Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about 331,000 square kilometres (128,000 sq mi) and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's fifteenth-most populous country. One of the two Marxist–Leninist states in Southeast Asia, Vietnam shares land borders with China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west. It shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital is Hanoi and its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City.
Socialist Republic of Vietnam Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam (Vietnamese) | |
|---|---|
 Flag  Emblem | |
| Motto: Độc lập – Tự do – Hạnh phúc "Independence – Freedom – Happiness" | |
| Anthem: Tiến Quân Ca "The Song of the Marching Troops" | |
  Location of Vietnam (green) in ASEAN (dark grey) | |
| Capital | Hanoi 21°2′N 105°51′E / 21.033°N 105.850°E |
| Largest city by municipal boundary | Huế 16°20′N 107°35′E / 16.333°N 107.583°E |
| Largest city by urban population | Ho Chi Minh City 10°48′N 106°39′E / 10.800°N 106.650°E |
| Official language | Vietnamese |
| Ethnic groups (2019) |
|
| Religion (2019) |
|
| Demonym(s) | Vietnamese Viet (colloquial) |
| Government | Unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic |
• General Secretary | Tô Lâm |
• President | Lương Cường |
• Prime Minister | Phạm Minh Chính |
• National Assembly Chairman | Trần Thanh Mẫn |
| Legislature | National Assembly |
| Formation | |
• Văn Lang | 7th century BC |
• Âu Lạc | 3rd century BC |
• Han's annexation | 111 BC |
• Independence from China | 939 |
• Regaining independence | 1428 |
• Nguyễn's unification | 1802 |
• Protectorate Treaty | 25 August 1883 |
• Declaration of Independence | 2 September 1945 |
• North–South division | 21 July 1954 |
• End of Vietnam War | 30 April 1975 |
• Reunification | 2 July 1976 |
• Đổi Mới | 18 December 1986 |
• Current constitution | 28 November 2013 |
| Area | |
• Total | 331,344.82 km2 (127,932.95 sq mi) (66th) |
• Water (%) | 6.38 |
| Population | |
• 2023 estimate | 100,300,000 (15th) |
• 2019 census | 96,208,984 |
• Density | 298/km2 (771.8/sq mi) (49th) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2024 estimate |
• Total |  $1.559 trillion (26th) |
• Per capita | $15,470 (106th) |
| GDP (nominal) | 2024 estimate |
• Total | $465.814 billion (33th) |
• Per capita | $4,623 (119th) |
| Gini (2020) |  36.8[citation needed]medium inequality |
| HDI (2022) | 0.726 high (107th) |
| Currency | Vietnamese đồng (₫) (VND) |
| Time zone | UTC+07:00 (Vietnam Standard Time) |
| Calling code | +84 |
| ISO 3166 code | VN |
| Internet TLD | .vn |
Vietnam was inhabited by the Paleolithic age, with states established in the first millennium BC on the Red River Delta in modern-day northern Vietnam. Before the Han dynasty's invasion, Vietnam was marked by a vibrant mix of religion, culture, and social norms. The Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam, which were subsequently under Chinese rule from 111 BC until the first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded southward to the Mekong Delta, conquering Champa. During most of the 17th and 18th centuries, Vietnam was effectively divided into two domains of Đàng Trong and Đàng Ngoài. The Nguyễn—the last imperial dynasty—surrendered to France in 1883. In 1887, its territory was integrated into French Indochina as three separate regions. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the nationalist coalition Viet Minh, led by the communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, launched the August Revolution and declared Vietnam's independence from the Empire of Japan in 1945.
Vietnam went through prolonged warfare in the 20th century. After World War II, France returned to reclaim colonial power in the First Indochina War, from which Vietnam emerged victorious in 1954. As a result of the treaties signed between the Viet Minh and France, Vietnam was also separated into two parts. The Vietnam War began shortly after, between the communist North Vietnam, supported by the Soviet Union and China, and the anti-communist South Vietnam, supported by the United States. Upon the North Vietnamese victory in 1975, Vietnam reunified as a unitary socialist state under the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in 1976. An ineffective planned economy, a trade embargo by the West, and wars with Cambodia and China crippled the country further. In 1986, the CPV initiated economic and political reforms similar to the Chinese economic reform, transforming the country to a socialist-oriented market economy. The reforms facilitated Vietnamese reintegration into the global economy and politics.
Vietnam is a developing country with a lower-middle-income economy. It has high levels of corruption, censorship, environmental issues and a poor human rights record. It is part of international and intergovernmental institutions including the ASEAN, the APEC, the Non-Aligned Movement, the OIF, and the WTO. It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council twice.
Etymology
The name Việt Nam (pronounced [viə̂tˀ nāːm], chữ Hán: 越南), literally "Viet South", means "Viet of the South" per Vietnamese word order or "South of the Viet" per Classical Chinese word order. A variation of the name, Nanyue (or Nam Việt, 南越), was first documented in the 2nd century BC. The term "Việt" (Yue) (Chinese: 越; pinyin: Yuè; Cantonese Yale: Yuht; Wade–Giles: Yüeh4; Vietnamese: Việt) in Early Middle Chinese was first written using the logograph "戉" for an axe (a homophone), in oracle bone and bronze inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty (c. 1200 BC), and later as "越". At that time, it referred to a people or chieftain to the northwest of the Shang. In the early 8th century BC, a tribe on the middle Yangtze were called the Yangyue, a term later used for peoples further south.
Between the 7th and 4th centuries BC, 'Yue'/'Việt' referred to the State of Yue in the lower Yangtze basin and its people. From the 3rd century BC, the term was used for the non-Chinese populations of southern China and northern Vietnam, with particular ethnic groups called Minyue, Ouyue, Luoyue (Vietnamese: Lạc Việt), etc., collectively called the Baiyue (Bách Việt, Chinese: 百越; pinyin: Bǎiyuè; Cantonese Yale: Baak Yuet; Vietnamese: Bách Việt; lit. 'Hundred Yue/Viet').
The term 'Baiyue'/'Bách Việt' first appeared in the book Lüshi Chunqiu compiled around 239 BC. By the 17th and 18th centuries AD, educated Vietnamese apparently referred to themselves as người Việt (Viet people) or người Nam (southern people).
The form Việt Nam (越南) is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình. The name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Hải Phòng that dates to 1558. In 1802, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (who later became Emperor Gia Long) established the Nguyễn dynasty. In the second year of his rule, he asked the Jiaqing Emperor of the Qing dynasty to confer on him the title 'King of Nam Việt / Nanyue' (南越 in Chinese character) after seizing power in Annam. The Emperor refused because the name was related to Zhao Tuo's Nanyue, which included the regions of Guangxi and Guangdong in southern China. The Qing Emperor, therefore, decided to call the area "Việt Nam" instead, meaning "South of the Viet" per Classical Chinese word order but the Vietnamese understood it as "Viet of the South" per Vietnamese word order. Between 1804 and 1813, the name Vietnam was used officially by Emperor Gia Long. It was revived in the early 20th century in Phan Bội Châu's History of the Loss of Vietnam, and later by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (VNQDĐ). The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when the imperial government in Huế adopted Việt Nam.
History
Prehistory and early history
Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age. Stone artefacts excavated in Gia Lai province have been claimed to date to 780,000 years ago, based on associated find of tektites, however this claim has been challenged because tektites are often found in archaeological sites of various ages in Vietnam.Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500,000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance, and include isolated tooth fragments from Tham Om and Hang Hum. Teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have been found at Dong Can, and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu, Lang Gao and Lang Cuom. Areas comprising what is now Vietnam participated in the , as ascertained by archaeological research.
By about 1,000 BC, the development of wet-rice cultivation in the Ma River and Red River floodplains led to the flourishing of Đông Sơn culture, notable for its bronze casting used to make elaborate bronze Đông Sơn drums. At this point, the early Vietnamese kingdoms of Văn Lang and Âu Lạc appeared, and the culture's influence spread to other parts of Southeast Asia, including Maritime Southeast Asia, throughout the first millennium BC.
Dynastic Vietnam
According to Vietnamese legends, Hồng Bàng dynasty of the Hùng kings first established in 2879 BC is considered the first state in the history of Vietnam (then known as Xích Quỷ and later Văn Lang). In 257 BC, the last Hùng king was defeated by Thục Phán. He consolidated the Lạc Việt and Âu Việt tribes to form the Âu Lạc, proclaiming himself An Dương Vương. In 179 BC, a Chinese general named Zhao Tuo ("Triệu Đà") defeated An Dương Vương and consolidated Âu Lạc into Nanyue. However, Nanyue was itself incorporated into the empire of the Chinese Han dynasty in 111 BC after the Han–Nanyue War. For the next thousand years, what is now northern Vietnam remained mostly under Chinese rule. Early independence movements, such as those of the Trưng Sisters and Lady Triệu, were temporarily successful, though the region gained a longer period of independence as Vạn Xuân under the Anterior Lý dynasty between AD 544 and 602.[verification needed] By the early 10th century, Northern Vietnam had gained autonomy, but not sovereignty, under the Khúc family.
In AD 938, the Vietnamese lord Ngô Quyền defeated the forces of the Chinese Southern Han state at Bạch Đằng River and achieved full independence for Vietnam in 939 after a millennium of Chinese domination. By the 960s, the dynastic Đại Việt (Great Viet) kingdom was established, Vietnamese society enjoyed a golden era under the Lý and Trần dynasties. During the rule of the Trần dynasty, Đại Việt repelled three Mongol invasions. Meanwhile, the Mahāyāna branch of Buddhism flourished and became the state religion. Following the 1406–7 Ming–Hồ War, which overthrew the Hồ dynasty, Vietnamese independence was interrupted briefly by the Chinese Ming dynasty, but was restored by Lê Lợi, the founder of the Lê dynasty. The Vietnamese polity reached their zenith in the Lê dynasty of the 15th century, especially during the reign of emperor Lê Thánh Tông (1460–1497). Between the 11th and 18th centuries, the Vietnamese polity expanded southward in a gradual process known as Nam tiến ("Southward expansion"), eventually conquering the kingdom of Champa and part of the Khmer Kingdom.
From the 16th century onward, civil strife and frequent political infighting engulfed much of Đại Việt. First, the Chinese-supported Mạc dynasty challenged the Lê dynasty's power. After the Mạc dynasty was defeated, the Lê dynasty was nominally reinstalled. Actual power, however, was divided between the northern Trịnh lords and the southern Nguyễn lords, who engaged in a civil war for more than four decades before a truce was called in the 1670s. Vietnam was divided into North (Trịnh) and South (Nguyễn) from 1600 to 1777. During this period, the Nguyễn expanded southern Vietnam into the Mekong Delta, annexing the Central Highlands and the Khmer lands in the Mekong Delta. The division of the country ended a century later when the Tây Sơn brothers helped Trịnh to end Nguyễn, they also established new dynasty and ended Trịnh. However, their rule did not last long, and they were defeated by the remnants of the Nguyễn lords, led by Nguyễn Ánh. Nguyễn Ánh unified Vietnam, and established the Nguyễn dynasty, ruling under the name Gia Long.
French Indochina
In the 1500s, the Portuguese explored the Vietnamese coast and reportedly erected a stele on the Chàm Islands to mark their presence. By 1533, they began landing in the Vietnamese delta but were forced to leave because of local turmoil and fighting. They also had less interest in the territory than they did in China and Japan. After they had settled in Macau and Nagasaki to begin the profitable Macau–Japan trade route, the Portuguese began to involve themselves in trade with Hội An. Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries under the Padroado system were active in both Vietnamese realms of Đàng Trong (Cochinchina or Quinan) and Đàng Ngoài (Tonkin) in the 17th century. The Dutch also tried to establish contact with Quinan in 1601 but failed to sustain a presence there after several violent encounters with the locals. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) only managed to establish official relations with Tonkin in the spring of 1637 after leaving Dejima in Japan to establish trade for silk. Meanwhile, in 1613, the first English attempt to establish contact with Hội An failed following a violent incident involving the East India Company. By 1672 the English did establish relations with Tonkin and were allowed to reside in Phố Hiến.
Between 1615 and 1753, French traders also engaged in trade in Vietnam. The first French missionaries arrived in 1658, under the Portuguese Padroado. From its foundation, the Paris Foreign Missions Society under Propaganda Fide actively sent missionaries to Vietnam, entering Cochinchina first in 1664 and Tonkin first in 1666. Spanish Dominicans joined the Tonkin mission in 1676, and Franciscans were in Cochinchina from 1719 to 1834. The Vietnamese authorities began[when?] to feel threatened by continuous Christianisation activities. After several Catholic missionaries were detained, the French Navy intervened in 1843 to free them, as the kingdom was perceived as xenophobic. In a series of conquests from 1859 to 1885, France eroded Vietnam's sovereignty. At the siege of Tourane in 1858, France was aided by Spain (with Filipino, Latin American, and Spanish troops from the Philippines) and perhaps some Tonkinese Catholics. After the 1862 Treaty, and especially after France completely conquered Lower Cochinchina in 1867, the Văn Thân movement of scholar-gentry class arose and committed violence against Catholics across central and northern Vietnam.
Between 1862 and 1867, the southern third of the country became the French colony of Cochinchina. By 1884, the entire country was under French rule, with the central and northern parts of Vietnam separated into the two protectorates of Annam and Tonkin. The three entities were formally integrated into the union of French Indochina in 1887. The French administration imposed significant political and cultural changes on Vietnamese society. A Western-style system of modern education introduced new humanist values. Most French settlers in Indochina were concentrated in Cochinchina, particularly in Saigon, and in Hanoi, the colony's capital.
During the colonial period, guerrillas of the royalist Cần Vương movement rebelled against French rule and massacred around a third of Vietnam's Christian population. After a decade of resistance, they were defeated in the 1890s by the Catholics in reprisal for their earlier massacres. Another large-scale rebellion, the Thái Nguyên uprising, was also suppressed heavily. The French developed a plantation economy to promote export of tobacco, indigo, tea and coffee. However, they largely ignored the increasing demands for civil rights and self-government. An increasing dissatisfaction, even led to half-hearted, badly co-ordinated, and still worsely executed plots to oust the French, like the infamous Hanoi Poison Plot of 1908.
A nationalist political movement soon emerged, with leaders like Phan Bội Châu, Phan Châu Trinh, Phan Đình Phùng, Emperor Hàm Nghi, and Hồ Chí Minh fighting or calling for independence. This resulted in the 1930 Yên Bái mutiny by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (VNQDĐ), which the French quashed. The mutiny split the independence movement, as many leading members converted to communism.
The French maintained full control of their colonies until World War II, when the war in the Pacific led to the Japanese invasion of French Indochina in 1940. Afterwards, the Japanese Empire was allowed to station its troops in Vietnam while the pro-Vichy French colonial administration continued. Japan exploited Vietnam's natural resources to support its military campaigns, culminating in a full-scale takeover of the country in March 1945. This led to the Vietnamese Famine of 1945 which killed up to two million people.
First Indochina War
In 1941, the Việt Minh, a nationalist liberation movement based on a communist ideology, emerged under the Vietnamese revolutionary leader Hồ Chí Minh. The Việt Minh sought independence for Vietnam from France and the end of the Japanese occupation. After the military defeat of Japan in World War II and the fall of its puppet government Empire of Vietnam in August 1945, Saigon's administrative services collapsed and chaos, riots, and murder were widespread. The Việt Minh occupied Hanoi and proclaimed a provisional government, which asserted national independence on 2 September.
In July 1945, the Allies had decided to divide Indochina at the 16th parallel to allow Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China to receive the Japanese surrender in the north while Britain's Lord Louis Mountbatten received their surrender in the south. The Allies agreed that Indochina still belonged to France.
But as the French were weakened by the German occupation, British-Indian forces and the remaining Japanese Southern Expeditionary Army Group were used to maintain order and help France reestablish control through the 1945–1946 War in Vietnam. Hồ initially chose to take a moderate stance to avoid military conflict with France, asking the French to withdraw their colonial administrators and for French professors and engineers to help build a modern independent Vietnam. But the Provisional Government of the French Republic did not act on these requests, including the idea of independence, and dispatched the French Far East Expeditionary Corps to restore colonial rule. This resulted in the Việt Minh launching a guerrilla campaign against the French in late 1946. The resulting First Indochina War lasted until July 1954. The defeat of French colonialists and Vietnamese loyalists in the 1954 battle of Điện Biên Phủ allowed Hồ to negotiate a ceasefire from a favourable position at the subsequent Geneva Conference.
The colonial administration was thereby ended and French Indochina was dissolved under the Geneva Accords of 21 July 1954 into three countries—Vietnam, and the kingdoms of Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam was further divided into North and South administrative regions at the Demilitarised Zone, roughly along the 17th parallel north (pending elections scheduled for July 1956). A 300-day period of free movement was permitted, during which almost a million northerners, mainly Catholics, moved south, fearing persecution by the communists. This migration was in large part aided by the United States military through Operation Passage to Freedom. The partition of Vietnam by the Geneva Accords was not intended to be permanent, and stipulated that Vietnam would be reunited after the elections. But in 1955, the southern State of Vietnam's prime minister, Ngô Đình Diệm, toppled Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum organised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu, and proclaimed himself president of the Republic of Vietnam. This effectively replaced the internationally recognised State of Vietnam by the Republic of Vietnam in the south—supported by the United States, France, Laos, Republic of China and Thailand—and Hồ's Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north, supported by the Soviet Union, Sweden,Khmer Rouge, and the People's Republic of China.
Vietnam War
From 1953 to 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted agrarian reforms including "rent reduction" and "land reform", which resulted in significant political repression. This included 13,500 to as many as 100,000 executions. In the South, Diệm countered North Vietnamese subversion (including the assassination of over 450 South Vietnamese officials in 1956) by detaining tens of thousands of suspected communists in "political reeducation centres". This programme incarcerated many non-communists, but was successful at curtailing communist activity in the country, if only for a time. The North Vietnamese government claimed that 2,148 people were killed in the process by November 1957. The pro-Hanoi Việt Cộng began a guerrilla campaign in South Vietnam in the late 1950s to overthrow Diệm's government. From 1960, the Soviet Union and North Vietnam signed treaties providing for further Soviet military support.
