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The different forms of urbanization across the world lead to think about how to measure it and how valid comparing urbanization rates across countries and continents is. In high population density areas in Asia or Egypt, urbanization rates are relatively low, or average, with respect to how crowded they are. The urban framework is composed of cities with mainly administrative functions; its hierarchy is very regular and does not take villages into account. This article aims at analyzing the tension between administrative urbanization, in situ urbanization which emerges from the highly populated countryside, and the metropolization at work on the rural fringes. It examines the case of post-Communist North Vietnam which is in the midst of an urbanization process. Through several case studies in the Red River Delta, it presents the spatial contradictions and the environmental damage linked to the rural management of agglomerations which have urban features but are not acknowledged as such since they have no territorial power.