Visnupura

Visnupura belongs to the northern Cham country in the coastal plain of Thuận Hóa, where rivers run from the Annamite foothills across low rice land to the lagoons and sea. Scholarship identifies the Cham town and fortified place called Viṣṇupura, known from inscriptions, with a site near Nhan Biều in what is now Quảng Trị, north of Huế.

The frontier here moved in 1306, when the Cham king Chế Mân gave the prefectures of Ô and Lý to the Trần rulers of Đại Việt in return for marriage with the princess Huyền Trân. They were renamed Thuận and Hóa, and settlers from the north spread south into the Cham villages. After 1558 the Nguyễn lord Nguyễn Hoàng governed Thuận Hóa from bases at Ai Tử, Trà Bát and Dinh Cát, and the Nguyễn lords later moved their seat to Kim Long in 1636 and to Phú Xuân in 1687.

The later city of Đông Hà lies here.