In 1963, Buddhist discontent with Diệm's Catholic regime erupted into mass demonstrations, leading to a violent government crackdown. This led to the collapse of Diệm's relationship with the United States, and ultimately to a 1963 coup in which he and Nhu were assassinated. The Diệm era was followed by more than a dozen successive military governments, before the pairing of Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu took control in mid-1965. Thiệu gradually outmaneuvered Kỳ and cemented his grip on power in fraudulent elections in 1967 and 1971. During this political instability, the communists began to gain ground. To support South Vietnam's struggle against the communist insurgency, the United States used the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident as a pretext for increasing its contribution of military advisers. US forces became involved in ground combat operations by 1965, and at their peak several years later, numbered more than 500,000. The US also engaged in sustained aerial bombing. Meanwhile, China and the Soviet Union provided North Vietnam with significant material aid and 15,000 combat advisers. Communist forces supplying the Việt Cộng carried supplies along the Hồ Chí Minh trail, which passed through Laos.
The communists attacked South Vietnamese targets during the 1968 Tết Offensive. The campaign failed militarily, but shocked the American establishment and turned US public opinion against the war. During the offensive, communist troops massacred over 3,000 civilians at Huế. Facing an increasing casualty count, rising domestic opposition to the war, and growing international condemnation, the US began withdrawing from ground combat roles in the early 1970s. This also entailed an unsuccessful effort to strengthen and stabilise South Vietnam. Following the Paris Peace Accords of 27 January 1973, all American combat troops were withdrawn by 29 March 1973. In December 1974, North Vietnam captured the province of Phước Long and started a full-scale offensive, culminating in the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. South Vietnam was ruled by a provisional government for almost eight years while under North Vietnamese military occupation.
Reunification and reforms
1970s
On 2 July 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The war had devastated Vietnam and killed 966,000 to 3.8 million people. A 1974 US Senate subcommittee estimated nearly 1.4 million Vietnamese civilians were killed or wounded between 1965 and 1974—including 415,000 killed. In its aftermath, under Lê Duẩn's administration, there were no mass executions of South Vietnamese who had collaborated with the US or the defunct South Vietnamese government, confounding Western fears, but up to 300,000 South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps, where many endured torture, starvation, and disease while being forced to perform hard labour. The government embarked on a mass campaign of collectivisation of farms and factories. Many fled the country following the conclusion of the war. In 1978, in response to the Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia ordering massacres of Vietnamese residents in the border villages in the districts of An Giang and Kiên Giang, the Vietnamese military invaded Cambodia and removed them from power after occupying Phnom Penh. The intervention was a success, resulting in the establishment of a new, pro-Vietnam socialist government, the People's Republic of Kampuchea, which ruled until 1989. However, this worsened relations with China, which had supported the Khmer Rouge. China later launched a brief incursion into northern Vietnam in 1979, causing Vietnam to rely even more heavily on Soviet economic and military aid, while mistrust of the Chinese government escalated.
1980s to present
At the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in December 1986, reformist politicians replaced the "old guard" government with new leadership. The reformers were led by 71-year-old Nguyễn Văn Linh, who became the party's new general secretary. He and the reformers implemented a series of free-market reforms known as Đổi Mới ("Renovation") that carefully managed the transition from a planned economy to a "socialist-oriented market economy". Although the authority of the state remained unchallenged under Đổi Mới, the government encouraged private ownership of farms and factories, economic deregulation, and foreign investment, while maintaining control over strategic industries. Subsequently, Vietnam's economy achieved strong growth in agricultural and industrial production, construction, exports, and foreign investment, although these reforms also resulted in a rise in income inequality and gender disparities.
In 2021, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, was re-elected for his third term in office, meaning he was Vietnam's most powerful leader in decades. He died 19 July 2024, and was followed by To Lam as General Secretary of the Communist Party.
Geography
Vietnam is located on the eastern Indochinese Peninsula between the latitudes 8° and 24°N, and the longitudes 102° and 110°E. It covers a total area of 331,210 km2 (127,881 sq mi) or 331,699 km2 (128,070 sq mi). The combined length of the country's land boundaries is 4,639 km (2,883 mi), and its coastline is 3,444 km (2,140 mi) long. At its narrowest point in the central Quảng Bình province, the country is as little as 50 kilometres (31 mi) across, though it widens to around 600 kilometres (370 mi) in the north. Vietnam's land is mostly hilly and densely forested, with level land covering no more than 20%. Mountains account for 40% of the country's land area, and tropical forests cover around 42%. The Red River Delta in the north, a flat, roughly triangular region covering 15,000 km2 (5,792 sq mi), is smaller but more intensely developed and more densely populated than the Mekong River Delta in the south. Once an inlet of the Gulf of Tonkin, it has been filled in over the millennia by riverine alluvial deposits. The delta, covering about 40,000 km2 (15,444 sq mi), is a low-level plain no more than 3 metres (9.8 ft) above sea level at any point. It is criss-crossed by a maze of rivers and canals, which carry so much sediment that the delta advances 60 to 80 metres (196.9 to 262.5 ft) into the sea every year. The exclusive economic zone of Vietnam covers 417,663 km2 (161,261 sq mi) in the South China Sea.
Southern Vietnam is divided into coastal lowlands, the mountains of the Annamite Range, and extensive forests. Comprising five relatively flat plateaus of basalt soil, the highlands account for 16% of the country's arable land and 22% of its total forested land. The soil in much of the southern part of Vietnam is relatively low in nutrients as a result of intense cultivation. Several minor earthquakes have been recorded. The northern part of the country consists mostly of highlands and the Red River Delta. Fansipan (also known as Phan Xi Păng), which is located in Lào Cai province, is the highest mountain in Vietnam, standing 3,143 m (10,312 ft) high. From north to south Vietnam, the country also has numerous islands; Phú Quốc is the largest. The Hang Sơn Đoòng Cave is considered the largest known cave passage in the world since its discovery in 2009. The Ba Bể Lake and Mekong River are the largest lake and longest river in the country.
Climate
Due to differences in latitude and the marked variety in topographical relief, Vietnam's climate tends to vary considerably for each region. During the winter or dry season, extending roughly from November to April, the monsoon winds usually blow from the northeast along the Chinese coast and across the Gulf of Tonkin, picking up considerable moisture. The average annual temperature is generally higher in the plains than in the mountains, especially in southern Vietnam compared to the north. Temperatures vary less in the southern plains around Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta, ranging from between 21 and 35 °C (70 and 95 °F) over the year. In Hanoi and the surrounding areas of the Red River Delta, the temperatures are much lower between 15 and 33 °C (59 and 91 °F). Seasonal variations in the mountains, plateaus, and the northernmost areas are much more dramatic, with temperatures varying from 3 °C (37 °F) in December and January to 37 °C (99 °F) in July and August. During winter, snow occasionally falls over the highest peaks of the far northern mountains near the Chinese border. Vietnam receives high rates of precipitation in the form of rainfall with an average amount from 1,500 to 2,000 mm (60 to 80 in) during the monsoon seasons; this often causes flooding, especially in the cities with poor drainage systems. The country is also affected by tropical depressions, tropical storms and typhoons. Vietnam is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, with 55% of its population living in low-elevation coastal areas.
Biodiversity
As the country is located within the Indomalayan realm, Vietnam is one of twenty-five countries considered to possess a uniquely high level of biodiversity. This was noted in the country's National Environmental Condition Report in 2005. It is ranked 16th worldwide in biological diversity, being home to approximately 16% of the world's species. 15,986 species of flora have been identified in the country, of which 10% are endemic. Vietnam's fauna includes 307 nematode species, 200 oligochaeta, 145 acarina, 113 springtails, 7,750 insects, 260 reptiles, and 120 amphibians. There are 840 birds and 310 mammals are found in Vietnam, of which 100 birds and 78 mammals are endemic. Vietnam has two World Natural Heritage Sites—the Hạ Long Bay and Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park—together with nine biosphere reserves, including Cần Giờ Mangrove Forest, Cát Tiên, Cát Bà, Kiên Giang, the Red River Delta, Mekong Delta, Western Nghệ An, Cà Mau, and Cu Lao Cham Marine Park.
Vietnam is also home to 1,438 species of freshwater microalgae, constituting 9.6% of all microalgae species, as well as 794 aquatic invertebrates and 2,458 species of sea fish. In recent years, 13 genera, 222 species, and 30 taxa of flora have been newly described in Vietnam. Six new mammal species, including the saola, giant muntjac and Tonkin snub-nosed monkey have also been discovered, along with one new bird species, the endangered Edwards's pheasant. In the late 1980s, a small population of Javan rhinoceros was found in Cát Tiên National Park. However, the last individual of the species in Vietnam was reportedly shot in 2010. In agricultural genetic diversity, Vietnam is one of the world's twelve original cultivar centres. The Vietnam National Cultivar Gene Bank preserves 12,300 cultivars of 115 species. The Vietnamese government spent US$49.07 million on the preservation of biodiversity in 2004 alone and has established 126 conservation areas, including 30 national parks.
In Vietnam, wildlife poaching has become a major concern. In 2000, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) called was founded to instill in the population the importance of wildlife conservation in the country. In the years that followed, another NGO called GreenViet was formed by Vietnamese youngsters for the enforcement of wildlife protection. Through collaboration between the NGOs and local authorities, many local poaching syndicates were crippled by their leaders' arrests. A study released in 2018 revealed Vietnam is a destination for the illegal export of rhinoceros horns from South Africa due to the demand for them as a medicine and a status symbol.
The main environmental concern that persists in Vietnam today is the legacy of the use of the chemical herbicide Agent Orange, which continues to cause birth defects and many health problems in the Vietnamese population. In the southern and central areas affected most by the chemical's use during the Vietnam War, nearly 4.8 million Vietnamese people have been exposed to it and suffered from its effects. In 2012, approximately 50 years after the war, the US began a US$43 million joint clean-up project in the former chemical storage areas in Vietnam to take place in stages. Following the completion of the first phase in Đà Nẵng in late 2017, the US announced its commitment to clean other sites, especially in the heavily impacted site of Biên Hòa.
The Vietnamese government spends over VNĐ10 trillion each year ($431.1 million) for monthly allowances and the physical rehabilitation of victims of the chemicals. In 2018, the Japanese engineering group Shimizu Corporation, working with Vietnamese military, built a plant for the treatment of soil polluted by Agent Orange. Plant construction costs were funded by the company itself. One of the long-term plans to restore southern Vietnam's damaged ecosystems is through the use of reforestation efforts. The Vietnamese government began doing this at the end of the war. It started by replanting mangrove forests in the Mekong Delta regions and in Cần Giờ outside Hồ Chí Minh City, where mangroves are important to ease (though not eliminate) flood conditions during monsoon seasons. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 5.35/10, ranking it 104th globally out of 172 countries.
Apart from herbicide problems, arsenic in the ground water in the Mekong and Red River Deltas has also become a major concern. And most notoriously, unexploded ordnances (UXO) pose dangers to humans and wildlife—another bitter legacy from the long wars. As part of the continuous campaign to demine/remove UXOs, several international bomb removal agencies from the United Kingdom, Denmark,South Korea and the US have been providing assistance. The Vietnam government spends over VNĐ1 trillion ($44 million) annually on demining operations and additional hundreds of billions of đồng for treatment, assistance, rehabilitation, vocational training and resettlement of the victims of UXOs.
Government and politics
Vietnam is a unitary Marxist-Leninist one-party socialist republic, one of the two communist states (the other being Laos) in Southeast Asia. Although Vietnam remains officially committed to socialism as its defining creed, its economic policies have grown increasingly capitalist, with The Economist characterising its leadership as "ardently capitalist communists". Under the constitution, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) asserts their role in all branches of the country's politics and society. The president is the elected head of state and the commander-in-chief of the military, serving as the chairman of the Council of Supreme Defence and Security, and holds the second highest office in Vietnam as well as performing executive functions and state appointments and setting policy.
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam
President
Prime Minister
Chairman of the National Assembly
The general secretary of the CPV performs numerous key administrative functions, controlling the party's national organisation. The prime minister is the head of government, presiding over a council of ministers composed of five deputy prime ministers and the heads of 26 ministries and commissions. Only political organisations affiliated with or endorsed by the CPV are permitted to contest elections in Vietnam. These include the Vietnamese Fatherland Front and worker and trade unionist parties.
The National Assembly of Vietnam is the unicameral state legislature composed of 500 members. Headed by a chairman, it is superior to both the executive and judicial branches, with all government ministers being appointed from members of the National Assembly. The Supreme People's Court of Vietnam, headed by a chief justice, is the country's highest court of appeal, though it is also answerable to the National Assembly. Beneath the Supreme People's Court stand the provincial municipal courts and many local courts. Military courts possess special jurisdiction in matters of state security. Vietnam maintains the death penalty for numerous offences.
In 2023, a three-person collective leadership was responsible for governing Vietnam. President Võ Văn Thưởng, Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính (since 2021) and the most powerful leader Nguyễn Phú Trọng (since 2011) as the Communist Party of Vietnam's General Secretary. On 22 May 2024, Tô Lâm, who previously served as the Minister of Public Security, was voted as the president of Vietnam by the National Assembly after Võ Văn Thưởng resigned on the same year due to corruption charges against him. On 3 August 2024, Tô Lâm, who is also serving as the president, was elected by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam as the general secretary following the death of Nguyễn Phú Trọng on 19 July 2024. On 21 October 2024, the National Assembly appointed army general Lương Cường as president, succeeding Tô Lâm.
Administrative divisions
Vietnam is divided into 57 provinces (Vietnamese: Tỉnh, chữ Hán: 省). There are also six municipalities (thành phố trực thuộc trung ương), which are administratively on the same level as provinces.
|
|
Provinces are subdivided into provincial municipalities (thành phố trực thuộc tỉnh, 'city under province'), townships (thị xã) and counties (huyện), which are in turn subdivided into towns (thị trấn) or communes (xã).
Centrally controlled municipalities are subdivided into districts (quận) and counties, which are further subdivided into wards (phường).
Foreign relations
Throughout its history, Vietnam's main foreign relationship has been with various Chinese dynasties. Following the partition of Vietnam in 1954, North Vietnam maintained relations with the Eastern Bloc, South Vietnam maintained relations with the Western Bloc. Despite these differences, Vietnam's sovereign principles and insistence on cultural independence have been laid down in numerous documents over the centuries before its independence. These include the 11th-century patriotic poem "Nam quốc sơn hà" and the 1428 proclamation of independence "Bình Ngô đại cáo". Though China and Vietnam are now formally at peace,significant territorial tensions remain between the two countries over the South China Sea. Vietnam holds membership in 63 international organisations, including the United Nations (UN), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), International Organisation of the Francophonie (La Francophonie), and World Trade Organization (WTO). It also maintains relations with over 650 non-governmental organisations. As of 2010 Vietnam had established diplomatic relations with 178 countries.
Vietnam's current foreign policy is to consistently implement a policy of independence, self-reliance, peace, co-operation, and development, as well openness, diversification, multilateralisation with international relations. The country declares itself a friend and partner of all countries in the international community, regardless of their political affiliation, by actively taking part in international and regional cooperative development projects. Since the 1990s, Vietnam has taken several key steps to restore diplomatic ties with capitalist Western countries. It already had relations with communist Western countries in the decades prior. Relations with the United States began improving in August 1995 with both states upgrading their liaison offices to embassy status. As diplomatic ties between the two governments grew, the United States opened a consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City while Vietnam opened its consulate in San Francisco. Full diplomatic relations were also restored with New Zealand, which opened its embassy in Hanoi in 1995; Vietnam established an embassy in Wellington in 2003. President of the United States, Bill Clinton, made a historic visit to Vietnam in November 2000. He was the first U.S. leader ever to officially visit Hanoi and the first to visit Vietnam since U.S. troops withdrew from the country in 1975. Pakistan also reopened its embassy in Hanoi in October 2000, with Vietnam reopening its embassy in Islamabad in December 2005 and trade office in Karachi in November 2005. In May 2016, US President Barack Obama further normalised relations with Vietnam after he announced the lifting of an arms embargo on sales of lethal arms to Vietnam. Despite their historical past, today Vietnam is considered to be a potential ally of the United States, especially in the geopolitical context of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea and in containment of Chinese expansionism.
Military
The Vietnam People's Armed Forces consists of the Vietnam People's Army (VPA), the Vietnam People's Public Security and the Vietnam Self-Defence Militia. The VPA is the official name for the active military services of Vietnam, and is subdivided into the Vietnam People's Ground Forces, the Vietnam People's Navy, the Vietnam People's Air Force, the Vietnam Border Guard and the Vietnam Coast Guard. The VPA has an active manpower of around 450,000, but its total strength, including paramilitary forces, may be as high as 5,000,000. In 2015, Vietnam's military expenditure totalled approximately US$4.4 billion, equivalent to around 8% of its total government spending. Joint military exercises and war games have been held with Brunei, India, Japan, Laos, Russia,Singapore and the US. In 2017, Vietnam signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Human rights and sociopolitical issues
The government of Vietnam, reduced from a totalitarian system to an authoritarian one, carries many legacies of its past; the freedom of assembly, association, expression, press and religion as well as civil society activism being tightly restricted. Under the current constitution, the CPV is the only party allowed to rule, the operation of all other political parties being outlawed. Other human rights issues concern freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. In 2009, Vietnamese lawyer Lê Công Định was arrested and charged with the capital crime of subversion; several of his associates were also arrested.Amnesty International described him and his arrested associates as prisoners of conscience. Vietnam has also suffered from human trafficking and related issues.
