The rapid urbanization process brings benefits and challenges to economic and social development in Ho Chi Minh City. Understanding the characteristics of this process helps the city's managers to understand and control properly. Thus, the objective of this research is to evaluate the level of urbanization in Ho Chi Minh City from 2004 to 2012, particularly, the urbanization level is examined in 2005, 2008 and 2012. By Multi-criteria Analysis method, urbanization is evaluated in three main criteria: Economic and social growth, Social services development and Technical infrastructure development. Based on Analytical Hierarchy Process method, the weights of those criteria are 0.411, 0.328 and 0.261, respectively. Due to total score, urbanization level is divided into 4 rates: high (80 – 100), slightly high (65 – 80), medium (50 – 65) and low (less than 50). About half of 24 districts reached at high and slightly high rate of development in period of 2004 – 2012. And trend of urbanization in Ho Chi Minh City is toward north east – south west axis, resulted from spatial statistics by Standard Deviational Ellipse tool in ArcGIS software.

1. Using Multi-Criteria Analysis and GIS to Evaluate the Level of
Urbanization in Ho Chi Minh City from 2004 to 2012
Nguyen Duong Minh Hoang
Faculty of Urban Studies, University of Social Sciences and
Humanities, VNU-HCM
10 – 12 Dinh Tien Hoang Str., Dist. 1,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
minhhoang5493@gmail.com
Nguyen Hoang My Lan (Supervisor)
Faculty of Urban Studies, University of Social Sciences and
Humanities, VNU-HCM
10 – 12 Dinh Tien Hoang Str., Dist. 1,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mylannh@hcmussh.edu.vn
Abstract— The rapid urbanization process brings benefits and
challenges to economic and social development in Ho Chi Minh City.
Understanding the characteristics of this process helps the city's
managers to understand and control properly. Thus, the objective of
this research is to evaluate the level of urbanization in Ho Chi Minh
City from 2004 to 2012, particularly, the urbanization level is
examined in 2005, 2008 and 2012. By Multi-criteria Analysis method,
urbanization is evaluated in three main criteria: Economic and social
growth, Social services development and Technical infrastructure
development. Based on Analytical Hierarchy Process method, the
weights of those criteria are 0.411, 0.328 and 0.261, respectively.
Due to total score, urbanization level is divided into 4 rates: high (80
– 100), slightly high (65 – 80), medium (50 – 65) and low (less than
50). About half of 24 districts reached at high and slightly high rate
of development in period of 2004 – 2012. And trend of urbanization
in Ho Chi Minh City is toward north east – south west axis, resulted
from spatial statistics by Standard Deviational Ellipse tool in ArcGIS
software.
Keywords—urbanization level; trend; multi-criteria analysis;
spatial statistics analysis; Ho Chi Minh City
I. INTRODUCTION
Urbanization is considered as a result of the development
of society, economy and politics [1] and depends on the
development of industrial enterprises and infrastructure within
the city as well as surrounding areas, thus urbanization is also
an indicator of modernization [2]. Urbanization's characteristic
may include the size of population factors and population shift
from rural to urban areas [3] or conversion of land use
purposes, urban density and growth of large cities [1]. In
particularly, World Bank [4] suggested to investigate the
urbanization process in Vietnam in five transitions including
administrative, physical, economic, demographic, and welfare
changes across the entire urban system. With multi-dimension
consideration, urbanization process must be examined
systematically to help the managers controlling and planning a
proper development strategy.
Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) with an area of 2,095.5 km² is
located in the floodplain of the Sai-Gon – Dong-Nai river
systems in the South of Vietnam and consists of 24 urban,
semi-urban and rural districts. These districts are divided into
3 groups: 13 existing urban districts (District 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8,
10, 11 and Go Vap, Tan Binh, Tan Phu, Binh Thanh, Phu
Nhuan district), 6 new districts (District 2, 7, 9, 12 and Thu
Duc, Binh Tan district) and 5 suburban districts (Cu Chi, Hoc
Mon, Binh Chanh, Nha Be and Can Gio district). By the end
of 2010, HCMC had a total of 7.5 million people [5] and has
been projected to grow further to 10 million, 95% of which
live in urban areas, according to The HCMC Master Plan 2025
(Decision No. 2631/QD-TTg approved by the Prime Minister
in 31/12/2013). The city's economic growth rate in period of
2001-2005 was 11% per year, and grew up to 11.2% in 2006-
2010, equal to one-second of Southern major economic area's
and one-fifth more than national general one [6]. Due to rapid
growth, it was not only difficult for immigrants to access to
public services such as sanitation, hygienic water,… but also
challenging for infrastructure improvement, social services
supply, and surrounding environment [7]. For example, clean
water supply for personal and domestic uses in HCMC was
less than 100 liters per day in 2008 and even lesser in some
suburban districts like Can Gio and Nha Be; somewhere in
Binh Tan and Go Vap, residents have to use contaminated
groundwater [8]; traffic congestion and flooding happen
almost everywhere within the city.
The objective of this research is to evaluate the level of
urbanization in HCMC from 2004 to 2012 based on
appropriate indicators and criteria. The method used to define
indicators and criteria in this research is Multi-criteria
Analysis (MCA) and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
is also used to calculate the weight of each group of criteria.
Moreover, from calculated urbanization level, the trend of
urban development in this period is analyzed by Standard
Deviational Ellipse tool in ArcGIS software.
II. METHODS AND DATA
A. Methods
The research procedure is divided in 4 stages: (1) Defining
criteria and setting up a framework to evaluate urbanization
level, (2) Defining equation to calculate urbanization level in
HCMC, (3) Collecting and normalizing data, and (4)
Computing urbanization level and spatial statistics analyzing
to derive thematic map for urbanization level in HCMC in
2005, 2008 and 2012. The detail research procedure is shown
in Figure 1.
Multi-criteria Analysis method is used to define all
suitable criteria and overall conditions to evaluate the level of
urbanization in HCMC in period of 2005 – 2012. Due to MCA

