linguistic:paraphrasing
Infrastructure

When French Indochina was viewed as an economically important colony for France, the French government set a goal to improve the transport and communications networks in the colony. Saigon became a principal port in Southeast Asia and rivalled the British port of Singapore as the region's busiest commercial centre. By 1937 Saigon was the sixth busiest port in the entire French Empire.

In the 19th century, the French colonial administration worked to develop regular trading networks and an efficient transport infrastructure between Indochina and southwest China. The primary motivation for such an effort was to facilitate export of European goods to China. A railway would also give France access to Yunnan's natural resources, mineral resources and opium, and open up the Chinese market for Indochinese products, such as rice, dry fish, wood and coal. Thus in the early 20th century, they completed the Kunming–Haiphong railway connecting the important port city of Haiphong with the Yunnanese capital city of Kunming.

In 1936, the Trans-Indochinois railway linking Hanoi and Saigon opened. Further improvements in the colony's transport infrastructures led to easier travel between France and Indochina. By 1939, it took no more than a month by ship to travel from Marseille to Saigon and around five days by aeroplane from Paris to Saigon. Underwater telegraph cables were installed in 1921.

As elsewhere in the world, the railways in French Indochina were the sites of active union and labour organisation.

French settlers further added their influence on the colony by constructing buildings in the form of Beaux-Arts and added French-influenced landmarks, such as the Hanoi Opera House (modeled on the Palais Garnier), the Hanoi St. Joseph's Cathedral (resembling the Notre Dame de Paris) and the Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica. The French colonists also built a number of cities and towns in Indochina which served various purposes from trading outposts to resort towns. The most notable examples include Sa Pa in northern Vietnam, Đà Lạt in central Vietnam and Pakse in Laos.