Economy
| Share of world GDP (PPP) | |
|---|---|
| Year | Share |
| 1980 | 0.21% |
| 1990 | 0.28% |
| 2000 | 0.39% |
| 2010 | 0.52% |
| 2020 | 0.80% |
Throughout the history of Vietnam, its economy has been based largely on agriculture—primarily wet rice cultivation.Bauxite, an important material in the production of aluminium, is mined in central Vietnam. Since reunification, the country's economy is shaped primarily by the CPV through Five Year Plans decided upon at the plenary sessions of the Central Committee and national congresses. The collectivisation of farms, factories, and capital goods was carried out as part of the establishment of central planning, with millions of people working for state enterprises. Under strict state control, Vietnam's economy continued to be plagued by inefficiency, corruption in state-owned enterprises, poor quality and underproduction. With the decline in economic aid from its main trading partner, the Soviet Union, following the erosion of the Eastern bloc in the late 1980s, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as the negative impacts of the post-war trade embargo imposed by the United States, Vietnam began to liberalise its trade by devaluing its exchange rate to increase exports and embarked on a policy of economic development.
In 1986, the Sixth National Congress of the CPV introduced socialist-oriented market economic reforms as part of the Đổi Mới reform programme. Private ownership began to be encouraged in industry, commerce and agriculture and state enterprises were restructured to operate under market constraints. This led to the five-year economic plans being replaced by the socialist-oriented market mechanism. As a result of these reforms, Vietnam achieved approximately 8% annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth between 1990 and 1997. The United States ended its economic embargo against Vietnam in early 1994. Although the 1997 Asian financial crisis caused an economic slowdown to 4–5% growth per year, its economy began to recover in 1999, and grew at around 7% per year from 2000 to 2005, one of the fastest in the world. On 11 January 2007, Vietnam became the 150th member of the WTO (World Trade Organization). According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO), growth remained strong despite the late-2000s global recession, holding at 6.8% in 2010. Vietnam's year-on-year inflation rate reached 11.8% in December 2010 and the currency, the Vietnamese đồng, was devalued three times.
Deep poverty, defined as the percentage of the population living on less than $1 per day, has declined significantly in Vietnam and the relative poverty rate is now less than that of China, India and the Philippines. This decline can be attributed to equitable economic policies aimed at improving living standards and preventing the rise of inequality. These policies have included egalitarian land distribution during the initial stages of the Đổi Mới programme, investment in poorer remote areas, and subsidising of education and healthcare. Since the early 2000s, Vietnam has applied sequenced trade liberalisation, a two-track approach opening some sectors of the economy to international markets. Manufacturing, information technology and high-tech industries now form a large and fast-growing part of the national economy. Although Vietnam is a relative newcomer to the oil industry, it is the third-largest oil producer in Southeast Asia with a total 2011 output of 318,000 barrels per day (50,600 m3/d). In 2010, Vietnam was ranked as the eighth-largest crude petroleum producer in the Asia and Pacific region. The US bought the biggest share of Vietnam's exports, while goods from China were the most popular Vietnamese import.
Based on findings by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2022, the unemployment rate in Vietnam was 2.3%, the nominal GDP US$406.452 billion, and a nominal GDP per capita $4,086. Besides the primary sector economy, tourism has contributed significantly to Vietnam's economic growth with 7.94 million foreign visitors recorded in 2015.
Agriculture
As a result of several land reform measures, Vietnam has become a major exporter of agricultural products. It is now the world's largest producer of cashew nuts, with a one-third global share; the largest producer of black pepper, accounting for one-third of the world's market; and the second-largest rice exporter in the world after Thailand since the 1990s. Subsequently, Vietnam is also the world's second largest exporter of coffee. The country has the highest proportion of land use for permanent crops together with other states in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Other primary exports include tea, rubber and fishery products. Agriculture's share of Vietnam's GDP has fallen in recent decades, declining from 42% in 1989 to 20% in 2006 as production in other sectors of the economy has risen.
Seafood
The overall fisheries production of Vietnam from capture fisheries and aquaculture was 5.6 million MT in 2011 and 6.7 million MT in 2016. The output of Vietnam's fisheries sector has seen strong growth, which could be attributed to the continued expansion of the aquaculture sub-sector.
Science and technology
In 2010, Vietnam's total state spending on science and technology amounted to roughly 0.45% of its GDP. Vietnamese scientists have made many significant contributions in various fields of study, most notably in mathematics. Hoàng Tụy pioneered the applied mathematics field of global optimisation in the 20th century, while Ngô Bảo Châu won the 2010 Fields Medal for his proof of fundamental lemma in the theory of automorphic forms. Since the establishment of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) by the government in 1975, the country is working to develop its first national space flight programme especially after the completion of the infrastructure at the Vietnam Space Centre (VSC) in 2018. Vietnam has also made significant advances in the development of robots, such as the TOPIO humanoid model. One of Vietnam's main messaging apps, Zalo, was developed by Vương Quang Khải, a Vietnamese hacker who later worked with the country's largest information technology service company, the FPT Group.
According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Vietnam devoted 0.19% of its GDP to science research and development in 2011. Vietnam was ranked 44th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024, it has increased its ranking considerably since 2012, where it was ranked 76th. Between 2005 and 2014, the number of Vietnamese scientific publications recorded in Thomson Reuters' Web of Science increased at a rate well above the average for Southeast Asia, albeit from a modest starting point. Publications focus mainly on life sciences (22%), physics (13%) and engineering (13%), which is consistent with recent advances in the production of diagnostic equipment and shipbuilding.
Tourism
Tourism is an important element of economic activity in the nation, contributing 7.5% of the total GDP. Vietnam hosted roughly 13 million tourists in 2017, an increase of 29.1% over the previous year, making it one of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the world. The vast majority of the tourists in the country, some 9.7 million, came from Asia; namely China (4 million), South Korea (2.6 million), and Japan (798,119). Vietnam also attracts large numbers of visitors from Europe, with almost 1.9 million visitors in 2017; most European visitors came from Russia (574,164), followed by the United Kingdom (283,537), France (255,396), and Germany (199,872). Other significant international arrivals by nationality include the United States (614,117) and Australia (370,438).
The most visited destinations in Vietnam are the largest city, Ho Chi Minh City, with over 5.8 million international arrivals, followed by Hanoi with 4.6 million and Hạ Long, including Hạ Long Bay with 4.4 million arrivals. All three are ranked in the top 100 most visited cities in the world. Vietnam is home to eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In 2018, Travel + Leisure ranked Hội An as one of the world's top 15 best destinations to visit.
Transport
Much of Vietnam's modern transportation network can trace its roots to the French colonial era when it was used to facilitate the transportation of raw materials to its main ports. It was extensively expanded and modernised following the partition of Vietnam. Vietnam's road system includes national roads administered at the central level, provincial roads managed at the provincial level, district roads managed at the district level, urban roads managed by cities and towns and commune roads managed at the commune level. In 2010, Vietnam's road system had a total length of about 188,744 kilometres (117,280 mi) of which 93,535 kilometres (58,120 mi) are asphalt roads comprising national, provincial and district roads. The length of the national road system is about 15,370 kilometres (9,550 mi) with 15,085 kilometres (9,373 mi) of its length paved. The provincial road system has around 27,976 kilometres (17,383 mi) of paved roads while 50,474 kilometres (31,363 mi) district roads are paved.
Bicycles, motorcycles and motor scooters remain the most popular forms of road transport in the country, a legacy of the French, though the number of privately owned cars has been increasing in recent years. Public buses operated by private companies are the main mode of long-distance travel for much of the population. Traffic collisions remain the major safety issue of Vietnamese transportation with an average of 30 people losing their lives daily.Traffic congestion is a growing problem in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City especially with the growth of individual car ownership. Vietnam's primary cross-country rail service is the Reunification Express from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, a distance of nearly 1,726 kilometres (1,072 mi). From Hanoi, railway lines branch out to the northeast, north, and west; the eastbound line runs from Hanoi to Hạ Long Bay, the northbound line from Hanoi to Thái Nguyên, and the northeast line from Hanoi to Lào Cai. In 2009, Vietnam and Japan signed a deal to build a —shinkansen (bullet train)—using Japanese technology. Vietnamese engineers were sent to Japan to receive training in the operation and maintenance of high-speed trains. The planned railway will be a 1,545 kilometres (960 mi)-long express route serving a total of 23 stations, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, with 70% of its route running on bridges and through tunnels. The trains will travel at a maximum speed of 350 kilometres (220 mi) per hour. Plans for the high-speed rail line, however, have been postponed after the Vietnamese government decided to prioritise the development of both the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City metros and expand road networks instead.
Vietnam operates 20 major civil airports, including three international gateways: Noi Bai in Hanoi, Da Nang International Airport in Đà Nẵng and Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City. Tan Son Nhat is the country's largest airport handling the majority of international passenger traffic. According to a government-approved plan, Vietnam will have another seven international airports by 2025, including Vinh International Airport, Phu Bai International Airport, Cam Ranh International Airport, Phu Quoc International Airport, Cat Bi International Airport, Can Tho International Airport, and Long Thanh International Airport. The planned Long Thanh International Airport will have an annual service capacity of 100 million passengers once it becomes fully operational in 2025.Vietnam Airlines, the state-owned national airline, maintains a fleet of 86 passenger aircraft and aims to operate 170 by 2020. Several private airlines also operate in Vietnam, including Air Mekong, Bamboo Airways, Jetstar Pacific Airlines, VASCO and VietJet Air. As a coastal country, Vietnam has many major sea ports, including Cam Ranh, Đà Nẵng, Hải Phòng, Ho Chi Minh City, Hạ Long, Qui Nhơn, Vũng Tàu, Cửa Lò and Nha Trang. Further inland, the country's extensive network of rivers plays a key role in rural transportation with over 47,130 kilometres (29,290 mi) of navigable waterways carrying ferries, barges and water taxis.
Energy
Vietnam's energy sector is dominated largely by the state-controlled Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN). As of 2017, EVN made up about 61.4% of the country's power generation system with a total power capacity of 25,884 MW. Other energy sources are PetroVietnam (4,435 MW), Vinacomin (1,785 MW) and 10,031 MW from build–operate–transfer (BOT) investors.
Most of Vietnam's power is generated by either hydropower or fossil fuel power such as coal, oil and gas, while diesel, small hydropower and renewable energy supplies the remainder. The Vietnamese government had planned to develop a nuclear reactor as the path to establish another source for electricity from nuclear power. The plan was abandoned in late 2016 when a majority of the National Assembly voted to oppose the project due to widespread public concern over radioactive contamination.
The household gas sector in Vietnam is dominated by PetroVietnam, which controls nearly 70% of the country's domestic market for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Since 2011, the company also operates five renewable energy power plants including the Nhơn Trạch 2 Thermal Power Plant (750 MW), Phú Quý Wind Power Plant (6 MW), Hủa Na Hydro-power Plant (180 MW), Dakdrinh Hydro-power Plant (125 MW) and Vũng Áng 1 Thermal Power Plant (1,200 MW).
According to statistics from BP, Vietnam is listed among the 52 countries that have proven crude oil reserves. In 2015 the reserve was approximately 4.4 billion barrels ranking Vietnam first place in Southeast Asia, while the proven gas reserves were about 0.6 trillion cubic metres (tcm) and ranking it third in Southeast Asia after Indonesia and Malaysia.
Telecommunication
Telecommunications services in Vietnam are wholly provided by the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications General Corporation (now the VNPT Group) which is a state-owned company. The VNPT retained its monopoly until 1986. The telecom sector was reformed in 1995 when the Vietnamese government began to implement a competitive policy with the creation of two domestic telecommunication companies, the Military Electronic and Telecommunication Company (Viettel, which is wholly owned by the Vietnamese Ministry of Defence) and the Saigon Post and Telecommunication Company (SPT or SaigonPostel), with 18% of it owned by VNPT. VNPT's monopoly was finally ended by the government in 2003 with the issuance of a decree. By 2012, the top three telecom operators in Vietnam were Viettel, Vinaphone and MobiFone. The remaining companies included: EVNTelecom, Vietnammobile and S-Fone. With the shift towards a more market-orientated economy, Vietnam's telecommunications market is continuously being reformed to attract foreign investment, which includes the supply of services and the establishment of nationwide telecom infrastructure.
Water supply and sanitation
Vietnam has 2,360 rivers with an average annual discharge of 310 billion m3. The rainy season accounts for 70% of the year's discharge. Most of the country's urban water supply systems have been developed without proper management within the last 10 years. Based on a 2008 survey by the Vietnam Water Supply and Sewerage Association (VWSA), existing water production capacity exceeded demand, but service coverage is still sparse. Most of the clean water supply infrastructure is not widely developed. It is only available to a small proportion of the population with about one third of 727 district towns having some form of piped water supply. There is also concern over the safety of existing water resources for urban and rural water supply systems. Most industrial factories release their untreated wastewater directly into the water sources. Where the government does not take measures to address the issue, most domestic wastewater is discharged, untreated, back into the environment and pollutes the surface water.
In recent years, there have been some efforts and collaboration between local and foreign universities to develop access to safe water in the country by introducing water filtration systems. There is a growing concern among local populations over the serious public health issues associated with water contamination caused by pollution as well as the high levels of arsenic in groundwater sources. The government of Netherlands has been providing aid focusing its investments mainly on water-related sectors including water treatment projects. Regarding sanitation, 78% of Vietnam's population has access to "improved" sanitation—94% of the urban population and 70% of the rural population. However, there are still about 21 million people in the country lacking access to "improved" sanitation according to a survey conducted in 2015. In 2018, the construction ministry said the country's water supply, and drainage industry had been applying hi-tech methods and information technology (IT) to sanitation issues but faced problems like limited funding, climate change, and pollution. The health ministry has also announced that water inspection units will be established nationwide beginning in June 2019. Inspections are to be conducted without notice, since there have been many cases involving health issues caused by poor or polluted water supplies as well unhygienic conditions reported every year.
Demographics
- Vietnamese (85.32%)
- Other (14.68%)
- 0.00%
As of 2021[update], the population of Vietnam stands at approximately 97.5 million people. The population had grown significantly from the 1979 census, which showed the total population of reunified Vietnam to be 52.7 million. According to the 2019 census, the country's population was 96,208,984. Based on the 2019 census, 65.6% of the Vietnamese population live in rural areas while only 34.4% live in urban areas. The average growth rate of the urban population has recently increased which is attributed mainly to migration and rapid urbanisation. The dominant Viet or Kinh ethnic group constitute 82,085,826 people or 85.32% of the population. Most of their population is concentrated in the country's alluvial deltas and coastal plains. As a majority ethnic group, the Kinh possess significant political and economic influence over the country. Despite this, Vietnam is also home to various ethnic groups, of which 54 are officially recognised, including the Hmong, Dao, Tày, Thái and Nùng. Many ethnic minorities such as the Muong, who are closely related to the Kinh, dwell in the highlands which cover two-thirds of Vietnam's territory.
Since the partition of Vietnam, the population of the Central Highlands was almost exclusively Degar (including more than 40 tribal groups); however, the South Vietnamese government at the time enacted a programme of resettling Kinh in indigenous areas. The Hoa (ethnic Chinese) and Khmer Krom people are mainly lowlanders. Throughout Vietnam's history, many Chinese people, largely from South China, migrated to the country as administrators, merchants and even refugees. Since the reunification in 1976, an increase of communist policies nationwide resulted in the nationalisation and confiscation of property especially from the Hoa in the south and the wealthy in cities. This led many of them to leave Vietnam.
Urbanisation
The number of people who live in urbanised areas in 2019 is 33,122,548 people (with the urbanisation rate at 34.4%). Since 1986, Vietnam's urbanisation rates have surged rapidly after the Vietnamese government implemented the Đổi Mới economic programme, changing the system into a socialist one and liberalising property rights. As a result, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (the two major cities in the Red River Delta and Southeast regions respectively) increased their share of the total urban population from 8.5% and 24.9% to 15.9% and 31% respectively. The Vietnamese government, through its construction ministry, forecasts the country will have a 45% urbanisation rate by 2020 although it was confirmed to only be 34.4% according to the 2019 census. Urbanisation is said to have a positive correlation with economic growth. Any country with higher urbanisation rates has a higher GDP growth rate. Furthermore, the urbanisation movement in Vietnam is mainly between the rural areas and the country's Southeast region. Ho Chi Minh City has received a large number of migrants due mainly to better weather and economic opportunities.
A study also shows that rural-to-urban area migrants have a higher standard of living than both non-migrants in rural areas and non-migrants in urban areas. This results in changes to economic structures. In 1985, agriculture made up 37.2% of Vietnam's GDP; in 2008, that number had declined to 18.5%. In 1985, industry made up only 26.2% of Vietnam's GDP; by 2008, that number had increased to 43.2%. Urbanisation also helps to improve basic services which increase people's standards of living. Access to electricity grew from 14% of total households with electricity in 1993 to above 96% in 2009. In terms of access to fresh water, data from 65 utility companies shows that only 12% of households in the area covered by them had access to the water network in 2002; by 2007, more than 70% of the population was connected. Though urbanisation has many benefits, it has some drawbacks since it creates more traffic, and air and water pollution.
Many Vietnamese use mopeds for transportation, since they are relatively cheap and easy to operate. Their large numbers have been known to cause traffic congestion and air pollution in Vietnam. In the capital city alone, the number of mopeds increased from 0.5 million in 2001 to 4.7 million in 2013. With rapid development, factories have sprung up which indirectly pollute the air and water, for example in the 2016 Vietnam marine life disaster. The government is intervening and attempting solutions to decrease air pollution by decreasing the number of motorcycles while increasing public transportation. It has introduced more regulations for waste handling. The amount of solid waste generated in urban areas of Vietnam has increased by more than 200% from 2003 to 2008. Industrial solid waste accounted for 181% of that increase. One of the government's efforts includes attempting to promote campaigns that encourage locals to sort household waste, since waste sorting is still not practised by most of Vietnamese society.