2. principles, all selected criteria should be measurable, unique
and non-redundant [9]. As the results, urbanization level is
considered in terms of Economic and social growth, Social
services development and Technical Infrastructure
development. These aspects make three main criteria; each
criterion consists of 3 or 4 sub-criteria and indicators as
described in Table 1.
Figure 1: The research procedure with 4 steps
Analytical Hierarchy Process is often applied for
elicitation of criteria weights. AHP provides a hierarchical
structure by reducing multiple criteria into a pairwise
comparison method for individual or group decision-making
and allows the use of quantitative (objective) and qualitative
(subjective) information [10]. In this research, only 3 main
criteria are compared and calculated weights by AHP, other
sub-criteria and indicators are defined to be the same
important as each other. After using expert knowledge, the
weights are calculated as 0.411, 0.328 and 0.261 for Economic
and social growth (X1), Social services development (X2) and
Technical infrastructure development (X3). It means that when
evaluating the level of urbanization, the growth of economy
and society is the most important and the development of
social services is more important than technical infrastructure.
Consequently, urbanization level (UL) is given by the
following equation:
321 261.0328.0411.0 XXXUL 
Because defined indicators are measured in different unit,
the score of each indicator is converted to 1 – 5 range due to
maximum and minimum collected data, threshold defined by
government regulations and step value. Every sub-criterion is
then normalized to 1 – 100 range for easier and more accuracy
comparison. Based on total scores, there are 4 levels of
urbanization (UL): high (80 – 100), slightly high (65 – 80),
medium (50 – 65) and low (<50).
The trend or directions of urban development are derived
from Standard Deviational Ellipse tool in ArcGIS software for
districts scored at least 65/100. Standard deviational ellipse
[11] is a common way of measuring the trend for a set of
points or areas by calculating the standard distance separately
in the x and y directions. These two measures define the axes
of an ellipse encompassing the distribution of features. The
ellipse is used to see if the distribution of features is elongated
and hence has a particular orientation. After calculated, three
ellipses in 2005, 2008 and 2012 are overlaid to see how
HCMC's development trend changes over time.
Table 1: List of elements used to evaluate the level of urbanization in Ho Chi Minh City

3. B. Data
Secondary data used in this research are collected from
other relevant researches, departments and equivalent
aggencies in HCMC. Beside that, the spatial administrative
data of HCMC is collected in 2008 when HCMC consists of
24 districts.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In general, urbanization level of HCMC in selected years
is at slightly high rate; the number of highly developed
districts increases over time. In 2005, 10/24 districts reached
slightly high rate, and the number of urbanized (suburban)
districts had been arising in 2008 and 2012 in order of 14/24
and 15/24 (see Table 2 and Graph 1). Among them, District
1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, Binh Thanh, Go Vap, Tan Binh and Tan Phu
kept highest level. District 4, 11 and Phu Nhuan reached
medium level although they are considered as center districts.
Meanwhile, urbanization level of new urban areas such as
District 2, 7, 9, 12, Binh Tan, Thu Duc has been gradually
Figure 2: Maps of urbanization level in Ho Chi Minh City in 2005, 2008 and 2012
Table 2: Total score of X1, X2, X3 and UL in Ho Chi Minh
City in 2005, 2008 and 2012
12
20
5
1515
18
4
1414
13
4
10
0
5
10
15
20
25
Economic and
Social Growth
Social Services
Development
Technical
Infrastructure
Development
Urbanization
Level
Count(s)
2005
2008
2012
Graph 2: Urbanization level in five areas of HCMC in
2005, 2008 and 2012
Graph 2: Number of districts scored at least 65/100 in
X1, X2, X3 and UL

