Qualla: Queen of Peace Cathedral, Long Xuyên

Queen of Peace Cathedral, Long Xuyên: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, Public domain. In the Mekong Delta nothing stands up. The land runs to the horizon as a grid of paddy, canal and dyke, and the tallest things in it are coconut palms and the masts of cargo boats on the Hậu River. So a bell tower of 55 metres is not an architectural detail here. It is the landmark, visible from the water long before the town gathers itself around it. The Queen of Peace Cathedral was consecrated on 15 August 1973, the Feast of the Assumption, in a country that had signed a peace agreement in January and would go on fighting for two more years. Whoever chose the dedication was not being sentimental.

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | Public domain

Queen of Peace Cathedral, Long Xuyên: The Congregation That Arrived by Canal

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, Public domain. Catholicism was thin on the ground in this corner of the delta for most of its history. Before 1954, the provinces of An Giang and Kiên Giang together held roughly 30,000 Catholics spread across about ten parishes, a scattering among a rice-farming population that was overwhelmin...

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | Public domain

Queen of Peace Cathedral, Long Xuyên: Sixty Metres by Eighteen

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, Public domain. Work on the building had already begun in 1958, under the direction of Father Piô Nguyễn Hữu Mỹ. Once the diocese existed, the plans grew: the finished church runs 60 metres long, 18 wide and 20 high, with the bell tower carrying the eye far above that. For its first twelve years...

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | Public domain

Queen of Peace Cathedral, Long Xuyên: A Town of Many Faiths

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 3.0. The cathedral does not have Long Xuyên to itself. The town grew from a market established in 1789 beside the Tam Khê canal, and it kept the habits of a market: everybody trades with everybody. The floating market still forms on the Hậu at dawn, boats nosing together with vegetabl...

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 3.0

Queen of Peace Cathedral, Long Xuyên: The Map Redrawn

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, Public domain. On 12 June 2025 Vietnam's National Assembly passed Resolution 202/2025/QH15 and Long Xuyên stopped being a provincial capital. Kiên Giang was folded into An Giang to create a province of nearly five million people, with the seat of government moved to Rạch Giá on the coast; Long ...

Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | Public domain