Largest cities and municipalities in Vietnam Source: 2019 Vietnamese census,National Assembly | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Name | Province | Pop. | Rank | Name | Province | Pop. | ||
 Ho Chi Minh City  Hanoi | 1 | Ho Chi Minh City | Municipality | 8,993,082 | 11 | Vinh | Nghệ An | 473,275 |  Haiphong  Cần Thơ |
| 2 | Hanoi | Municipality | 8,053,663 | 12 | Thanh Hóa | Thanh Hóa | 436,833 | ||
| 3 | Haiphong | Municipality | 2,028,514 | 13 | Nha Trang | Khánh Hòa | 422,601 | ||
| 4 | Cần Thơ | Municipality | 1,235,171 | 14 | Buôn Ma Thuột | Đắk Lắk | 375,590 | ||
| 5 | Da Nang | Municipality | 1,134,310 | 15 | Tân Uyên | Bình Dương | 370,512 | ||
| 6 | Huế | Municipality | 1,128,620 | 16 | Vũng Tàu | Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu | 357,124 | ||
| 7 | Biên Hòa | Đồng Nai | 1,055,414 | 17 | Thái Nguyên | Thái Nguyên | 340,403 | ||
| 8 | Thủ Đức | Ho Chi Minh City | 1,013,795 | 18 | Thủy Nguyên | Haiphong | 333,810 | ||
| 9 | Thuận An | Bình Dương | 596,227 | 19 | Bắc Giang | Bắc Giang | 326,354 | ||
| 10 | Dĩ An | Bình Dương | 474,681 | 20 | Hạ Long | Quảng Ninh | 322,710 | ||
- Some cities were established or expanded after the 2019 census was conducted, including Thủ Đức, Thuận An, Huế, Dĩ An, Vinh, Tân Uyên, Thanh Hóa, Thủy Nguyên, Bắc Giang, Hạ Long.
- Excluding converted population (including temporary residents).
Languages
The national language of the country is Vietnamese, a tonal Austroasiatic language (Mon–Khmer), which is spoken by the majority of the population. Vietnam's minority groups speak a variety of languages, including: Tày, Mường, Cham, Khmer, Chinese, Nùng, and Hmong. The Montagnard peoples of the Central Highlands also speak a number of distinct languages, some belonging to the Austroasiatic and others to the Malayo-Polynesian language families. In recent years, a number of sign languages have developed in the major cities.
The French language, a legacy of colonial rule, is spoken by many educated Vietnamese as a second language, especially among those educated in the former South Vietnam, where it was a principal language in administration, education and commerce. Vietnam remains a full member of the International Organisation of the Francophonie (La Francophonie) and education has revived some interest in the language.Russian, and to a lesser extent German, Czech and Polish are known among some northern Vietnamese whose families had ties with the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. With improved relations with Western countries and recent reforms in Vietnamese administration, English has been increasingly used as a second language and the study of English is now obligatory in most schools either alongside or in place of French. The popularity of Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese have also grown as the country's ties with other East Asian nations have strengthened. Third-graders can choose one of seven languages (English, Russian, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German) as their first foreign language. In Vietnam's high school graduation examinations, students can take their foreign language exam in one of the above-mentioned languages.
Religion
- Vietnamese folk religion or no religion (86.32%)
- Buddhism (4.79%)
- Catholicism (6.1%)
- Protestantism (1%)
- Hoahaoism (1.02%)
- Caodaism (0.58%)
- Islam (0.07%)
- Others (0.12%)
Under Article 70 of the 1992 Constitution of Vietnam, all citizens enjoy freedom of belief and religion. All religions are equal before the law and each place of worship is protected under Vietnamese state law. Religious beliefs cannot be misused to undermine state law and policies. According to a 2007 survey 81% of Vietnamese people did not believe in a god. Based on government findings in 2009, the number of religious people increased by 932,000. The official statistics, presented by the Vietnamese government to the United Nations special rapporteur in 2014, indicate the overall number of followers of recognised religions is about 24 million of a total population of almost 90 million. According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam in 2019, Buddhists account for 4.79% of the total population, Catholics 6.1%, Protestants 1.0%, Hoahao Buddhists 1.02%, and Caodaism followers 0.58%. Other religions includes Islam, Bahaʼís and Hinduism, representing less than 0.2% of the population.
The majority of Vietnamese do not follow any organised religion, though many of them observe some form of Vietnamese folk religion. Confucianism as a system of social and ethical philosophy still has certain influences in modern Vietnam. Mahāyāna is the dominant branch of Buddhism, while Theravada is practised mostly by the Khmer minority. About 8 to 9% of the population is Christian—made up of Roman Catholics and Protestants. Catholicism was introduced to Vietnam in the 16th century and was firmly established by Jesuits missionaries (mainly Portuguese and Italian) in the 17th centuries from nearby Portuguese Macau. French missionaries (from the Paris Foreign Missions Society) together with Spanish missionaries (from the Dominican Order of the neighbouring Spanish East Indies) actively sought converts in the 18th, 19th, and first half of the 20th century. A significant number of Vietnamese people, especially in the South, are also adherents of two indigenous religions of syncretic Caodaism and quasi-Buddhist Hoahaoism. Protestantism was only recently spread by American and Canadian missionaries in the 20th century; the largest Protestant denomination is the . Around 770,000 of the country's Protestants are members of ethnic minorities, particularly the highland Montagnards and Hmong people. Although it is one of the country's minority religions, Protestantism is the fastest-growing religion in Vietnam, expanding at a rate of 600% in recent decades. Several other minority faiths exist in Vietnam, these include: Bani, Sunni and non-denominational sections of Islam which is practised primarily among the ethnic Cham minority. There are also a few Kinh adherents of Islam, other minority adherents of Baha'i, as well as Hindus among the Cham's.
Education
Vietnam has an extensive state-controlled network of schools, colleges, and universities and a growing number of privately run and partially privatised institutions. General education in Vietnam is divided into five categories: kindergarten, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and universities. A large number of public schools have been constructed across the country to raise the national literacy rate, which stood at 90% in 2008. Most universities are located in major cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with the country's education system continuously undergoing a series of reforms by the government. Basic education in the country is relatively free for the poor although some families may still have trouble paying tuition fees for their children without some form of public or private assistance. Regardless, Vietnam's school enrolment is among the highest in the world. The number of colleges and universities increased dramatically in the 2000s from 178 in 2000 to 299 in 2005. In higher education, the government provides subsidised loans for students through the national bank, although there are deep concerns about access to the loans as well the burden on students to repay them. Since 1995, enrolment in higher education has grown tenfold to over 2.2 million with 84,000 lecturers and 419 institutions of higher education. A number of foreign universities operate private campuses in Vietnam, including Harvard University (United States) and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia). The government's strong commitment to education has fostered significant growth but still need to be sustained to retain academics. In 2018, a decree on university autonomy allowing them to operate independently without ministerial control is in its final stages of approval. The government will continue investing in education especially for the poor to have access to basic education.
Health
By 2015, 97% of the population had access to improved water sources. In 2016, Vietnam's national life expectancy stood at 80.9 years for women and 71.5 for men, and the infant mortality rate was 17 per 1,000 live births. Since the partition, North Vietnam has established a public health system that has reached down to the hamlet level. After the national reunification in 1975, a nationwide health service was established. In the late 1980s, the quality of healthcare declined to some degree as a result of budgetary constraints, a shift of responsibility to the provinces and the introduction of charges. Inadequate funding has also contributed to a shortage of nurses, midwives and hospital beds; in 2000, Vietnam had only 24.7 hospital beds per 10,000 people before declining to 23.7 in 2005 as stated in the annual report of Vietnamese Health Ministry. The controversial use of herbicides as a chemical weapon by the US military during the war left tangible, long-term impacts upon the Vietnamese people that persist in the country today. For instance, it led to three million Vietnamese people suffering health problems, one million birth defects caused directly by exposure to the chemical and 24% of Vietnam's land being defoliated.
Since the early 2000s, Vietnam has made significant progress in combating malaria. The malaria mortality rate fell to about five per cent of its 1990s equivalent by 2005 after the country introduced improved antimalarial drugs and treatment.Tuberculosis (TB) cases, however, are on the rise. TB has become the second most infectious disease in the country after respiratory-related illness. With an intensified vaccination programme, better hygiene and foreign assistance, Vietnam hopes to reduce sharply the number of TB cases and new TB infections. In 2004, government subsidies covering about 15% of health care expenses. That year, the United States announced Vietnam would be one of 15 states to receive funding as part of its global AIDS relief plan. By the following year, Vietnam had diagnosed 101,291 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) cases, of which 16,528 progressed to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS); 9,554 have died. The actual number of HIV-positive individuals is estimated to be much higher. On average between 40 and 50 new infections are reported daily in the country. In 2007, 0.4% of the population was estimated to be infected with HIV and the figure has remained stable since 2005. More global aid is being delivered through The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to fight the spread of the disease in the country. In September 2018, the Hanoi People's Committee urged the citizens of the country to stop eating dog and cat meat as it can cause diseases like rabies and leptospirosis. More than 1,000 stores in the capital city of Hanoi were found to be selling both meats. The decision prompted positive comments among Vietnamese on social media, though some noted that the consumption of dog meat will remain an ingrained habit among many people.
Culture
Vietnamese culture is considered part of Sinosphere. Vietnam's culture has developed over the centuries from indigenous ancient Đông Sơn culture with wet rice cultivation as its economic base. Some elements of the nation's culture have Chinese origins, drawing on elements of Confucianism, Mahāyāna Buddhism, and Taoism in its traditional political system and philosophy. Vietnamese society is structured around làng (ancestral villages); all Vietnamese mark a common ancestral anniversary on the tenth day of the third lunar month. The influence of Chinese culture such as the Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, and Hainanese cultures is more evident in the north where Buddhism is strongly entwined with popular culture. Despite this, there are Chinatowns in the south, such as in Chợ Lớn, where many Chinese have intermarried with Kinh and are indistinguishable among them. In the central and southern parts of Vietnam, traces of Champa and Khmer culture are evidenced through the remains of ruins, artefacts as well within their population as the successor of the ancient Sa Huỳnh culture. In recent centuries, Western cultures have become popular among recent generations of Vietnamese.
The traditional focuses of Vietnamese culture are based on humanity (nhân nghĩa) and harmony (hòa) in which family and community values are highly regarded. Vietnam reveres a number of key cultural symbols, such as the Vietnamese dragon which is derived from crocodile and snake imagery; Vietnam's national father, Lạc Long Quân is depicted as a holy dragon. The lạc is a holy bird representing Vietnam's national mother Âu Cơ. Other prominent images that are also revered are the turtle, buffalo and horse. Many Vietnamese also believe in the supernatural and spiritualism where illness can be brought on by a curse or sorcery or caused by non-observance of a religious ethic. Traditional medical practitioners, amulets and other forms of spiritual protection and religious practices may be employed to treat the ill person. In the modern era, the cultural life of Vietnam has been deeply influenced by government-controlled media and cultural programmes. For many decades, foreign cultural influences, especially those of Western origin, were shunned. But since the recent reformation, Vietnam has seen a greater exposure to neighbouring Southeast Asian, East Asian as well to Western culture and media.
The main Vietnamese formal dress, the áo dài is worn for special occasions such as weddings and religious festivals. White áo dài is the required uniform for girls in many high schools across the country. Other examples of traditional Vietnamese clothing include: the áo tứ thân, a four-piece woman's dress; the áo ngũ, a form of the thân in five-piece form, mostly worn in the north of the country; the yếm, a woman's undergarment; the áo bà ba, rural working "pyjamas" for men and women; the áo gấm, a formal brocade tunic for government receptions; and the áo the, a variant of the áo gấm worn by grooms at weddings. Traditional headwear includes the standard conical nón lá, the "lampshade-like" nón quai thao, and the traditional turban, khăn vấn. In tourism, a number of popular cultural tourist destinations include the former Imperial City of Huế, the World Heritage Sites of Phong Nha – Kẻ Bàng National Park, Hội An and Mỹ Sơn, coastal regions such as Nha Trang, the caves of Hạ Long Bay and the Marble Mountains.
Literature
Vietnamese literature has centuries-deep history and the country has a rich tradition of folk literature based on the typical six–to-eight-verse poetic form (lục bát) called ca dao which usually focuses on village ancestors and heroes. Written literature has been found dating back to the 10th century Ngô dynasty, with notable ancient authors including: Nguyễn Trãi, Hồ Xuân Hương, Nguyễn Du and Nguyễn Đình Chiểu. Some literary genres play an important role in theatrical performance, such as hát nói in ca trù. Some poetic unions have also been formed in Vietnam, such as the tao đàn. Vietnamese literature has been influenced by Western styles in recent times, with the first literary transformation movement of thơ mới emerging in 1932. Vietnamese folk literature is an intermingling of many forms. It is not only an oral tradition, but a mixing of three media: hidden (only retained in the memory of folk authors), fixed (written), and shown (performed). Folk literature usually exists in many versions, passed down orally, and has unknown authors. Myths consist of stories about supernatural beings, heroes, creator gods and reflect the viewpoint of ancient people about human life. They consist of creation stories, stories about their origins (Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ), culture heroes (Sơn Tinh and Thủy Tinh) which are referred to as a mountain and water spirit respectively and many other folklore tales.
Music
Traditional Vietnamese music varies between the country's northern and southern regions. Northern classical music is Vietnam's oldest musical form and is traditionally more formal. The origins of Vietnamese classical opera (tuồng) can be traced to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century when the Vietnamese captured a Chinese opera troupe. Throughout its history, Vietnam has been the most heavily impacted by the Chinese musical tradition along with those of Japan, Korea and Mongolia.Nhã nhạc is the most popular form of imperial court music, Chèo is a form of generally satirical musical theatre, while Xẩm or hát xẩm (xẩm singing) is a type of Vietnamese folk music. Quan họ (alternate singing) is popular in the former Hà Bắc province (which is now divided into Bắc Ninh and Bắc Giang provinces) and across Vietnam. Another form of music called Hát chầu văn or hát văn is used to invoke spirits during ceremonies. Nhạc dân tộc cải biên is a modern form of Vietnamese folk music which arose in the 1950s, while ca trù (also known as hát ả đào) is a popular folk music. Hò can be thought of as the southern style of Quan họ. There is a range of traditional instruments, including the đàn bầu (a monochord zither), the đàn gáo (a two-stringed fiddle with coconut body), and the đàn nguyệt (a two-stringed fretted moon lute). In recent times, there have been some efforts at mixing Vietnamese traditional music—especially folk music—with modern music to revive and promote national music in the modern context and educate the younger generations about Vietnam's traditional musical instruments and singing styles.Bolero music has gained popularity in the country since the 1930s, albeit with a different style—a combination of traditional Vietnamese music with Western elements. In the 21st century, the modern Vietnamese pop music industry known as V-pop incorporates elements of many popular genres worldwide, such as electronic, dance and R&B.
Media
Vietnam's media sector is regulated by the government under the 2004 Law on Publication. It is generally perceived that the country's media sector is controlled by the government and follows the official communist party line, though some newspapers are relatively outspoken. The Voice of Vietnam (VOV) is the official state-run national radio broadcasting service, broadcasting internationally via shortwave using rented transmitters in other countries and providing broadcasts from its website, while Vietnam Television (VTV) is the national television broadcasting company. Since 1997, Vietnam has regulated public internet access extensively using both legal and technical means. The resulting lockdown is widely referred to as the "Bamboo Firewall". The collaborative project OpenNet Initiative classifies Vietnam's level of online political censorship to be "pervasive", while Reporters Without Borders (RWB) considers Vietnam to be one of 15 global "internet enemies". Though the government of Vietnam maintains that such censorship is necessary to safeguard the country against obscene or sexually explicit content, many political and religious websites that are deemed to be undermining state authority are also blocked.
Cuisine
Traditionally, Vietnamese cuisine is based around five fundamental taste "elements" (Vietnamese: ngũ vị): spicy (metal), sour (wood), salty (water), bitter (fire) and sweet (earth). Common ingredients include fish sauce, shrimp paste, soy sauce, rice, fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables. Vietnamese recipes use: lemongrass, ginger, mint, Vietnamese mint, long coriander, Saigon cinnamon, bird's eye chilli, lime and basil leaves. Traditional Vietnamese cooking is known for its fresh ingredients, minimal use of oil and reliance on herbs and vegetables; it is considered one of the healthiest cuisines worldwide. The use of meats such as pork, beef and chicken was relatively limited in the past. Instead freshwater fish, crustaceans (particularly crabs), and molluscs became widely used. Fish sauce, soy sauce, prawn sauce and limes are among the main flavouring ingredients. Vietnam has a strong street food culture, with 40 popular dishes commonly found throughout the country. Many notable Vietnamese dishes such as gỏi cuốn (salad roll), bánh cuốn (rice noodle roll), bún riêu (rice vermicelli soup) and phở noodles originated in the north and were introduced to central and southern Vietnam by northern migrants. Local foods in the north are often less spicy than southern dishes, as the colder northern climate limits the production and availability of spices.Black pepper is frequently used in place of chillis to produce spicy flavours. Vietnamese drinks in the south also are usually served cold with ice cubes, especially during the annual hot seasons; in contrast, in the north hot drinks are more preferable in a colder climate. Some examples of basic Vietnamese drinks include cà phê đá (Vietnamese iced coffee), cà phê trứng (egg coffee), chanh muối (salted pickled lime juice), cơm rượu (glutinous rice wine), nước mía (sugarcane juice) and trà sen (Vietnamese lotus tea).
Holidays and festivals
The country has eleven national recognised holidays. These include: New Year's Day on 1 January; Vietnamese New Year (Tết Nguyên Đán) from the last day of the last lunar month to fifth day of the first lunar month; Hùng Kings' Festival on the 10th day of the third lunar month; Reunification Day on 30 April; International Workers' Day on 1 May; and National Day on 2 September. During Tết, many Vietnamese from the major cities will return to their villages for family reunions and to pray for dead ancestors. Older people will usually give the young a lì xì (red envelope) while special holiday food, such as bánh chưng (rice cake) in a square shape together with variety of dried fruits, are presented in the house for visitors. Many other festivals are celebrated throughout the seasons, including the , Tết Trung Thu and various temple and nature festivals. In the highlands, Elephant Race Festivals are held annually during the spring; riders will ride their elephants for about 1.6 km (0.99 mi) and the winning elephant will be given sugarcane.Traditional Vietnamese weddings remain widely popular.
