Cuc Phuong - the first national park in Vietnam officially opened in 1960 - covers an area of about 22,000 hectares in three provinces of Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa, and Hoa Binh. It is more than 100 km west south of Hanoi. The best time to visit Cuc Phuong National Park is during the dry season, from December to April, when the hard forest rain accounting for 90% of the annual rainfall is over.

Cuc Phuong National Park, which is Vietnam’s fist nature preserve, is seen as a vast natural museum, a spectacular botanical garden and zoo park of Vietnam and of the world. As this site is a giant laboratory granted by the nature to human beings, it becomes a destination of a large number of Vietnamese and foreign scientists for research. Also, Cuc Phuong is known for interesting eco-tourist sites with many splendid caves and grottos, drawing a mass of domestic and foreign tourists.

Regarding flora alone, Cuc Phuong is home to 1944 species of flora from 219 families and 86 orders of 7 high-class flora branches with many rare plants, such as pedocarpus fleuryi, Cho (a tree with a straight trunk), beech, ebony, peltophore, teak, clove, and many other trees 5 to 6 meters in diameter and 40-70 meters tall, like the century-old Cho whose foot is beyond the hold of 16 people and the 70 m-tall Victory Cho with invisible top and enshrouded foliage.

Also, Cuc Phuong is home a wide range of rare animals. This zoo park has more than 450 species of vertibrate animals, including 64 species of beasts, 333 species of birds, 36 species of reptiles, 17 species of amphibious animals, and some species of fish. Some rare animals listed in the Red Book only can be found here, like Diec Hang fish (a kind of fish which lives in grottos) and red-bellied squirrel.

Especially, Cuc Phuong is a tropical forest that has multiple layers and a substantial area of primeval. That holds the key to the conservation and development of this nature preserve.

For years, the forests of Cuc Phuong have inspired poets, musicians and writers. Visitors to Cuc Phuong National Park will be surprised because this nature preserve is not only a botanical garden and a giant zoo park but it also groups spectacular caves and grottos of legendary names, like Vui Xuan (Spring Enjoy) Cave, Trang Khuyet (Crescent Moon) (Prehistoric man) Cave and Con Moong Cave are not simply charms of beauty, but here the archaeologists discovered stone tools of prehistoric humans and remains in ancient tombs dating back 7000 to 12500 years ago.

If you visit Cuc Phuong at dawn when the whole forest is being awakened by the echoes of wildlife intermixed with the sounds of blowing winds and leaves fall. The sounds of corpsewood produce a great symphony that brings visitors in tune with the nature.