Residence of the governor-general of French Indochina in Hanoi, Tonkin

The palace was built between 1900 and 1906 to house the French governor-general of Indochina and was constructed by the architect Charles Lichtenfelder, this is often incorrectly attributed to Augusta Henri Vildieu, who was the official French architect for French Indochina. Like most French colonial architecture, the palace is pointedly European. The only visual cues that it is located in Vietnam at all are mango trees growing on the grounds.

The yellow palace stands behind wrought iron gates flanked by sentry boxes. It incorporates elements of Italian Renaissance design, including:

aedicules a formal piano nobile reached by a grand staircase broken pediments classical columns quoins

When Vietnam achieved independence in 1954, Ho Chi Minh was claimed to have refused to live in the grand structure for symbolic reasons, although he still received state guests there; he eventually built a traditional Vietnamese stilt house and carp pond on the grounds. His house and the grounds were made into the Presidential Palace Historical Site in 1975.

The palace hosts government meetings. Although the palace itself is not open to the public, one may walk around the grounds for a fee.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is located nearby the palace. On February 27, 2019, Donald Trump officially met Kim Jong-un for the second time in Hanoi's Presidential Palace.[1]