Sports
The Vovinam, Kim Kê and are widespread in Vietnam, while football is the country's most popular sport. Its national team won the ASEAN Football Championship in 2008, 2018 and 2024; and reached the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, quarter-finals of 2019 AFC Asian Cup, its junior team of under-23 became the runners-up of 2018 AFC U-23 Championship and reached fourth place in 2018 Asian Games, while the under-20 managed to qualify the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup for the first time in their football history. And the under-17 achieved the fourth place per 10 Teams of the 2000 AFC U-16 Championship. The women's national football team had first appearance at the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2023, became the first 11-a-side national football team to participate in a World Cup tournament, and also traditionally dominates the Southeast Asian Games, along with its chief rival, Thailand. Other Western sports such as badminton, tennis, volleyball, ping-pong and chess are also widely popular. Vietnam has participated in the Summer Olympic Games since 1952. After the partition of the country in 1954, only South Vietnam competed in the games, sending athletes to the 1956 and 1972 Olympics. Since the reunification of Vietnam in 1976, it has competed as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, attending every Summer Olympics from 1988 onwards. The present Vietnam Olympic Committee was formed in 1976 and recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1979. Vietnam has never participated in the Winter Olympic Games. In 2016, Vietnam won their first gold medal at the Olympics. Basketball has become an increasingly popular sport in Vietnam, especially in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Sóc Trăng.
See also
- Index of Vietnam-related articles
- Outline of Vietnam
Notes
- The census data was also cited in the United States Department of State's 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom regarding Vietnam. However, the report indicated that this figure did not include the potentially significant number of individuals who engage in Buddhist practices to a certain extent without being formally participated in a Buddhist religious group. An earlier United States Department of State report from 2019 revealed that 26.4 per cent of the population identified with an organised religion. This breakdown included 14.9 per cent identifying as Buddhist, 7.4 per cent as Roman Catholic, 1.5 per cent as Hòa Hảo Buddhist, 1.2 per cent as Cao Đài, and 1.1 per cent as Protestant. The remainder did not identify with any religious group or observed beliefs such as animism or the reverence of ancestors, tutelary and protective saints, national heroes, or esteemed local figures.
- The most powerful political position is General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, not President. The general secretary controls the Politburo and the Secretariat, Vietnam's top decision-making bodies, making the officeholder the de facto leader of Vietnam.
- In effect since 1 January 2014
- The area of Vietnam mentioned here is based on the land area statistics provided by the Vietnamese government. However, alternative figures exist. According to the CIA World Factbook, Vietnam's total area is 331,210 square kilometres, while the BBC cites a slightly different measurement of 331,699 square kilometres.
- Vietnamese: Việt Nam [vîət nāːm]
- The spelling "Viet Nam" or the full marked-Vietnamese form "Việt Nam" is sometimes used in English by local and government-operated media. "Viet Nam" is, in fact, formally designated and recognised by the Government of Vietnam, the United Nations and the International Organization for Standardization as the standardised country name. See also other spellings.
- Vietnamese: Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam
- Also seen with the alternate spelling as Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, or Socialist Republic of Việt Nam.
- The other one being Laos
- At first, Gia Long requested the name "Nam Việt", but the Jiaqing Emperor refused.
- Neither the American government nor Ngô Đình Diệm's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. The non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam; however, the French accepted the Việt Minh proposal that Vietnam be united by elections under the supervision of "local commissions". The United States, with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom, countered with the "American Plan", which provided for United Nations-supervised unification elections. The plan, however, was rejected by Soviet and other communist delegations.
References
- "Vietnam". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 18 April 2023. Archived from the original on 10 June 2021. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
- General Statistics Office of Vietnam 2019.
- 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Vietnam (Report). Office of International Religious Freedom, United States Department of State. 2022. Archived from the original on 11 February 2024. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
- Vietnam Government Committee for Religious Affairs, 2018, cited in "2019 Report on International Religious Freedom: Vietnam". United States Department of State. Archived from the original on 26 September 2020. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
- "Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam". FAOLEX Database. Food and Agriculture Organization. Archived from the original on 20 January 2024. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
The Constitution defines Vietnam as [having] a socialist rule of law, State of the people, by the people, and for the people. Vietnam is a unitary state ruled by [a] one-party system with coordination among State bodies in exercising legislative, executive and judicial rights.
- Viet Nam News 2014.
- Phê duyệt và công bố kết quả thống kê diện tích đất đai năm 2022 [Approval and announcement of land area statistics for 2022] (PDF) (Decision 3048/QĐ-BTNMT) (in Vietnamese). Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (Vietnam). 18 October 2023.[permanent dead link]
- "Vietnam". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 17 January 2024. Archived from the original on 10 June 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2024.
- "Vietnam country profile". BBC News. 24 February 2020. Archived from the original on 28 May 2020. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
- Socio-economic situation in the fourth quarter and 2023 (Report). General Statistics Office of Vietnam. 29 December 2023. Archived from the original on 12 February 2024. Retrieved 12 February 2024.
- An Chi (31 December 2023). "Dân số trung bình của Việt Nam năm 2023 đạt 100,3 triệu người" [Vietnam's Average Population Reaches 100.3 Million People in 2023]. Nhân Dân (in Vietnamese). Archived from the original on 12 February 2024. Retrieved 12 February 2024.
- "World Economic Outlook Database, April 2024 Edition. (Vietnam)". www.imf.org. International Monetary Fund. 16 April 2024. Archived from the original on 16 April 2024. Retrieved 17 April 2024.
- "Human Development Report 2023/24" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme. 13 March 2024. p. 289. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 March 2024. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
- Seah, A., & Nair, C. M. (2004). Vietnam. Marshall Cavendish.
- Nguyen, N., & Nguyen, Q. (2024). The Religious Aspect of Confucianism During The Ly-Tran Dynasties, Vietnam. Griot: Revista de Filosofia, 24 (2), 234-246.
- Brindley, Erica Fox (2015). Ancient China and the Yue Perceptions and Identities on the Southern Frontier, c.400 BCE–50 CE. Cambridge University Press. p. 27.
The term "Yue" survives today in the name of the Vietnamese state (yue nan 越南, or, "Viet south") – "Viet of the South", – as the Vietnamese likely took it; or "South of the Viet" – as the Chinese likely took it
- Woods 2002, p. 38.
- Norman & Mei 1976.
- Meacham 1996.
- Yue Hashimoto 1972, p. 1.
- Knoblock & Riegel 2001, p. 510.
- Lieberman 2003, p. 405.
- Phan 1976, p. 510.
- Shaofei & Guoqing 2016.
- Ooi 2004, p. 932.
- Tonnesson & Antlov 1996, p. 117.
- Tonnesson & Antlov 1996, p. 126.
- Derevianko, A. P.; Kandyba, A. V.; Nguyen, Khac Su; Gladyshev, S. A.; Nguyen, Gia Doi; Lebedev, V. A.; Chekha, A. M.; Rybalko, A. G.; Kharevich, V. M.; Tsybankov, A. A. (21 September 2018). "The Discovery of a Bifacial Industry in Vietnam". Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia. 46 (3): 3–21. doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.3.003-021. ISSN 1531-832X. S2CID 229297187.
- Marwick, Ben; Pham, Son Thanh; Brewer, Rachel; Wang, Li-Ying (14 August 2021). "Tektite geoarchaeology in mainland Southeast Asia". PCI Archaeology. doi:10.31235/osf.io/93fpa. S2CID 243640447. Archived from the original on 17 January 2022. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
- McKinney 2009.
- Akazawa, Aoki & Kimura 1992, p. 321.
- Rabett 2012, p. 109.
- Dennell & Porr 2014, p. 41.
- Matsumura et al. 2008, p. 12.
- Matsumura et al. 2001.
- Oxenham & Tayles 2006, p. 36.
- Nguyen 1985, p. 16.
- Karlstrom & Kallen 2002, p. 83.
- Oxenham & Buckley 2015, p. 329.
- Tsang, Cheng-hwa (24 January 2008). "Recent advances in the Iron Age archaeology of Taiwan". Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. 20. ISSN 1835-1794.
- Turton, M. (2021). Notes from central Taiwan: Our brother to the south. Taiwan's relations with the Philippines date back millennia, so it's a mystery that it's not the jewel in the crown of the New Southbound Policy. Taiwan Times.
- Everington, K. (2017). Birthplace of Austronesians is Taiwan, capital was Taitung: Scholar. Taiwan News.
- Bellwood, P., H. Hung, H., Lizuka, Y. (2011). Taiwan Jade in the Philippines: 3,000 Years of Trade and Long-distance Interaction. Semantic Scholar.
- Higham 1984.
- Nang Chung & Giang Hai 2017, p. 31.
- de Laet & Herrmann 1996, p. 408.
- Calo 2009, p. 51.
- Kiernan 2017, p. 31.
- Cooke, Li & Anderson 2011, p. 46.
- Pelley 2002, p. 151.
- Cottrell 2009, p. 14.
- Duc Tran & Thu Ha 2000, p. 8.
- Yao 2016, p. 62.
- Holmgren 1980.
- Taylor 1983, p. 30.
- Buttinger 1968, p. 18, Ch.2.
- Pelley 2002, p. 177.
- Cottrell 2009, p. 15.
- Thai Nguyen & Mung Nguyen 1958, p. 33.
- Chesneaux 1966, p. 20.
- University of California 1972, p. 24.
- Tuyet Tran & Reid 2006, p. 32.
- Hien Le 2003, p. 65.
- Hong Lien & Sharrock 2014, p. 55.
- Kiernan 2017, p. 226.
- Cottrell 2009, p. 16.
- Hong Lien & Sharrock 2014, p. 95.
- Keyes 1995, p. 183.
- Hong Lien & Sharrock 2014, p. 111.
- Hong Lien & Sharrock 2014, p. 120.
- Kiernan 2017, p. 265.
- Anderson & Whitmore 2014, p. 158.
- Vo 2011, p. 13.
- Ooi & Anh Tuan 2015, p. 212.
- Phuong Linh 2016, p. 39.
- Anderson & Whitmore 2014, p. 174.
- Leonard 1984, p. 131.
- Ooi 2004, p. 356.
- Hoang 2007, p. 50.
- Tran 2018.
- Hoang 2007, p. 52.
- Hoang 2007, p. 53.
- Li 1998, p. 89.
- Lockard 2010, p. 479.
- Tran 2017, p. 27.
- McLeod 1991, p. 22.
- Woods 2002, p. 42.
- Cortada 1994, p. 29.
- Mojarro, Jorge (10 March 2020). "The day the Filipinos conquered Saigon". The Manila Times. Archived from the original on 21 November 2022. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
- Keith 2012, p. 46.
- Keith 2012, pp. 49–50.
- McLeod 1991, p. 61.
- Ooi 2004, p. 520.
- Cook 2001, p. 396.
- Frankum 2011, p. 172.
- Nhu Nguyen 2016, p. 37.
- Richardson 1876, p. 269.
- Keith 2012, p. 53.
- Quach Langlet 1991, p. 360.
- Ramsay 2008, p. 171.
- Zinoman 2000.
- Lim 2014, p. 33.
- Largo 2002, p. 112.
- Khanh Huynh 1986, p. 98.
- Odell & Castillo 2008, p. 82.
- Thomas 2012.
- Miller 1990, p. 293.
- Gettleman et al. 1995, p. 4.
- Thanh Nien 2015.
- Vietnam Net 2015.
- Joes 1992, p. 95.
- Pike 2011, p. 192.
- Gunn 2014, p. 270.
- Neville 2007, p. 175.
- Smith 2007, p. 6.
- Neville 2007, p. 124.
- Tonnesson 2011, p. 66.
- Waite 2012, p. 89.
- Gravel 1971, p. 134.
- Gravel 1971, p. 119.
- Gravel 1971, p. 140.
- Kort 2017, p. 96.
- Olson 2012, p. 43.
- DK 2017, p. 39.
- van Dijk et al. 2013, p. 68.
- Guttman, John (25 July 2013). "Why did Sweden support the Viet Cong?". History Net. Archived from the original on 17 May 2016. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- Moise 2017, p. 56.
- Vu 2007.
- Turner 1975, p. 143.
- Heneghan 1969, p. 160.
- Turner 1975, p. 177.
- Crozier 1955.
- Turner 1975, pp. 174–178.
- Gilbert 2013, p. 292.
- Jukes 1973, p. 209.
- Olsen 2007, p. 92.
- Khoo 2011, p. 27.
- Muehlenbeck & Muehlenbeck 2012, p. 221.
- Willbanks 2013, p. 53.
- Duy Hinh & Dinh Tho 2015, p. 238.
- Isserman & Bowman 2009, p. 46.
- Alterman 2005, p. 213.
- Lewy 1980.
- Gibbons 2014, p. 166.
- Li 2012, p. 67.
- Gillet 2011.
- Dallek 2018.
- Turner 1975, p. 251.
- Frankum 2011, p. 209.
- Eggleston 2014, p. 1.
- History 2018.
- Tucker 2011, p. 749.
- Brigham 1998, p. 86.
- The New York Times 1976.
- Hirschman, Preston & Manh Loi 1995.
- Shenon 1995.
- Obermeyer, Murray & Gakidou 2008.
- Dohrenwend et al. 2018, p. 69.
- "Vietnam Refugees Put at 1.4 Million". The New York Times. 26 January 1975. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 9 August 2021. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
- Elliott 2010, pp. 499, 512–513.
- Sagan & Denny 1982.
- Spokesman-Review 1977, p. 8.
- Moise 1988, p. 12.
- Kissi 2006, p. 144.
- Meggle 2004, p. 166.
- Hampson 1996, p. 175.
- Khoo 2011, p. 131.
- BBC News 1997.
- Van Phuc 2014.
- Murray 1997, pp. 24–25.
- Bich Loan 2007.
- Howe 2016, p. 20.
- Goodkind 1995.
- Gallup 2002.
- Wagstaff, van Doorslaer & Watanabe 2003.
- "Vietnam's ruling Communist Party re-elects chief Trong for rare third term". France 24. 31 January 2021. Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2024.
- Nasuchon 2008, p. 7.
- Protected Areas and Development Partnership 2003, p. 13.
- Frohlich et al. 2013, p. 5.
- Natural Resources and Environment Program 1995, p. 56.
- AgroViet Newsletter 2007.
- Huu Chiem 1993, p. 180.
- Minh Hoang et al. 2016.
- Huu Chiem 1993, p. 183.
- Hong Truong, Ye & Stive 2017, p. 757.
- Vietnamese Waters Zone.
- Cosslett & Cosslett 2017, p. 13.
- Van De et al. 2008.
- Hong Phuong 2012, p. 3.
- Viet Nam News 2016.
- Vietnam National Administration of Tourism 2014.
- Boobbyer & Spooner 2013, p. 173.
- Cosslett & Cosslett 2013, p. 13.
- Anh 2016a.
- The Telegraph.
- Vu 1979, p. 66.
- Riehl & Augstein 1973, p. 1.
- Buleen 2017.
- Vietnam Net 2018a.
- "Vietnamese amazed at snow-capped northern mountains". VnExpress. 11 January 2021.
- Thi Anh.
- Overland 2017.
- "Report: Flooded Future: Global vulnerability to sea level rise worse than previously understood". climatecentral.org. 29 October 2019. Archived from the original on 2 November 2019. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
- Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
- UNESCO World Heritage Convention 1994.
- UNESCO World Heritage Convention 2003.
- BirdLife International 2016.
- Kinver 2011.
- Dall 2017.
- Dang Vu & Nielsen 2018.
- Nam Dang & Nielsen 2019.
- Banout et al. 2014.
- Cerre 2016.
- Brown 2018.
- AFP staff 2016.
- MacLeod 2012.
- United States Agency for International Development.
- Stewart 2018.
- Viet Nam News 2018a.
- Nikkei Asian Review 2018.
- NHK World-Japan 2018.
- Agent Orange Record.
- Grantham, H. S.; et al. (2020). "Anthropogenic modification of forests means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity – Supplementary Material". Nature Communications. 11 (1): 5978. Bibcode:2020NatCo..11.5978G. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19493-3. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 7723057. PMID 33293507.
- Berg et al. 2007.
- Merola et al. 2014.
- Miguel & Roland 2005.
- Government of the United Kingdom 2017.
- LM Report 2000.
- United Nations Development Programme 2018.
- United States Department of State 2006.
- Van Thanh 2016.
- Government of Vietnam (II).
- Greenfield 1994, p. 204.
- Baccini, Impullitti & Malesky 2017.
- The Economist 2008.
- Embassy of Vietnam in USA.
- Ministry of Justice 1999.
- "Vietnam parliament elects new president Vo Van Thuong". www.aljazeera.com. Archived from the original on 5 February 2024. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
- "Vietnam picks new PM and president for next 5 years". Nikkei Asia. Archived from the original on 26 March 2024. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
- "New president of Vietnam nominated by Communist Party: Report". www.aljazeera.com. Archived from the original on 27 March 2024. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
- "Vietnam's security chief To Lam becomes new president". Al Jazeera. 22 May 2024.
- "Vietnam's Nguyen Phu Trong, longtime leader and advocate of 'bamboo diplomacy', dies". Channel NewsAsia. 19 July 2024. Retrieved 21 July 2024.
- "Vietnam President To Lam gets top job as Communist Party chief". Al Jazeera. 3 August 2024. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
- Ngo, Tung; Yang, Calvin (22 October 2024). "Vietnam parliament elects military general Luong Cuong as president after months of political turmoil". Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved 24 October 2024.
- Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
Vietnam officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia with an area of about 331 000 square kilometres 128 000 sq mi and a population of over 100 million making it the world s fifteenth most populous country One of the two Marxist Leninist states in Southeast Asia Vietnam shares land borders with China to the north and Laos and Cambodia to the west It shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand and the Philippines Indonesia and Malaysia through the South China Sea Its capital is Hanoi and its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City Socialist Republic of VietnamCộng hoa Xa hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam Vietnamese Flag EmblemMotto Độc lập Tự do Hạnh phuc Independence Freedom Happiness Anthem Tiến Quan Ca The Song of the Marching Troops source source track Show globeShow ASEANLocation of Vietnam green in ASEAN dark grey CapitalHanoi 21 2 N 105 51 E 21 033 N 105 850 E 21 033 105 850Largest city by municipal boundaryHuế 16 20 N 107 35 E 16 333 N 107 583 E 16 333 107 583Largest city by urban populationHo Chi Minh City 10 48 N 106 39 E 10 800 N 106 650 E 10 800 106 650Official languageVietnameseEthnic groups 2019 85 32 Kinh Vietnamese14 68 otherReligion 2019 86 32 no religion folk6 1 Catholicism4 79 Buddhism1 02 Hoahaoism1 Protestantism0 58 Caodaism0 07 Islam0 12 otherDemonym s Vietnamese Viet colloquial GovernmentUnitary Marxist Leninist one party socialist republic General SecretaryTo Lam PresidentLương Cường Prime MinisterPhạm Minh Chinh National Assembly ChairmanTrần Thanh MẫnLegislatureNational AssemblyFormation Văn Lang7th century BC Au Lạc3rd century BC Han s annexation111 BC Independence from China939 Regaining independence1428 Nguyễn s unification1802 Protectorate Treaty25 August 1883 Declaration of Independence2 September 1945 North South division21 July 1954 End of Vietnam War30 April 1975 Reunification2 July 1976 Đổi Mới18 December 1986 Current constitution28 November 2013Area Total331 344 82 km2 127 932 95 sq mi 66th Water 6 38Population 2023 estimate100 300 000 15th 2019 census96 208 984 Density298 km2 771 8 sq mi 49th GDP PPP 2024 estimate Total 1 559 trillion 26th Per capita 15 470 106th GDP nominal 2024 estimate Total 465 814 billion 33th Per capita 4 623 119th Gini 2020 36 8 citation needed medium inequalityHDI 2022 0 726 high 107th CurrencyVietnamese đồng VND Time zoneUTC 07 00 Vietnam Standard Time Calling code 84ISO 3166 codeVNInternet TLD vnThis article contains Vietnamese text Without proper rendering support you may see question marks boxes or other symbols instead of chữ Nom chữ Han and chữ Quốc ngữ Vietnam was inhabited by the Paleolithic age with states established in the first millennium BC on the Red River Delta in modern day northern Vietnam Before the Han dynasty s invasion Vietnam was marked by a vibrant mix of religion culture and social norms The Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam which were subsequently under Chinese rule from 111 BC until the first dynasty emerged in 939 Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism and expanded southward to the Mekong Delta conquering Champa During most of the 17th and 18th centuries Vietnam was effectively divided into two domains of Đang Trong and Đang Ngoai The Nguyễn the last imperial dynasty surrendered to France in 1883 In 1887 its territory was integrated into French Indochina as three separate regions In the immediate aftermath of World War II the nationalist coalition Viet Minh led by the communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh launched the August Revolution and declared Vietnam s independence from the Empire of Japan in 1945 Vietnam went through prolonged warfare in the 20th century After World War II France returned to reclaim colonial power in the First Indochina War from which Vietnam emerged victorious in 1954 As a result of the treaties signed between the Viet Minh and France Vietnam was also separated into two parts The Vietnam War began shortly after between the communist North Vietnam supported by the Soviet Union and China and the anti communist South Vietnam supported by the United States Upon the North Vietnamese victory in 1975 Vietnam reunified as a unitary socialist state under the Communist Party of Vietnam CPV in 1976 An ineffective planned economy a trade embargo by the West and wars with Cambodia and China crippled the country further In 1986 the CPV initiated economic and political reforms similar to the Chinese economic reform transforming the country to a socialist oriented market economy The reforms facilitated Vietnamese reintegration into the global economy and politics Vietnam is a developing country with a lower middle income economy It has high levels of corruption censorship environmental issues and a poor human rights record It is part of international and intergovernmental institutions including the ASEAN the APEC the Non Aligned Movement the OIF and the WTO It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council twice EtymologyThe name Việt Nam pronounced vie tˀ naːm chữ Han 越南 literally Viet South means Viet of the South per Vietnamese word order or South of the Viet per Classical Chinese word order A variation of the name Nanyue or Nam Việt 南越 was first documented in the 2nd century BC The term Việt Yue Chinese 越 pinyin Yue Cantonese Yale Yuht Wade Giles Yueh4 Vietnamese Việt in Early Middle Chinese was first written using the logograph 戉 for an axe a homophone in oracle bone and bronze inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty c 1200 BC and later as 越 At that time it referred to a people or chieftain to the northwest of the Shang In the early 8th century BC a tribe on the middle Yangtze were called the Yangyue a term later used for peoples further south Between the 7th and 4th centuries BC Yue Việt referred to the State of Yue in the lower Yangtze basin and its people From the 3rd century BC the term was used for the non Chinese populations of southern China and northern Vietnam with particular ethnic groups called Minyue Ouyue Luoyue Vietnamese Lạc Việt etc collectively called the Baiyue Bach Việt Chinese 百越 pinyin Bǎiyue Cantonese Yale Baak Yuet Vietnamese Bach Việt lit Hundred Yue Viet The term Baiyue Bach Việt first appeared in the book Lushi Chunqiu compiled around 239 BC By the 17th and 18th centuries AD educated Vietnamese apparently referred to themselves as người Việt Viet people or người Nam southern people Người Việt 𠊛越 written in chữ Nom The form Việt Nam 越南 is first recorded in the 16th century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trinh The name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Hải Phong that dates to 1558 In 1802 Nguyễn Phuc Anh who later became Emperor Gia Long established the Nguyễn dynasty In the second year of his rule he asked the Jiaqing Emperor of the Qing dynasty to confer on him the title King of Nam Việt Nanyue 南越 in Chinese character after seizing power in Annam The Emperor refused because the name was related to Zhao Tuo s Nanyue which included the regions of Guangxi and Guangdong in southern China The Qing Emperor therefore decided to call the area Việt Nam instead meaning South of the Viet per Classical Chinese word order but the Vietnamese understood it as Viet of the South per Vietnamese word order Between 1804 and 1813 the name Vietnam was used officially by Emperor Gia Long It was revived in the early 20th century in Phan Bội Chau s History of the Loss of Vietnam and later by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party VNQDĐ The country was usually called Annam until 1945 when the imperial government in Huế adopted Việt Nam HistoryPrehistory and early history Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age Stone artefacts excavated in Gia Lai province have been claimed to date to 780 000 years ago based on associated find of tektites however this claim has been challenged because tektites are often found in archaeological sites of various ages in Vietnam Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500 000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance and include isolated tooth fragments from Tham Om and Hang Hum Teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have been found at Dong Can and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu Lang Gao and Lang Cuom Areas comprising what is now Vietnam participated in the as ascertained by archaeological research By about 1 000 BC the development of wet rice cultivation in the Ma River and Red River floodplains led to the flourishing of Đong Sơn culture notable for its bronze casting used to make elaborate bronze Đong Sơn drums At this point the early Vietnamese kingdoms of Văn Lang and Au Lạc appeared and the culture s influence spread to other parts of Southeast Asia including Maritime Southeast Asia throughout the first millennium BC Dynastic Vietnam Đại Việt Champa Angkor Empire and their neighbours late 13th centuryVietnam s territories around 1838 during the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia According to Vietnamese legends Hồng Bang dynasty of the Hung kings first established in 2879 BC is considered the first state in the history of Vietnam then known as Xich Quỷ and later Văn Lang In 257 BC the last Hung king was defeated by Thục Phan He consolidated the Lạc Việt and Au Việt tribes to form the Au Lạc proclaiming himself An Dương Vương In 179 BC a Chinese general named Zhao Tuo Triệu Đa defeated An Dương Vương and consolidated Au Lạc into Nanyue However Nanyue was itself incorporated into the empire of the Chinese Han dynasty in 111 BC after the Han Nanyue War For the next thousand years what is now northern Vietnam remained mostly under Chinese rule Early independence movements such as those of the Trưng Sisters and Lady Triệu were temporarily successful though the region gained a longer period of independence as Vạn Xuan under the Anterior Ly dynasty between AD 544 and 602 verification needed By the early 10th century Northern Vietnam had gained autonomy but not sovereignty under the Khuc family In AD 938 the Vietnamese lord Ngo Quyền defeated the forces of the Chinese Southern Han state at Bạch Đằng River and achieved full independence for Vietnam in 939 after a millennium of Chinese domination By the 960s the dynastic Đại Việt Great Viet kingdom was established Vietnamese society enjoyed a golden era under the Ly and Trần dynasties During the rule of the Trần dynasty Đại Việt repelled three Mongol invasions Meanwhile the Mahayana branch of Buddhism flourished and became the state religion Following the 1406 7 Ming Hồ War which overthrew the Hồ dynasty Vietnamese independence was interrupted briefly by the Chinese Ming dynasty but was restored by Le Lợi the founder of the Le dynasty The Vietnamese polity reached their zenith in the Le dynasty of the 15th century especially during the reign of emperor Le Thanh Tong 1460 1497 Between the 11th and 18th centuries the Vietnamese polity expanded southward in a gradual process known as Nam tiến Southward expansion eventually conquering the kingdom of Champa and part of the Khmer Kingdom From the 16th century onward civil strife and frequent political infighting engulfed much of Đại Việt First the Chinese supported Mạc dynasty challenged the Le dynasty s power After the Mạc dynasty was defeated the Le dynasty was nominally reinstalled Actual power however was divided between the northern Trịnh lords and the southern Nguyễn lords who engaged in a civil war for more than four decades before a truce was called in the 1670s Vietnam was divided into North Trịnh and South Nguyễn from 1600 to 1777 During this period the Nguyễn expanded southern Vietnam into the Mekong Delta annexing the Central Highlands and the Khmer lands in the Mekong Delta The division of the country ended a century later when the Tay Sơn brothers helped Trịnh to end Nguyễn they also established new dynasty and ended Trịnh However their rule did not last long and they were defeated by the remnants of the Nguyễn lords led by Nguyễn Anh Nguyễn Anh unified Vietnam and established the Nguyễn dynasty ruling under the name Gia Long French Indochina In the 1500s the Portuguese explored the Vietnamese coast and reportedly erected a stele on the Cham Islands to mark their presence By 1533 they began landing in the Vietnamese delta but were forced to leave because of local turmoil and fighting They also had less interest in the territory than they did in China and Japan After they had settled in Macau and Nagasaki to begin the profitable Macau Japan trade route the Portuguese began to involve themselves in trade with Hội An Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries under the Padroado system were active in both Vietnamese realms of Đang Trong Cochinchina or Quinan and Đang Ngoai Tonkin in the 17th century The Dutch also tried to establish contact with Quinan in 1601 but failed to sustain a presence there after several violent encounters with the locals The Dutch East India Company VOC only managed to establish official relations with Tonkin in the spring of 1637 after leaving Dejima in Japan to establish trade for silk Meanwhile in 1613 the first English attempt to establish contact with Hội An failed following a violent incident involving the East India Company By 1672 the English did establish relations with Tonkin and were allowed to reside in Phố Hiến Capture of Saigon by Charles Rigault de Genouilly on 18 February 1859 Between 1615 and 1753 French traders also engaged in trade in Vietnam The first French missionaries arrived in 1658 under the Portuguese Padroado From its foundation the Paris Foreign Missions Society under Propaganda Fide actively sent missionaries to Vietnam entering Cochinchina first in 1664 and Tonkin first in 1666 Spanish Dominicans joined the Tonkin mission in 1676 and Franciscans were in Cochinchina from 1719 to 1834 The Vietnamese authorities began when to feel threatened by continuous Christianisation activities After several Catholic missionaries were detained the French Navy intervened in 1843 to free them as the kingdom was perceived as xenophobic In a series of conquests from 1859 to 1885 France eroded Vietnam s sovereignty At the siege of Tourane in 1858 France was aided by Spain with Filipino Latin American and Spanish troops from the Philippines and perhaps some Tonkinese Catholics After the 1862 Treaty and especially after France completely conquered Lower Cochinchina in 1867 the Văn Than movement of scholar gentry class arose and committed violence against Catholics across central and northern Vietnam Between 1862 and 1867 the southern third of the country became the French colony of Cochinchina By 1884 the entire country was under French rule with the central and northern parts of Vietnam separated into the two protectorates of Annam and Tonkin The three entities were formally integrated into the union of French Indochina in 1887 The French administration imposed significant political and cultural changes on Vietnamese society A Western style system of modern education introduced new humanist values Most French settlers in Indochina were concentrated in Cochinchina particularly in Saigon and in Hanoi the colony s capital During the colonial period guerrillas of the royalist Cần Vương movement rebelled against French rule and massacred around a third of Vietnam s Christian population After a decade of resistance they were defeated in the 1890s by the Catholics in reprisal for their earlier massacres Another large scale rebellion the Thai Nguyen uprising was also suppressed heavily The French developed a plantation economy to promote export of tobacco indigo tea and coffee However they largely ignored the increasing demands for civil rights and self government An increasing dissatisfaction even led to half hearted badly co ordinated and still worsely executed plots to oust the French like the infamous Hanoi Poison Plot of 1908 The Grand Palais built for the 1902 1903 world s fair when Hanoi became French Indochina s capital A nationalist political movement soon emerged with leaders like Phan Bội Chau Phan Chau Trinh Phan Đinh Phung Emperor Ham Nghi and Hồ Chi Minh fighting or calling for independence This resulted in the 1930 Yen Bai mutiny by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party VNQDĐ which the French quashed The mutiny split the independence movement as many leading members converted to communism The French maintained full control of their colonies until World War II when the war in the Pacific led to the Japanese invasion of French Indochina in 1940 Afterwards the Japanese Empire was allowed to station its troops in Vietnam while the pro Vichy French colonial administration continued Japan exploited Vietnam s natural resources to support its military campaigns culminating in a full scale takeover of the country in March 1945 This led to the Vietnamese Famine of 1945 which killed up to two million people First Indochina War In 1941 the Việt Minh a nationalist liberation movement based on a communist ideology emerged under the Vietnamese revolutionary leader Hồ Chi Minh The Việt Minh sought independence for Vietnam from France and the end of the Japanese occupation After the military defeat of Japan in World War II and the fall of its puppet government Empire of Vietnam in August 1945 Saigon s administrative services collapsed and chaos riots and murder were widespread The Việt Minh occupied Hanoi and proclaimed a provisional government which asserted national independence on 2 September In July 1945 the Allies had decided to divide Indochina at the 16th parallel to allow Chiang Kai shek of the Republic of China to receive the Japanese surrender in the north while Britain s Lord Louis Mountbatten received their surrender in the south The Allies agreed that Indochina still belonged to France Partition of French Indochina after the 1954 Geneva Conference But as the French were weakened by the German occupation British Indian forces and the remaining Japanese Southern Expeditionary Army Group were used to maintain order and help France reestablish control through the 1945 1946 War in Vietnam Hồ initially chose to take a moderate stance to avoid military conflict with France asking the French to withdraw their colonial administrators and for French professors and engineers to help build a modern independent Vietnam But the Provisional Government of the French Republic did not act on these requests including the idea of independence and dispatched the French Far East Expeditionary Corps to restore colonial rule This resulted in the Việt Minh launching a guerrilla campaign against the French in late 1946 The resulting First Indochina War lasted until July 1954 The defeat of French colonialists and Vietnamese loyalists in the 1954 battle of Điện Bien Phủ allowed Hồ to negotiate a ceasefire from a favourable position at the subsequent Geneva Conference The colonial administration was thereby ended and French Indochina was dissolved under the Geneva Accords of 21 July 1954 into three countries Vietnam and the kingdoms of Cambodia and Laos Vietnam was further divided into North and South administrative regions at the Demilitarised Zone roughly along the 17th parallel north pending elections scheduled for July 1956 A 300 day period of free movement was permitted during which almost a million northerners mainly Catholics moved south fearing persecution by the communists This migration was in large part aided by the United States military through Operation Passage to Freedom The partition of Vietnam by the Geneva Accords was not intended to be permanent and stipulated that Vietnam would be reunited after the elections But in 1955 the southern State of Vietnam s prime minister Ngo Đinh Diệm toppled Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum organised by his brother Ngo Đinh Nhu and proclaimed himself president of the Republic of Vietnam This effectively replaced the internationally recognised State of Vietnam by the Republic of Vietnam in the south supported by the United States France Laos Republic of China and Thailand and Hồ s Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north supported by the Soviet Union Sweden Khmer Rouge and the People s Republic of China Vietnam War From 1953 to 1956 the North Vietnamese government instituted agrarian reforms including rent reduction and land reform which resulted in significant political repression This included 13 500 to as many as 100 000 executions In the South Diệm countered North Vietnamese subversion including the assassination of over 450 South Vietnamese officials in 1956 by detaining tens of thousands of suspected communists in political reeducation centres This programme incarcerated many non communists but was successful at curtailing communist activity in the country if only for a time The North Vietnamese government claimed that 2 148 people were killed in the process by November 1957 The pro Hanoi Việt Cộng began a guerrilla campaign in South Vietnam in the late 1950s to overthrow Diệm s government From 1960 the Soviet Union and North Vietnam signed treaties providing for further Soviet military support Three US Fairchild UC 123B aircraft spraying Agent Orange during the Operation Ranch Hand as part of a herbicidal warfare operation depriving the food and vegetation cover of the Việt Cộng c 1962 1971 In 1963 Buddhist discontent with Diệm s Catholic regime erupted into mass demonstrations leading to a violent government crackdown This led to the collapse of Diệm s relationship with the United States and ultimately to a 1963 coup in which he and Nhu were assassinated The Diệm era was followed by more than a dozen successive military governments before the pairing of Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu took control in mid 1965 Thiệu gradually outmaneuvered Kỳ and cemented his grip on power in fraudulent elections in 1967 and 1971 During this political instability the communists began to gain ground To support South Vietnam s struggle against the communist insurgency the United States used the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident as a pretext for increasing its contribution of military advisers US forces became involved in ground combat operations by 1965 