Read the names of 1,306 doctors carved on stone tortoises
Vietnam's first university, since 1070
A walled sequence of five courtyards moving from a gate through ornamental ponds to the academy buildings, with rows of inscribed stelae on stone tortoises standing either side of a square central pool.
Why it's unique
The temple was founded in 1070 and the imperial academy established inside it in 1076, making this the country's first national university. It taught for roughly seven hundred years.
What makes it a record rather than an old building is the examination record still standing in the third courtyard: eighty-two stone stelae, each on the back of a carved stone tortoise, inscribed with the names and birthplaces of 1,306 men who took doctorates between 1484 and 1780. It is a national academic register in stone, in the open air, still legible.
Before you go
Most visitors photograph the Khue Van Cac gate — the one on the banknote — and walk straight past the stelae to the rear halls. The stelae are the point. They are in the third courtyard, flanking the Well of Heavenly Clarity, and the older ones from the 1400s are noticeably cruder and more deeply weathered than the eighteenth-century ones.
Rubbing the tortoises' heads for exam luck was traditional and is now roped off because it was wearing them away, so do not. There is a separate evening programme with projection mapping, ticketed apart from daytime entry and worth checking if you are here overnight.