4. arising over time. In contrast, urbanization level in Cu Chi,
Hoc Mon, Binh Chanh, Nha Be and Can Gio remained so low,
especially the development rate in Binh Chanh was not as
projected in planning (see Figure 2). Moreover, the social
services development increases more significantly than other
considered criteria. Because technical infrastructure was not
improved systematically in this period, quality of living in
HCMC was still so bad, including lack of clean water,
flooding due to old and insufficient drainage system,
environmental pollution…
In this research, the city is divided into five areas: the
central (7), the East (4), the West (5), the South (4) and the
North area (4). The urbanization level in the South, the East
and the West area increased from 2005 to 2012, in which the
South had the lowest score than the others. In the central zone,
the level of development kept unchanged in 2005 and 2008,
but increased remarkably in 2012. Conversely, the North area
had a decreased urbanization level over the times (see Graph
2).
Economic and social growth comprises 3 sub-criteria
(urban population, urban workforce and economic
development) with 4 indicators. In 2005, the population size of
Ho Chi Minh City reached 6,3 million people and increased to
7 million in 2008 and more than 7,8 million in 2012. Districts
with large population size are district 8, 12, Go Vap, Tan
Binh, Binh Thanh, Binh Tan, Tan Phu, Binh Chanh, Hoc Mon
and Cu Chi. Districts in west and northwest area has an
increase in population density while there was a decrease in
most of existing urban districts. Because the population
density comes close to the development threshold, the scores
of economic and social growth in existing urban districts are
not high. In opposition, high percentage of non-agricultural
workforce and great economic growth rate indicated by non-
state industrial production proportion (at contanst 1994 price)
make the total score of this criterion higher than other main
criteria. Figure 3 shows that strong decrease in economic and
social growth from 2005 to 2012 happens in Binh Chanh and
Can Gio district, while district 2 displays an considerable
increase.
Social services development criteria consists of 4 sub-
criteria (urban housing; urban health; urban education; public
services of cultures and entertainment) with 5 indicators.
Social services development presents the civilation
development during urbanization process. Compared with
economic and social growth, the average score of this criteria
is slightly higher and the overall score is quite different over
time and space. As decribed in Figure 4, social services were
improved almost everywhere in HCMC, except for Nha Be,
Can Gio and district 8.
The last criteria is technical infrastructure development
including 3 sub-criteria (urban traffic, urban water supply and
urban sanitation) and 4 indicators. Sufficient technical
infrastructure not only helps to raise economic performance
but also satisfies basic needs for inhabitant. Unfortunately,
HCMC earned the lowest scores for this criteria when
compared with the others. Only district 1, 3, 4, 5 and Tan Binh
gained high scores, from 67.5 to 86.5 points in 2012; district 1
had the highest score overall (from 726.5 to 86.5 points during
the 2005 –2012 period); vice versa, Cu Chi district had the
lowest score (12.5 points during the time from 2004 to 2012)
(see Table 2 and Figure 5).
Figure 3: Change in economy and society development score in 2005, 2008 and 2012

5. To identify trend of urban development in HCMC during
the year 2005 – 2012, standard deviational ellipse is used to
calculate mean center, rotation and standard distance in the X,
Y direction of districts with slightly high level of urbanization
(at least 65/100 scores). As the result (see Figure 6), in 2005,
the concentration and main development direction was
towards north west and south east axis such as district 12, Go
Vap, Hoc Mon, and Cu Chi. In 2008, ellipse’s rotation
changed significantly, the development direction changed and
spread to north east – south west. In 2012, the rotation at the
North and Southwest tended to declined slightly and sharply
ascended to the southeast, passing district 7.
Figure 4: Change in social services development score in 2005, 2008 and 2012
Figure 5: Change in technical infrastructure development score in 2005, 2008 and 2012
(a) Standard deviational ellipse in 2005 (b) Standard deviational ellipse in 2008 (c) Standard deviational ellipse in 2012
Figure 6: Trend of urbanization through standard deviational ellipse in 2005 (a), 2008 (b) and 2012 (c)

6. According to detailed parameters of ellipse in three years,
it is concluded that trend of urban development towards the
south-west and north-east was much more than other
directions. Moreover, urbanization tended to pass from the
central zone to suburb areas. This movement is considered the
same as both the orientation planned in The HCMC Master
Plan 2025 and the finding in previous study which concluded
that spatial expansion trend of HCMC was in north east –
south west axis [12].
IV. CONCLUSION
Urbanization level evaluated in the research comprises 3
three main criteria: Economic and social growth, Social
services development and Technical infrastructure
development. Among these criteria, economic and social
growth is considered as the most important factor and the least
one is technical infrastructure development. From 2004 to
2012, the level of urbanization in HCMC generally increased
in almost all districts, about half of them were scored at
slightly high rate. The research also identified that there is a
trend of urban development in northeast – southwest axis at
the end of this period.
The obtained results from this research will be a useful
reference for other study on urbanization level and trend.
However, for more reliable results, there's a need to calculate
the weight of sub-criteria as well as indicators and to analyze
the correlation between impact factors and data.
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Figure 7: Overlap and detail of standard deviational ellipse in 2005, 2008 and 2012