNESCO also describes the Mother Goddess festivals as held at "temples dedicated to the Mother Goddesses".[10]

The word extends to modern memorials. The Củ Chi relic site describes the Đền tưởng niệm liệt sĩ Bến Dược as a memorial temple to those who died in the Sài Gòn – Chợ Lớn – Gia Định area in the wars against France and the United States; at the centre of its main hall is the altar to the Fatherland, with a statue of President Hồ Chí Minh.[7] See the Cu Chi tunnels.

Miếu: a shrine-temple

Hội An's heritage centre uses miếu for the Quan Công temple: its Vietnamese ticket page names "Miếu Quan Công", its English page "Quan Công Temple", and its 2026 Nguyên tiêu notice "Quan Công miếu" at 24 Trần Phú.[5][4][3] A second 2026 notice speaks of rites "at đình, miếu and hội quán", three words for three kinds of building in one sentence.[6] In English both đền and miếu come out as "temple"; the Vietnamese keeps them apart.

Văn Miếu: the temple of literature

Văn Miếu is a proper name built on miếu: the temple of literature, which the national tourism site says was erected in 1070 in honour of Confucius and his disciples.[13] The Văn Miếu – Quốc Tử Giám site's history page gives the same year, 1070, when King Lý Thánh Tông had it built. It was called Văn Miếu Bắc Thành until 1831, when it was renamed Văn Miếu Hà Nội.[14] The Temple of Literature covers the academy, the courtyards and the visit; the city is Hanoi.

Chùa: a pagoda, but not always

The Vietnam national tourism site gives Hanoi's Chùa Một Cột as the One Pillar Pagoda, which it describes as a Buddhist wooden pagoda built over a lotus pond in 1049.[13] On the Tràng An list, Chùa Bà Ngô is an ancient chùa dating from the Đinh period inside the Hoa Lư relic area, also known locally as "Bà Sa tự" and as chùa Đàm Lư.[1]

But a name is not a description. Hội An's ticket offers a choice between "Chùa Cầu hoặc Miếu Quan Công" in Vietnamese, and the English page translates Chùa Cầu as "the Japanese Covered Bridge".[4][3] The heritage centre's 2026 Nguyên tiêu programme also lists Chùa Ông and Chùa Bà alongside the Chinese assembly halls as places of rites.[5] XTOUR has not read a page saying what Chùa Ông and Chùa Bà house, and does not take the word chùa in their names as evidence that they are Buddhist pagodas. See Hội An's old-town ticket.

Hội quán: a community's assembly hall

Hội An's heritage centre writes of "các hội quán người Hoa", the halls of the Chinese communities, and names three of them, Quảng Triệu, Triều Châu and Phúc Kiến, where Nguyên tiêu offerings and the founders' anniversary are held.[6][5] "Assembly hall" is XTOUR's translation. See Hội An and the Nguyên Tiêu festival.

Nhà thờ họ: a lineage hall, not a church

On the Tràng An list as XTOUR read it, nhà thờ is used only for lineage halls. Nhà thờ Dương Đức Vĩnh is "a place to worship and commemorate" an ancestor of the Dương lineage; Nhà thờ Đặng Công Vi commemorates the founder of the Đặng lineage in Yên Trạch; Nhà thờ Tín Vương Mạc Quyết "also has another name, Từ đường họ Mạc", the Mạc family's ancestral hall.[1] Hội An's centre uses the variant nhà thờ tộc for the same kind of building.[5] The word họ (family name) or tộc (clan) is what marks it.

Lăng: a royal tomb

The Thăng Long – Hà Nội Heritage Conservation Centre's page on Huế names "7 clusters of lăng tẩm of 9 Nguyễn kings" among the monuments of the old capital, set along both banks of the Hương river west of the citadel.[12] XTOUR does not yet carry a guide to the individual tombs. See Huế.

Phủ: one syllable, several uses

Phủ appears on the pages XTOUR read in at least three senses, and XTOUR does not reduce them to one. The Thăng Long centre's page on Huế says that in 1636 the "phủ Chúa Nguyễn", the seat of the Nguyễn lords, was placed at Kim Long and moved to Phú Xuân in 1687.[12] The Văn Miếu history says that in 1805 the Quốc Tử Giám in Thăng Long became the "Học đường phủ Hoài Đức", the school of Hoài Đức phủ, where phủ names an administrative unit.[14] And UNESCO names Phủ Dầy among the festivals held at temples dedicated to the Mother Goddesses.[10] Mother Goddess worship explained goes into that belief.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR has not read a legal or dictionary definition of any of these words, and the glosses above can be wrong for a particular building. It does not know the dress, photography or conduct rules of any of the places named; where those matter, the managing body's own notice is the source. For the country, see Vietnam.