Vietnam: Rue Catinat (now Dong Khoi) with the Continental Hotel to the right, Saigon, 1923

The rue Catinat (Catinat street) is a street, now called Dong Khoi, in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon. It was named for Nicolas Catinat, a 17th and 18th century French marshal. Former Emperor Bao Dai made Saigon the capital of the State of Vietnam in 1949 with himself as head of state. After the Vi?t Minh gained control of North Vietnam in 1954, it became common to refer to the Saigon government as 'South Vietnam'. The government was renamed the Republic of Vietnam when Bao Dai was deposed by his Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem in a fraudulent referendum in 1955. Saigon and Cholon, an adjacent city with many Sino-Vietnamese residents, were combined into an administrative unit called Do Thanh Sai Gon (Capital City Saigon).