Ho Chi Minh City began as a small fishing village known as Prey Nokor

  Ho Chi Minh City began as a small fishing village known as Prey Nokor. The area that the city now occupies was originally swampland, and was inhabited by Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese. In Khmer folklore southern Vietnam was given to the Vietnamese government as a dowry for the marriage of a Vietnamese princess to a Khmer prince in order to stop constant invasions and pillaging of Khmer villages.Vietnam tour

  Beginning in the early 17th century, colonization of the area by Vietnamese settlers gradually isolated the Khmer of the Mekong Delta from their brethren in Cambodia proper and resulted in their becoming a minority in the delta.[citation needed] In 1623, King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia (1618–1628) allowed Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Tr?nh–Nguy?n civil war in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor and to set up a custom house there. Increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers, which the Cambodian kingdom could not impede because it was weakened by war with Thailand, slowly Vietnamized the area. In time, Prey Nokor became known as Saigon. Prey Nokor was the most important commercial seaport to the Khmers. The loss of the city prevented the Cambodians access to the Indochine. Subsequently, the Khmers' access to the sea was now limited to the Gulf of Thailand.
  In the past Saigon was first the capital of Cochinchina and later of South Vietnam. Following the fall of Saigon in 1975, the city area was extended and Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City to honor North Vietnam's revulotionary leader H? Chí Minh. Even though Ho Chi Minh City is correct, the two names are still used interchangeably. Saigon is sometimes also used for the downtown area of District 1 and 3 rather than the entire city.