Halong Bay is a body of water of approximately 1,500 square kilometres in north Vietnam with a 120 kilometre coastline, in the Gulf of Tonkin near the border with China, and 170 kilometres east of Hanoi. "Vịnh Hạ Long" ¡ª ž³ÏÂýˆ ¡ª Halong Bay ¡ª means "Bay of the Descending Dragon" in the Vietnamese language. Hạ means "descending" and Long means "dragon" in Sino-Vietnamese.