Every fact below names its source and the month we checked it. Local legends are labelled as legends. Spotted a mistake? Tell us through the contact page.
On 16 June 1702 the English East India Company founded a settlement on the islands, and the French took control in 1861.
The company named its settlement Pulo Condore and meant it as a stopping place for ships plying between India and China. On 2 March 1705 the Bugis mercenaries the English had hired mutinied, murdering the agents, destroying the factory and expelling the remaining settlers. The French took control later, by conquest.
Source: Wikipedia, Con Dao. Checked October 2026.
The French built Con Dao Prison in 1861 for people they saw as especially dangerous to the colonial government.
After the turn of the century the prison held an increasingly larger population of political prisoners. In 1954 it was turned over to the South Vietnamese government, which kept using it for the same purpose. The government of Vietnam now ranks it a special historical relic of national importance, and many high-ranking leaders were detained there.
Source: Wikipedia, Con Dao Prison. Checked October 2026.
The French-made tiger cages date from 1940. There were 120 solitary confinement cells in two blocks of 60.
The tiger cages, called chuong cop in Vietnamese, are the site people know the prison for. In July 1970 two US congressional representatives, Augustus Hawkins and William Anderson, visited. Guided by a map drawn by a former detainee, they found prisoners shackled inside cramped tiger cages, which they had not been shown on the planned tour.
Source: Wikipedia, Con Dao Prison. Checked October 2026.
Prisoners at Con Dao included Phan Chau Trinh from 1908 to 1911, and Nguyen An Ninh, who died on 14 August 1943. Vo Thi Sau was executed in 1952.
Other notable prisoners included Huynh Thuc Khang from 1908 to 1921, and Ton Duc Thang, Pham Van Dong and Le Duc Tho in the 1930s. Nguyen An Ninh may have been killed by his jailers because they feared the Japanese might use him politically. Vo Thi Sau was held at the police post outside the prison but executed at the prison.
Source: Wikipedia, Con Dao Prison. Checked October 2026.
Some prisoners who died between 1941 and 1975 were buried at Hang Duong Cemetery.
The cemetery lies not far from the prison and holds some of the prisoners who died in that period, not all of them. Sources describe the prison as holding political prisoners and prisoners of war during the Vietnam War, so the graves belong to the same history as the buildings you can visit.
Source: Wikipedia, Con Dao Prison. Checked October 2026.
Con Dao is a group of 16 mountainous islands and islets with a total area of 75.15 square km (29.02 square miles).
The group lies about 185 km from Vung Tau and 230 km from Ho Chi Minh City. The main island is Con Son, also called Con Lon, and it holds both the airport and the prison. Administratively the islands belong to Ho Chi Minh City, even though they sit well out at sea.
Source: Wikipedia, Con Dao. Checked October 2026.
The 2019 census counted 8,827 people on Con Dao.
Population figures differ between sources and years: the same Wikipedia article gives about 5,000 for the local population in another place, so treat any single number as approximate. The 2019 count is a census result, which is the more reliable kind of figure. The islands are reached by air or sea, so the number of residents stays small.
As of 2019. Source: Wikipedia, Con Dao. Checked October 2026.
Many of the islands received protected status in 1984 as Con Dao National Park, and the park was enlarged in 1998.
The park is working with WWF Vietnam on programmes to set up a marine protected area covering coral reefs, seagrass beds and species. It also aims to develop sustainable nature-based ecotourism. Its management is described as strongly geared toward sustainable use, hoping to learn from earlier experience in Vietnam and the region to balance development with conservation.
Source: Wikipedia, Con Dao. Checked October 2026.
Protected species around Con Dao include the hawksbill sea turtle, the green sea turtle, dolphins and the dugong.
These are listed as endangered species protected within the park. The ecosystems in the park include seagrass meadow, mangrove and coral reefs, which are the marine habitats it protects. On land, the Con Son long-tailed macaque is a monkey endemic to the islands, and its presence is probably the origin of the Isles of the Satyrs name.
Source: Wikipedia, Con Dao. Checked October 2026.
The old name, Pulo Condore, comes from Malay: pulau means island and kundur means wax gourd.
The French Indochinese government named the group the Poulo-Condore Islands, a French spelling of the Malay name. The islands can also be identified with Ptolemy's Satyrorum insulae, the Isles of the Satyrs, a name probably drawn from the monkeys endemic to the islands, the Con Son long-tailed macaque.
Source: Wikipedia, Con Dao. Checked October 2026.
Climate, airports and UNESCO status for Con Dao are on its destination page. More places are on the fun facts index.