and at their peak several years later numbered more than 500 000 The US also engaged in sustained aerial bombing Meanwhile China and the Soviet Union provided North Vietnam with significant material aid and 15 000 combat advisers Communist forces supplying the Việt Cộng carried supplies along the Hồ Chi Minh trail which passed through Laos The communists attacked South Vietnamese targets during the 1968 Tết Offensive The campaign failed militarily but shocked the American establishment and turned US public opinion against the war During the offensive communist troops massacred over 3 000 civilians at Huế Facing an increasing casualty count rising domestic opposition to the war and growing international condemnation the US began withdrawing from ground combat roles in the early 1970s This also entailed an unsuccessful effort to strengthen and stabilise South Vietnam Following the Paris Peace Accords of 27 January 1973 all American combat troops were withdrawn by 29 March 1973 In December 1974 North Vietnam captured the province of Phước Long and started a full scale offensive culminating in the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975 South Vietnam was ruled by a provisional government for almost eight years while under North Vietnamese military occupation Reunification and reforms 1970s On 2 July 1976 North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam The war had devastated Vietnam and killed 966 000 to 3 8 million people A 1974 US Senate subcommittee estimated nearly 1 4 million Vietnamese civilians were killed or wounded between 1965 and 1974 including 415 000 killed In its aftermath under Le Duẩn s administration there were no mass executions of South Vietnamese who had collaborated with the US or the defunct South Vietnamese government confounding Western fears but up to 300 000 South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps where many endured torture starvation and disease while being forced to perform hard labour The government embarked on a mass campaign of collectivisation of farms and factories Many fled the country following the conclusion of the war In 1978 in response to the Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia ordering massacres of Vietnamese residents in the border villages in the districts of An Giang and Kien Giang the Vietnamese military invaded Cambodia and removed them from power after occupying Phnom Penh The intervention was a success resulting in the establishment of a new pro Vietnam socialist government the People s Republic of Kampuchea which ruled until 1989 However this worsened relations with China which had supported the Khmer Rouge China later launched a brief incursion into northern Vietnam in 1979 causing Vietnam to rely even more heavily on Soviet economic and military aid while mistrust of the Chinese government escalated 1980s to present At the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam CPV in December 1986 reformist politicians replaced the old guard government with new leadership The reformers were led by 71 year old Nguyễn Văn Linh who became the party s new general secretary He and the reformers implemented a series of free market reforms known as Đổi Mới Renovation that carefully managed the transition from a planned economy to a socialist oriented market economy Although the authority of the state remained unchallenged under Đổi Mới the government encouraged private ownership of farms and factories economic deregulation and foreign investment while maintaining control over strategic industries Subsequently Vietnam s economy achieved strong growth in agricultural and industrial production construction exports and foreign investment although these reforms also resulted in a rise in income inequality and gender disparities In 2021 General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong was re elected for his third term in office meaning he was Vietnam s most powerful leader in decades He died 19 July 2024 and was followed by To Lam as General Secretary of the Communist Party GeographyNature attractions in Vietnam clockwise from top Hạ Long Bay Yến River and Bản Giốc Waterfalls Vietnam is located on the eastern Indochinese Peninsula between the latitudes 8 and 24 N and the longitudes 102 and 110 E It covers a total area of 331 210 km2 127 881 sq mi or 331 699 km2 128 070 sq mi The combined length of the country s land boundaries is 4 639 km 2 883 mi and its coastline is 3 444 km 2 140 mi long At its narrowest point in the central Quảng Binh province the country is as little as 50 kilometres 31 mi across though it widens to around 600 kilometres 370 mi in the north Vietnam s land is mostly hilly and densely forested with level land covering no more than 20 Mountains account for 40 of the country s land area and tropical forests cover around 42 The Red River Delta in the north a flat roughly triangular region covering 15 000 km2 5 792 sq mi is smaller but more intensely developed and more densely populated than the Mekong River Delta in the south Once an inlet of the Gulf of Tonkin it has been filled in over the millennia by riverine alluvial deposits The delta covering about 40 000 km2 15 444 sq mi is a low level plain no more than 3 metres 9 8 ft above sea level at any point It is criss crossed by a maze of rivers and canals which carry so much sediment that the delta advances 60 to 80 metres 196 9 to 262 5 ft into the sea every year The exclusive economic zone of Vietnam covers 417 663 km2 161 261 sq mi in the South China Sea Hoang Lien Sơn mountain range the range that includes Fansipan which is the highest summit on the Indochinese Peninsula Southern Vietnam is divided into coastal lowlands the mountains of the Annamite Range and extensive forests Comprising five relatively flat plateaus of basalt soil the highlands account for 16 of the country s arable land and 22 of its total forested land The soil in much of the southern part of Vietnam is relatively low in nutrients as a result of intense cultivation Several minor earthquakes have been recorded The northern part of the country consists mostly of highlands and the Red River Delta Fansipan also known as Phan Xi Păng which is located in Lao Cai province is the highest mountain in Vietnam standing 3 143 m 10 312 ft high From north to south Vietnam the country also has numerous islands Phu Quốc is the largest The Hang Sơn Đoong Cave is considered the largest known cave passage in the world since its discovery in 2009 The Ba Bể Lake and Mekong River are the largest lake and longest river in the country Climate Koppen climate classification map of VietnamNha Trang a popular beach destination has a tropical savanna climate Due to differences in latitude and the marked variety in topographical relief Vietnam s climate tends to vary considerably for each region During the winter or dry season extending roughly from November to April the monsoon winds usually blow from the northeast along the Chinese coast and across the Gulf of Tonkin picking up considerable moisture The average annual temperature is generally higher in the plains than in the mountains especially in southern Vietnam compared to the north Temperatures vary less in the southern plains around Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta ranging from between 21 and 35 C 70 and 95 F over the year In Hanoi and the surrounding areas of the Red River Delta the temperatures are much lower between 15 and 33 C 59 and 91 F Seasonal variations in the mountains plateaus and the northernmost areas are much more dramatic with temperatures varying from 3 C 37 F in December and January to 37 C 99 F in July and August During winter snow occasionally falls over the highest peaks of the far northern mountains near the Chinese border Vietnam receives high rates of precipitation in the form of rainfall with an average amount from 1 500 to 2 000 mm 60 to 80 in during the monsoon seasons this often causes flooding especially in the cities with poor drainage systems The country is also affected by tropical depressions tropical storms and typhoons Vietnam is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change with 55 of its population living in low elevation coastal areas Biodiversity Native species in Vietnam clockwise from top right crested argus a peafowl red shanked douc Indochinese leopard and saola As the country is located within the Indomalayan realm Vietnam is one of twenty five countries considered to possess a uniquely high level of biodiversity This was noted in the country s National Environmental Condition Report in 2005 It is ranked 16th worldwide in biological diversity being home to approximately 16 of the world s species 15 986 species of flora have been identified in the country of which 10 are endemic Vietnam s fauna includes 307 nematode species 200 oligochaeta 145 acarina 113 springtails 7 750 insects 260 reptiles and 120 amphibians There are 840 birds and 310 mammals are found in Vietnam of which 100 birds and 78 mammals are endemic Vietnam has two World Natural Heritage Sites the Hạ Long Bay and Phong Nha Kẻ Bang National Park together with nine biosphere reserves including Cần Giờ Mangrove Forest Cat Tien Cat Ba Kien Giang the Red River Delta Mekong Delta Western Nghệ An Ca Mau and Cu Lao Cham Marine Park Vietnam is also home to 1 438 species of freshwater microalgae constituting 9 6 of all microalgae species as well as 794 aquatic invertebrates and 2 458 species of sea fish In recent years 13 genera 222 species and 30 taxa of flora have been newly described in Vietnam Six new mammal species including the saola giant muntjac and Tonkin snub nosed monkey have also been discovered along with one new bird species the endangered Edwards s pheasant In the late 1980s a small population of Javan rhinoceros was found in Cat Tien National Park However the last individual of the species in Vietnam was reportedly shot in 2010 In agricultural genetic diversity Vietnam is one of the world s twelve original cultivar centres The Vietnam National Cultivar Gene Bank preserves 12 300 cultivars of 115 species The Vietnamese government spent US 49 07 million on the preservation of biodiversity in 2004 alone and has established 126 conservation areas including 30 national parks Sa Pa mountain hills with agricultural activities In Vietnam wildlife poaching has become a major concern In 2000 a non governmental organisation NGO called was founded to instill in the population the importance of wildlife conservation in the country In the years that followed another NGO called GreenViet was formed by Vietnamese youngsters for the enforcement of wildlife protection Through collaboration between the NGOs and local authorities many local poaching syndicates were crippled by their leaders arrests A study released in 2018 revealed Vietnam is a destination for the illegal export of rhinoceros horns from South Africa due to the demand for them as a medicine and a status symbol The main environmental concern that persists in Vietnam today is the legacy of the use of the chemical herbicide Agent Orange which continues to cause birth defects and many health problems in the Vietnamese population In the southern and central areas affected most by the chemical s use during the Vietnam War nearly 4 8 million Vietnamese people have been exposed to it and suffered from its effects In 2012 approximately 50 years after the war the US began a US 43 million joint clean up project in the former chemical storage areas in Vietnam to take place in stages Following the completion of the first phase in Đa Nẵng in late 2017 the US announced its commitment to clean other sites especially in the heavily impacted site of Bien Hoa The Vietnamese government spends over VNĐ10 trillion each year 431 1 million for monthly allowances and the physical rehabilitation of victims of the chemicals In 2018 the Japanese engineering group Shimizu Corporation working with Vietnamese military built a plant for the treatment of soil polluted by Agent Orange Plant construction costs were funded by the company itself One of the long term plans to restore southern Vietnam s damaged ecosystems is through the use of reforestation efforts The Vietnamese government began doing this at the end of the war It started by replanting mangrove forests in the Mekong Delta regions and in Cần Giờ outside Hồ Chi Minh City where mangroves are important to ease though not eliminate flood conditions during monsoon seasons The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 5 35 10 ranking it 104th globally out of 172 countries Apart from herbicide problems arsenic in the ground water in the Mekong and Red River Deltas has also become a major concern And most notoriously unexploded ordnances UXO pose dangers to humans and wildlife another bitter legacy from the long wars As part of the continuous campaign to demine remove UXOs several international bomb removal agencies from the United Kingdom Denmark South Korea and the US have been providing assistance The Vietnam government spends over VNĐ1 trillion 44 million annually on demining operations and additional hundreds of billions of đồng for treatment assistance rehabilitation vocational training and resettlement of the victims of UXOs Panoramic view of Hạ Long BayGovernment and politicsVietnam is a unitary Marxist Leninist one party socialist republic one of the two communist states the other being Laos in Southeast Asia Although Vietnam remains officially committed to socialism as its defining creed its economic policies have grown increasingly capitalist with The Economist characterising its leadership as ardently capitalist communists Under the constitution the Communist Party of Vietnam CPV asserts their role in all branches of the country s politics and society The president is the elected head of state and the commander in chief of the military serving as the chairman of the Council of Supreme Defence and Security and holds the second highest office in Vietnam as well as performing executive functions and state appointments and setting policy To Lam General Secretary of the Communist Party of VietnamLương Cường PresidentPhạm Minh Chinh Prime MinisterTrần Thanh Mẫn Chairman of the National Assembly The general secretary of the CPV performs numerous key administrative functions controlling the party s national organisation The prime minister is the head of government presiding over a council of ministers composed of five deputy prime ministers and the heads of 26 ministries and commissions Only political organisations affiliated with or endorsed by the CPV are permitted to contest elections in Vietnam These include the Vietnamese Fatherland Front and worker and trade unionist parties The National Assembly of Vietnam building in Hanoi The National Assembly of Vietnam is the unicameral state legislature composed of 500 members Headed by a chairman it is superior to both the executive and judicial branches with all government ministers being appointed from members of the National Assembly The Supreme People s Court of Vietnam headed by a chief justice is the country s highest court of appeal though it is also answerable to the National Assembly Beneath the Supreme People s Court stand the provincial municipal courts and many local courts Military courts possess special jurisdiction in matters of state security Vietnam maintains the death penalty for numerous offences In 2023 a three person collective leadership was responsible for governing Vietnam President Vo Văn Thưởng Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chinh since 2021 and the most powerful leader Nguyễn Phu Trọng since 2011 as the Communist Party of Vietnam s General Secretary On 22 May 2024 To Lam who previously served as the Minister of Public Security was voted as the president of Vietnam by the National Assembly after Vo Văn Thưởng resigned on the same year due to corruption charges against him On 3 August 2024 To Lam who is also serving as the president was elected by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam as the general secretary following the death of Nguyễn Phu Trọng on 19 July 2024 On 21 October 2024 the National Assembly appointed army general Lương Cường as president succeeding To Lam Administrative divisions Vietnam is divided into 57 provinces Vietnamese Tỉnh chữ Han 省 There are also six municipalities thanh phố trực thuộc trung ương which are administratively on the same level as provinces 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 Bạch Long Vĩ Island Phu Quy Con Đảo Phu Quốc Thổ Chu Islands Paracel Islands Spratly Islands Provinces of Vietnam Island areas Bạch Long Vĩ Island Haiphong Municipality 3 Paracel Islands Hoang Sa district Đa Nẵng Municipality 4 Phu Quy Islands Phu Quy district Binh Thuận province 46 Phu Quốc Island Phu Quốc City Kien Giang province 58 Thổ Chu Islands Phu Quốc City Kien Giang province 58 Con Đảo Islands Con Đảo district Ba Rịa Vũng Tau province 51 Spratly Islands Trường Sa district Khanh Hoa province 43 Northwest 7 Điện Bien 23 Hoa Binh 8 Lai Chau 9 Lao Cai 17 Sơn La 13 Yen Bai Northeast 21 Bắc Giang 15 Bắc Kạn 11 Cao Bằng 10 Ha Giang 12 Lạng Sơn 18 Phu Thọ 22 Quảng Ninh 16 Thai Nguyen 14 Tuyen Quang Red River Delta 1 Ha Nội municipality 3 Hải Phong municipality 20 Bắc Ninh 27 Ha Nam 25 Hải Dương 24 Hưng Yen 28 Nam Định 29 Ninh Binh 26 Thai Binh 19 Vĩnh PhucNorth Central Coast 6 Huế municipality 32 Ha Tĩnh 31 Nghệ An 33 Quảng Binh 34 Quảng Trị 30 Thanh Hoa Central Highlands 41 Đắk Lắk 42 Đắk Nong 38 Gia Lai 37 Kon Tum 44 Lam Đồng South Central Coast 4 Đa Nẵng municipality 39 Binh Định 46 Binh Thuận 43 Khanh Hoa 45 Ninh Thuận 40 Phu Yen 35 Quảng Nam 36 Quảng NgaiSoutheast 2 Hồ Chi Minh City municipality 51 Ba Rịa Vũng Tau 49 Binh Dương 47 Binh Phước 50 Đồng Nai 48 Tay Ninh Mekong Delta 5 Cần Thơ municipality 56 An Giang 62 Bạc Lieu 55 Bến Tre 63 Ca Mau 53 Đồng Thap 59 Hậu Giang 58 Kien Giang 52 Long An 61 Soc Trăng 54 Tiền Giang 60 Tra Vinh 57 Vĩnh Long A Communist Party poster in Hanoi Provinces are subdivided into provincial municipalities thanh phố trực thuộc tỉnh city under province townships thị xa and counties huyện which are in turn subdivided into towns thị trấn or communes xa Centrally controlled municipalities are subdivided into districts quận and counties which are further subdivided into wards phường Foreign relations President Trần Đại Quang with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 19 November 2016US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accompanies US President Donald Trump to a commercial deal signing ceremony with Vietnamese President on 12 November 2017 Throughout its history Vietnam s main foreign relationship has been with various Chinese dynasties Following the partition of Vietnam in 1954 North Vietnam maintained relations with the Eastern Bloc South Vietnam maintained relations with the Western Bloc Despite these differences Vietnam s sovereign principles and insistence on cultural independence have been laid down in numerous documents over the centuries before its independence These include the 11th century patriotic poem Nam quốc sơn ha and the 1428 proclamation of independence Binh Ngo đại cao Though China and Vietnam are now formally at peace significant territorial tensions remain between the two countries over the South China Sea Vietnam holds membership in 63 international organisations including the United Nations UN Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN Non Aligned Movement NAM International Organisation of the Francophonie La Francophonie and World Trade Organization WTO It also maintains relations with over 650 non governmental organisations As of 2010 Vietnam had established diplomatic relations with 178 countries Vietnam s current foreign policy is to consistently implement a policy of independence self reliance peace co operation and development as well openness diversification multilateralisation with international relations The country declares itself a friend and partner of all countries in the international community regardless of their political affiliation by actively taking part in international and regional cooperative development projects Since the 1990s Vietnam has taken several key steps to restore diplomatic ties with capitalist Western countries It already had relations with communist Western countries in the decades prior Relations with the United States began improving in August 1995 with both states upgrading their liaison offices to embassy status As diplomatic ties between the two governments grew the United States opened a consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City while Vietnam opened its consulate in San Francisco Full diplomatic relations were also restored with New Zealand which opened its embassy in Hanoi in 1995 Vietnam established an embassy in Wellington in 2003 President of the United States Bill Clinton made a historic visit to Vietnam in November 2000 He was the first U S leader ever to officially visit Hanoi and the first to visit Vietnam since U S troops withdrew from the country in 1975 Pakistan also reopened its embassy in Hanoi in October 2000 with Vietnam reopening its embassy in Islamabad in December 2005 and trade office in Karachi in November 2005 In May 2016 US President Barack Obama further normalised relations with Vietnam after he announced the lifting of an arms embargo on sales of lethal arms to Vietnam Despite their historical past today Vietnam is considered to be a potential ally of the United States especially in the geopolitical context of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea and in containment of Chinese expansionism Military The Vietnam People s Armed Forces consists of the Vietnam People s Army VPA the Vietnam People s Public Security and the Vietnam Self Defence Militia The VPA is the official name for the active military services of Vietnam and is subdivided into the Vietnam People s Ground Forces the Vietnam People s Navy the Vietnam People s Air Force the Vietnam Border Guard and the Vietnam Coast Guard The VPA has an active manpower of around 450 000 but its total strength including paramilitary forces may be as high as 5 000 000 In 2015 Vietnam s military expenditure totalled approximately US 4 4 billion equivalent to around 8 of its total government spending Joint military exercises and war games