Reaching new heights. State legibility in Sa Pa, a Vietnam hill station

In this paper we analyze the recent acceleration of tourism in the historical hill station of Sa Pa Town and District, in Lào Cai Province, northern Vietnam. The article builds on debates concerning state efforts to increase legibility in a frontier area, modernity at the state’s margins, and critiques of mass tourism in socialist Vietnam. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork since 1995, we examine the state's modernist project for Sa Pa, exploring the roles of corporate entities and local state agents, and interpreting the impacts of recent tourism plans and policies on ethnic minority communities and Kinh residents. We reveal an underlying project among state officials and entrepreneurs to harness this marginal space on the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands regardless of cultural distinctions. •Sa Pa targeted for economic makeover with major corporations involved.•Little room in tourism policies and plans for cultural distinction and local wishes.•Ethnic minorities an irritation for growth-oriented, modernist Vietnamese state.•Tourism development in Sa Pa reinforces state’s presence in national frontier.