Tam Ky City wins the Asian Townscape Award

The coracle road in Tam Thanh commune

The mural village and coracle road, two art initiatives applied to the living space of the community in Tam Thanh commune, Tam Ky city, Quang Nam province bring the Asian Townscape Award 2017 to the city.

Although Tam Thanh commune has advantages of tourism development (such as a beautiful long beach, traditional culture and charming landscapes), most of the residents here still earn living by fishing and aquaculture. It was not until mid-2016 that the name Tam Thanh suddenly impressively appeared on the tourist map thanks to the birth of the mural village. The paintings help the village attract over 1,000 visitors every weekend.

Along with the mural village, the 1.5km-road of coracles decorated with paintings was another initiative that aimed to build Tam Thanh to become a destination of community-based tourism. At the same time, the locals also beautified their facilities under painters’ guidance. Besides, some other renovations such as renaming the roads or building the tourism infrastructure contribute to the attraction of Tam Thanh.

Bringing arts to the living space was one of the solutions to living environment improvement and creating livelihoods for the Tam Thanh villagers. To carry out these projects, Tam Ky city received a lot of assistances from experts, lecturers and students from the universities in Quang Nam, Da Nang, Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore.

The annual Asian Townscape Awards focuses on honouring cities, regions, projects, etc. that play a significant role as models in landscape construction. The awarding ceremony of 2017 will take place on August 28 in Yinchuan city, China.