[1][2] Prior to the square's original layout in 1863, its site was the junction of the quayside street and a historic road of Saigon that once ran through the old citadel (the Thành Quy).

[5] On 17 February 1879, the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the capture of Saigon, the authorities inaugurated a bronze statue of Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly (1807–1873) by sculptor Alexandre-Victor Lequien (1822–1905) on the roundabout.

[4]: 511  The second monument in the left garden was a memorial to Ernest Doudart de Lagrée (1823–1868), the naval officer and explorer who died in Yunnan in 1868 while leading the Mekong expedition.

[3]: 73  In 1955, place Rigault de Genouilly was renamed Mê Linh Square by the South Vietnamese government, after the two Trưng sisters' home prefecture.

[11]: 206  The pedestal was then left empty until 1967, when the current statue of Trần Hưng Đạo, commissioned by the Republic of Vietnam Navy and cast by sculptor Phạm Thông, occupied the spot.