The coldest places in Vietnam, and when nights turn cold

January ranking by mean temperature

This ranking uses the lowest monthly mean temperature in each place's table. The last column shows station altitude. Altitude is not the whole story: Da Lat's station sits at 1,513 m and is still no colder than Ha Giang's at 118 m.

Hanoi and Ninh Binh share the same January mean, so they share rank 5. Sa Pa is the clear outlier at 8.6°C. Ha Giang and Da Lat are close to each other in mean temperature, but their stations sit at very different altitudes. For where to go in that month, see Vietnam weather in January.

Coldest places in Vietnam by record low

The record low for each station gives a different order. This table ranks the 14 places with a QCVN station by the lowest temperature in the record. Ho Chi Minh City is left out because its JMA table has no extremes.

Sa Pa is the only station with a record below freezing. Ha Long Bay moves up to third: its station sits at 87 m on the coast, yet its record low is colder than Da Lat's at 1,513 m. Da Lat's record low is 4.5°C, and its January average low is 11.7°C, so its cold is steadier and less extreme.

VTV's weather channel (in Vietnamese) forecast one such spell, with severe cold across the north for several days.

How long the cold lasts

This table adds December and February for the five lowest ranks, which is six places because Hanoi and Ninh Binh tie.

Sa Pa stays below 11°C mean across these three months. Ha Giang, Da Lat, and Ha Long Bay stay below 18°C in the same comparison. Hanoi and Ninh Binh are at 18.3°C in December, fall to 16.6°C in January and recover to 17.7°C and 17.5°C in February.

What the numbers mean for packing

Sa Pa's January mean is 8.6°C, with a minimum of 6.2°C. The station also records 70.2 mm of rain, 16.3 rain days, and 17.4 fog days in January. A warm layer and a rain-ready outer layer make sense for those conditions.

Da Lat's January mean is 15.9°C, with a minimum of 11.7°C, 9.1 mm of rain, and 2.2 rain days. That points to lighter layers than Sa Pa, while evenings can still feel cool. The Da Lat dry-season article gives the full month-by-month context.

Hanoi's average January low is 14.5°C and Ha Giang's 13.3°C. For a city trip in the north, that is jacket weather at night rather than winter-coat weather, but the record lows of 5°C and 1.5°C show that cold spells do reach both.

The Sa Pa winter article explains why the lowest rainfall total does not remove fog or drizzle. The Vietnam travel hub links the destination pages for the warmer coastal and southern records.

Asked whether December is a good month to travel in Vietnam, one r/VietNam user replied:

"Sapa will be cool/cold, and Hanoi might be cool as well, everywhere else the weather will be nice."

u/The_Cruncher88 on r/VietNam

Our take

Sa Pa is in a different class from the rest of Vietnam in winter. It is the only place with a January mean under 10°C and the only record below freezing. Ha Giang, Da Lat, Ha Long Bay, Hanoi and Ninh Binh form a second group with January means of 15.6°C to 16.6°C. Everything from Hoi An south stays mild. If you want cold-weather scenery, plan for Sa Pa. If you only want to avoid the heat, Da Lat gives cool weather with far less rain in January.

How we checked this

The means, lows and record lows come from tables A.1, A.2, A.4, A.6, A.25, A.28 and A.32 of QCVN 02:2022/BXD, one station per place, and the Ho Chi Minh City mean from JMA ClimatView. We recomputed both rankings and matched each value against the sources on 8 October 2026. We removed the straight-line distances we had computed ourselves. On 23 October we read the station rows in the regulation and the JMA normals again; none had changed. Last reviewed: 23 October 2026.

What this does not tell you

The ranking compares station means, not every elevation in a destination. Sa Pa's station is listed at 1,570 m and Da Lat's at 1,513 m. The table does not measure wind chill, room temperature, or weather on a chosen day. The regulation does not state the observation period of its tables.

References

• QCVN 02:2022/BXD, National technical regulation on natural physical and climatic data for construction: https://datafiles.chinhphu.vn/cpp/files/vbpq/2022/10/02-bxd.pdf. Checked 2026-10-08.
• JMA ClimatView monthly normals, station 48900 Tan Son Hoa: https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/climatview/graph_mkhtml_nrm.php?n=48900&y=2026&m=8&e=7&r=1&s=1&k=0. Checked 2026-10-08.

Photo (cover): Vivu Vietnam / Unsplash

Data checked: October 2026.