President Truong Tan Sang has presented the Independence Order, first class, to Viet Tri City of the northern province of Phu Tho, at a ceremony on June 2 to celebrate the 50 th anniversary of the city’s establishment.

Viet Tri city is the cradle of the Vietnamese nation, where the first kings of the country – the Hung Kings - established their capital. It has witnessed many battles in the country’s long history of fighting invaders.

Viet Tri first became a city on June 4, 1962 under a Government decision, which also designated Viet Tri to be the first industrial town in the cause of socialist construction in northern Vietnam.

On this occasion, President Truong Tan Sang paid tribute to the nation’s ancestors at the Hung Kings Temple. The Hung Kings are worshipped throughout Vietnam as the founders of the nation. Their symbolic death anniversary on lunar March 10 is a national commemoration, with masses of pilgrims flocking to the temple in Viet Tri City.-VNA