Located at TJ 942-656 in Lai Chau province. The name "Dien Bien Phu" in Vietnamese means "Seat of the Border County Prefecture". It is not a place name as such. It is actually the designation for the T'ai village named Muong Thanh. The place, although some 250 miles west of Hanoi and smack in the middle of nowhere, was important to the Viet Minh because of the lucrative opium trade they controlled in the region. Dien Bien Phu
This was the heart of the French position in the Muong Thanh Valley, referred to by the French as the "Center of Resistance" or "CR". Located within this small area was the depot, hospital, ammunition storage, the artillery and mortars, and the headquarters Command Post (CP). It fell at 1730 hours on May 7, 1954 when they French forces were ordered to cease firing. The French did not raise a white flag in surrender. They had been forbidden to do so by their commanders in far away Hanoi. The final buther's bill was 3,000 French killed, and 7,000 Viet Minh killed.