Being the capital city of Lam Dong Province, Dalat has its own poetic and romantic charm at 1,500 meters above sea level and 18ºC everage temperature. Many of most famous and beautiful lakes and waterfalls in Vietnam can be found here together with hills, pine-tree forests, vegetables, fruit gardens and flowers. Dalat has more than 300 French villas scattered on the hills giving it the beauty that is visible in colonial hill towns.

Dalat is one of those charming hill towns with a lake in the center; this is called Ho (lake) Xuan Huong (the lake is now fully back to its original state, possibly having been de-silted around 2011). There are many other notable lakes in and around the town. With a population of about 200,000, Da Lat is said to have been established around the 1900's by the French. Before that, it was largely populated by the K'Ho ethnic group peoples.