Pho Hien/庯宪（Hưng Yên province presently）was a famous riverine commercial town in early modern Vietnam. Located on the left bank of the Red river，it was well-known as the second wealthiest“city”of the North after Thang Long（升龙，Hanoi nowadays）with the folk quote：“The first is the Capital Thang Long，the second is Pho Hien”，and especially as a Chinese town in northern Vietnam during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. From the Colonial Times，French scholars had paid attention on the issue of Pho Hien as well as foreign merchants，particularly the Chinese，and their activities at the city，but for Vietnamese historians，it was in the 1940s that the first study of Pho Hien made its presence. In 1992，an international conference on Pho Hien was held by Vietnam Association of Historical Sciences，gathering outstanding figures as Phan Huy Le，Anthony Reid，Momoki Shiro，etc. Since then，however，the perception of Pho Hien has still stopped at the Conference's result and been likely unprogressive.

Based on a variety of materials，including Western archival maps and documents，my paper aims to bring out new data，and，therefore，new comprehension on Pho Hien and its Chinese trading sojourners in a broader picture of foreign trade in northern Vietnam during the Early Modern era. The study seeks to answer the following questions：1）At which period of time was Pho Hien established and when was the city's heyday？ When and why did the Chinese reside in the town in large numbers？ How did they come or under which circumstances？；2）Was there a contradiction between newly-discovered European source and traditional Vietnamese ones in recognizing and describing the scale and appearance of Pho Hien in the 17^th～18^th centuries？ Had it truly been a prosperous city as its popular fame as“Mini Chang'an ”/小长安 or was it merely a late-blossomed and impermanent Chinese small town？；And 3）What were the role and function of that small“Overseas Chinese Town”（客庯）in the context of northern Vietnam among East Asian maritime trading networks during the time？ It can be argued that only putting Pho Hien in its right place along the Tonkin River port system of Thang Long-Pho Hien-Domea and connecting it with the two other riverine ports，Thang Long and Domea（the anchorage at the coastal area），could we understand the real Pho Hien and compare its role with that of other trading ports in central and southern Vietnam.