After February 1st, 2026, the new Quang Tri province will be formed by merging the former Quang Binh and former Quang Tri provinces. The new province will have an area of ​​12,700 km², ranking 10th; and a population of 1,870,845 people, ranking 23rd nationwide. Quang Tri is a coastal province in Central Vietnam, located between 16.018 and 18.010 degrees North latitude and 105.032 and 107.034 degrees East longitude. It borders Ha Tinh province to the north, Hue city to the south, the East Sea to the east, and the three provinces of Khammouane, Savannakhet, and Salavan in the Lao People's Democratic Republic to the west, with a border length of approximately 410 km. To the east, it borders the East Sea with a coastline length of 130 km.

Quang Tri Province was once home to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at the 17th parallel, the dividing line between North and South Vietnam, and one of the fiercest battlefields during the 21 years of the Vietnam War (1954-1975). In 1954, after the Geneva Agreement, the Ben Hai River was chosen as a temporary line of demarcation between the Northern and Southern parts of Vietnam. As the U.S. began to pour troops and supplies into the South, Quang Tri Province and the Demilitarized Zone (or DMZ) soon became the scene of some of the fiercest ground fighting of the Vietnam War, especially from 1966 to the end of the war in 1975.  It was subjected to the heaviest bombing campaign in the history of the world.

After the war, the former Quang Tri province estimated that about 800,000 tons out of the 7,8 million tons of munition dropped by U.S forces on Vietnam, failed to detonate, contaminating around 20% of the country. The former Quang Binh province had 100% of its communes, wards, and towns contaminated with landmines and unexploded ordnance. On top of that, is a smaller but unknown amount of unexploded ordnance and weapons used by the both sides on battlefields. The most heavily contaminated province is Quảng Trị, where fighting between U.S. and Vietnamese forces was at its fiercest. Over three decades after the war ended, the former Quảng Trị province is still affected by explosive remnants of war (ERW), which have killed and injured more than 8,000 people (1.4% of its total population 2011) since 1975. There are a lot of the incidents caused by poor peoples uneducated handling of the explosives to sell for scrap metal. Children under the age of 16 take a high rate, 31% of the total number of victims.

Recently released was a final report of ERW and landmine contamination, based on results of an impact assessment and rapid technical response project known as the Landmine Impact Survey (LIS), conducted by the Technology Centre for Bomb and Mine Disposal (BOMICEN) of the Ministry of Defense, and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF). The survey results indicated that out of six provinces in central Vietnam, the former Quang Tri province has the highest level of landmine contamination: approximately 83.8% of its total land area is affected by landmines, and the former Quang Binh province has about 27.7% of its natural land area affected. These and many other findings indicate, that more than three decades after the war ended, ERW still remain a major threat to the safety of local people in their daily activities, and an obstacle to socio-economic development.