have been held with Brunei India Japan Laos Russia Singapore and the US In 2017 Vietnam signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Human rights and sociopolitical issues The government of Vietnam reduced from a totalitarian system to an authoritarian one carries many legacies of its past the freedom of assembly association expression press and religion as well as civil society activism being tightly restricted Under the current constitution the CPV is the only party allowed to rule the operation of all other political parties being outlawed Other human rights issues concern freedom of association freedom of speech freedom of religion and freedom of the press In 2009 Vietnamese lawyer Le Cong Định was arrested and charged with the capital crime of subversion several of his associates were also arrested Amnesty International described him and his arrested associates as prisoners of conscience Vietnam has also suffered from human trafficking and related issues EconomyHistorical GDP per capita development of VietnamShare of world GDP PPP Year Share1980 0 21 1990 0 28 2000 0 39 2010 0 52 2020 0 80 Throughout the history of Vietnam its economy has been based largely on agriculture primarily wet rice cultivation Bauxite an important material in the production of aluminium is mined in central Vietnam Since reunification the country s economy is shaped primarily by the CPV through Five Year Plans decided upon at the plenary sessions of the Central Committee and national congresses The collectivisation of farms factories and capital goods was carried out as part of the establishment of central planning with millions of people working for state enterprises Under strict state control Vietnam s economy continued to be plagued by inefficiency corruption in state owned enterprises poor quality and underproduction With the decline in economic aid from its main trading partner the Soviet Union following the erosion of the Eastern bloc in the late 1980s and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union as well as the negative impacts of the post war trade embargo imposed by the United States Vietnam began to liberalise its trade by devaluing its exchange rate to increase exports and embarked on a policy of economic development Vietnam s tallest skyscraper the Landmark 81 located in Binh Thạnh district Ho Chi Minh City In 1986 the Sixth National Congress of the CPV introduced socialist oriented market economic reforms as part of the Đổi Mới reform programme Private ownership began to be encouraged in industry commerce and agriculture and state enterprises were restructured to operate under market constraints This led to the five year economic plans being replaced by the socialist oriented market mechanism As a result of these reforms Vietnam achieved approximately 8 annual gross domestic product GDP growth between 1990 and 1997 The United States ended its economic embargo against Vietnam in early 1994 Although the 1997 Asian financial crisis caused an economic slowdown to 4 5 growth per year its economy began to recover in 1999 and grew at around 7 per year from 2000 to 2005 one of the fastest in the world On 11 January 2007 Vietnam became the 150th member of the WTO World Trade Organization According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam GSO growth remained strong despite the late 2000s global recession holding at 6 8 in 2010 Vietnam s year on year inflation rate reached 11 8 in December 2010 and the currency the Vietnamese đồng was devalued three times Deep poverty defined as the percentage of the population living on less than 1 per day has declined significantly in Vietnam and the relative poverty rate is now less than that of China India and the Philippines This decline can be attributed to equitable economic policies aimed at improving living standards and preventing the rise of inequality These policies have included egalitarian land distribution during the initial stages of the Đổi Mới programme investment in poorer remote areas and subsidising of education and healthcare Since the early 2000s Vietnam has applied sequenced trade liberalisation a two track approach opening some sectors of the economy to international markets Manufacturing information technology and high tech industries now form a large and fast growing part of the national economy Although Vietnam is a relative newcomer to the oil industry it is the third largest oil producer in Southeast Asia with a total 2011 output of 318 000 barrels per day 50 600 m3 d In 2010 Vietnam was ranked as the eighth largest crude petroleum producer in the Asia and Pacific region The US bought the biggest share of Vietnam s exports while goods from China were the most popular Vietnamese import Based on findings by the International Monetary Fund IMF in 2022 the unemployment rate in Vietnam was 2 3 the nominal GDP US 406 452 billion and a nominal GDP per capita 4 086 Besides the primary sector economy tourism has contributed significantly to Vietnam s economic growth with 7 94 million foreign visitors recorded in 2015 Agriculture Terraced rice fields in Sa Pa As a result of several land reform measures Vietnam has become a major exporter of agricultural products It is now the world s largest producer of cashew nuts with a one third global share the largest producer of black pepper accounting for one third of the world s market and the second largest rice exporter in the world after Thailand since the 1990s Subsequently Vietnam is also the world s second largest exporter of coffee The country has the highest proportion of land use for permanent crops together with other states in the Greater Mekong Subregion Other primary exports include tea rubber and fishery products Agriculture s share of Vietnam s GDP has fallen in recent decades declining from 42 in 1989 to 20 in 2006 as production in other sectors of the economy has risen Seafood The overall fisheries production of Vietnam from capture fisheries and aquaculture was 5 6 million MT in 2011 and 6 7 million MT in 2016 The output of Vietnam s fisheries sector has seen strong growth which could be attributed to the continued expansion of the aquaculture sub sector Science and technology A Vietnamese made TOPIO 3 0 humanoid ping pong playing robot displayed during the 2009 International Robot Exhibition IREX in Tokyo In 2010 Vietnam s total state spending on science and technology amounted to roughly 0 45 of its GDP Vietnamese scientists have made many significant contributions in various fields of study most notably in mathematics Hoang Tụy pioneered the applied mathematics field of global optimisation in the 20th century while Ngo Bảo Chau won the 2010 Fields Medal for his proof of fundamental lemma in the theory of automorphic forms Since the establishment of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology VAST by the government in 1975 the country is working to develop its first national space flight programme especially after the completion of the infrastructure at the Vietnam Space Centre VSC in 2018 Vietnam has also made significant advances in the development of robots such as the TOPIO humanoid model One of Vietnam s main messaging apps Zalo was developed by Vương Quang Khải a Vietnamese hacker who later worked with the country s largest information technology service company the FPT Group Vietnamese science students working on an experiment in their university lab According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics Vietnam devoted 0 19 of its GDP to science research and development in 2011 Vietnam was ranked 44th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024 it has increased its ranking considerably since 2012 where it was ranked 76th Between 2005 and 2014 the number of Vietnamese scientific publications recorded in Thomson Reuters Web of Science increased at a rate well above the average for Southeast Asia albeit from a modest starting point Publications focus mainly on life sciences 22 physics 13 and engineering 13 which is consistent with recent advances in the production of diagnostic equipment and shipbuilding Tourism Hội An a UNESCO World Heritage Site is a major tourist destination Photo is Japanese Bridge Tourism is an important element of economic activity in the nation contributing 7 5 of the total GDP Vietnam hosted roughly 13 million tourists in 2017 an increase of 29 1 over the previous year making it one of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the world The vast majority of the tourists in the country some 9 7 million came from Asia namely China 4 million South Korea 2 6 million and Japan 798 119 Vietnam also attracts large numbers of visitors from Europe with almost 1 9 million visitors in 2017 most European visitors came from Russia 574 164 followed by the United Kingdom 283 537 France 255 396 and Germany 199 872 Other significant international arrivals by nationality include the United States 614 117 and Australia 370 438 The most visited destinations in Vietnam are the largest city Ho Chi Minh City with over 5 8 million international arrivals followed by Hanoi with 4 6 million and Hạ Long including Hạ Long Bay with 4 4 million arrivals All three are ranked in the top 100 most visited cities in the world Vietnam is home to eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites In 2018 Travel Leisure ranked Hội An as one of the world s top 15 best destinations to visit Transport Much of Vietnam s modern transportation network can trace its roots to the French colonial era when it was used to facilitate the transportation of raw materials to its main ports It was extensively expanded and modernised following the partition of Vietnam Vietnam s road system includes national roads administered at the central level provincial roads managed at the provincial level district roads managed at the district level urban roads managed by cities and towns and commune roads managed at the commune level In 2010 Vietnam s road system had a total length of about 188 744 kilometres 117 280 mi of which 93 535 kilometres 58 120 mi are asphalt roads comprising national provincial and district roads The length of the national road system is about 15 370 kilometres 9 550 mi with 15 085 kilometres 9 373 mi of its length paved The provincial road system has around 27 976 kilometres 17 383 mi of paved roads while 50 474 kilometres 31 363 mi district roads are paved HCMC LT DG section of the North South ExpresswayTan Son Nhat International Airport is the busiest airport in the country Bicycles motorcycles and motor scooters remain the most popular forms of road transport in the country a legacy of the French though the number of privately owned cars has been increasing in recent years Public buses operated by private companies are the main mode of long distance travel for much of the population Traffic collisions remain the major safety issue of Vietnamese transportation with an average of 30 people losing their lives daily Traffic congestion is a growing problem in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City especially with the growth of individual car ownership Vietnam s primary cross country rail service is the Reunification Express from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi a distance of nearly 1 726 kilometres 1 072 mi From Hanoi railway lines branch out to the northeast north and west the eastbound line runs from Hanoi to Hạ Long Bay the northbound line from Hanoi to Thai Nguyen and the northeast line from Hanoi to Lao Cai In 2009 Vietnam and Japan signed a deal to build a shinkansen bullet train using Japanese technology Vietnamese engineers were sent to Japan to receive training in the operation and maintenance of high speed trains The planned railway will be a 1 545 kilometres 960 mi long express route serving a total of 23 stations including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with 70 of its route running on bridges and through tunnels The trains will travel at a maximum speed of 350 kilometres 220 mi per hour Plans for the high speed rail line however have been postponed after the Vietnamese government decided to prioritise the development of both the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City metros and expand road networks instead The port of Hai Phong is one of the largest and busiest container ports in Vietnam Vietnam operates 20 major civil airports including three international gateways Noi Bai in Hanoi Da Nang International Airport in Đa Nẵng and Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City Tan Son Nhat is the country s largest airport handling the majority of international passenger traffic According to a government approved plan Vietnam will have another seven international airports by 2025 including Vinh International Airport Phu Bai International Airport Cam Ranh International Airport Phu Quoc International Airport Cat Bi International Airport Can Tho International Airport and Long Thanh International Airport The planned Long Thanh International Airport will have an annual service capacity of 100 million passengers once it becomes fully operational in 2025 Vietnam Airlines the state owned national airline maintains a fleet of 86 passenger aircraft and aims to operate 170 by 2020 Several private airlines also operate in Vietnam including Air Mekong Bamboo Airways Jetstar Pacific Airlines VASCO and VietJet Air As a coastal country Vietnam has many major sea ports including Cam Ranh Đa Nẵng Hải Phong Ho Chi Minh City Hạ Long Qui Nhơn Vũng Tau Cửa Lo and Nha Trang Further inland the country s extensive network of rivers plays a key role in rural transportation with over 47 130 kilometres 29 290 mi of navigable waterways carrying ferries barges and water taxis Energy Sơn La Dam in northern Vietnam the largest hydroelectric dam in Southeast Asia Vietnam s energy sector is dominated largely by the state controlled Vietnam Electricity Group EVN As of 2017 EVN made up about 61 4 of the country s power generation system with a total power capacity of 25 884 MW Other energy sources are PetroVietnam 4 435 MW Vinacomin 1 785 MW and 10 031 MW from build operate transfer BOT investors Most of Vietnam s power is generated by either hydropower or fossil fuel power such as coal oil and gas while diesel small hydropower and renewable energy supplies the remainder The Vietnamese government had planned to develop a nuclear reactor as the path to establish another source for electricity from nuclear power The plan was abandoned in late 2016 when a majority of the National Assembly voted to oppose the project due to widespread public concern over radioactive contamination The household gas sector in Vietnam is dominated by PetroVietnam which controls nearly 70 of the country s domestic market for liquefied petroleum gas LPG Since 2011 the company also operates five renewable energy power plants including the Nhơn Trạch 2 Thermal Power Plant 750 MW Phu Quy Wind Power Plant 6 MW Hủa Na Hydro power Plant 180 MW Dakdrinh Hydro power Plant 125 MW and Vũng Ang 1 Thermal Power Plant 1 200 MW According to statistics from BP Vietnam is listed among the 52 countries that have proven crude oil reserves In 2015 the reserve was approximately 4 4 billion barrels ranking Vietnam first place in Southeast Asia while the proven gas reserves were about 0 6 trillion cubic metres tcm and ranking it third in Southeast Asia after Indonesia and Malaysia Telecommunication Telecommunications services in Vietnam are wholly provided by the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications General Corporation now the VNPT Group which is a state owned company The VNPT retained its monopoly until 1986 The telecom sector was reformed in 1995 when the Vietnamese government began to implement a competitive policy with the creation of two domestic telecommunication companies the Military Electronic and Telecommunication Company Viettel which is wholly owned by the Vietnamese Ministry of Defence and the Saigon Post and Telecommunication Company SPT or SaigonPostel with 18 of it owned by VNPT VNPT s monopoly was finally ended by the government in 2003 with the issuance of a decree By 2012 the top three telecom operators in Vietnam were Viettel Vinaphone and MobiFone The remaining companies included EVNTelecom Vietnammobile and S Fone With the shift towards a more market orientated economy Vietnam s telecommunications market is continuously being reformed to attract foreign investment which includes the supply of services and the establishment of nationwide telecom infrastructure Water supply and sanitation In rural areas of Vietnam piped water systems are operated by a wide variety of institutions including a national organisation people committees local government community groups co operatives and private companies Vietnam has 2 360 rivers with an average annual discharge of 310 billion m3 The rainy season accounts for 70 of the year s discharge Most of the country s urban water supply systems have been developed without proper management within the last 10 years Based on a 2008 survey by the Vietnam Water Supply and Sewerage Association VWSA existing water production capacity exceeded demand but service coverage is still sparse Most of the clean water supply infrastructure is not widely developed It is only available to a small proportion of the population with about one third of 727 district towns having some form of piped water supply There is also concern over the safety of existing water resources for urban and rural water supply systems Most industrial factories release their untreated wastewater directly into the water sources Where the government does not take measures to address the issue most domestic wastewater is discharged untreated back into the environment and pollutes the surface water In recent years there have been some efforts and collaboration between local and foreign universities to develop access to safe water in the country by introducing water filtration systems There is a growing concern among local populations over the serious public health issues associated with water contamination caused by pollution as well as the high levels of arsenic in groundwater sources The government of Netherlands has been providing aid focusing its investments mainly on water related sectors including water treatment projects Regarding sanitation 78 of Vietnam s population has access to improved sanitation 94 of the urban population and 70 of the rural population However there are still about 21 million people in the country lacking access to improved sanitation according to a survey conducted in 2015 In 2018 the construction ministry said the country s water supply and drainage industry had been applying hi tech methods and information technology IT to sanitation issues but faced problems like limited funding climate change and pollution The health ministry has also announced that water inspection units will be established nationwide beginning in June 2019 Inspections are to be conducted without notice since there have been many cases involving health issues caused by poor or polluted water supplies as well unhygienic conditions reported every year DemographicsVietnam population pyramid in 2019Ethnic groups of Vietnam Vietnamese 85 32 Other 14 68 0 00 As of 2021 update the population of Vietnam stands at approximately 97 5 million people The population had grown significantly from the 1979 census which showed the total population of reunified Vietnam to be 52 7 million According to the 2019 census the country s population was 96 208 984 Based on the 2019 census 65 6 of the Vietnamese population live in rural areas while only 34 4 live in urban areas The average growth rate of the urban population has recently increased which is attributed mainly to migration and rapid urbanisation The dominant Viet or Kinh ethnic group constitute 82 085 826 people or 85 32 of the population Most of their population is concentrated in the country s alluvial deltas and coastal plains As a majority ethnic group the Kinh possess significant political and economic influence over the country Despite this Vietnam is also home to various ethnic groups of which 54 are officially recognised including the Hmong Dao Tay Thai and Nung Many ethnic minorities such as the Muong who are closely related to the Kinh dwell in the highlands which cover two thirds of Vietnam s territory Since the partition of Vietnam the population of the Central Highlands was almost exclusively Degar including more than 40 tribal groups however the South Vietnamese government at the time enacted a programme of resettling Kinh in indigenous areas The Hoa ethnic Chinese and Khmer Krom people are mainly lowlanders Throughout Vietnam s history many Chinese people largely from South China migrated to the country as administrators merchants and even refugees Since the reunification in 1976 an increase of communist policies nationwide resulted in the nationalisation and confiscation of property especially from the Hoa in the south and the wealthy in cities This led many of them to leave Vietnam Urbanisation District 1 Ho Chi Minh City The number of people who live in urbanised areas in 2019 is 33 122 548 people with the urbanisation rate at 34 4 Since 1986 Vietnam s urbanisation rates have surged rapidly after the Vietnamese government implemented the Đổi Mới economic programme changing the system into a socialist one and liberalising property rights As a result Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City the two major cities in the Red River Delta and Southeast regions respectively increased their share of the total urban population from 8 5 and 24 9 to 15 9 and 31 respectively The Vietnamese government through its construction ministry forecasts the country will have a 45 urbanisation rate by 2020 although it was confirmed to only be 34 4 according to the 2019 census Urbanisation is said to have a positive correlation with economic growth Any country with higher urbanisation rates has a higher GDP growth rate Furthermore the urbanisation movement in Vietnam is mainly between the rural areas and the country s Southeast region Ho Chi Minh City has received a large number of migrants due mainly to better weather and economic opportunities A study also shows that rural to urban area migrants have a higher standard of living than both non migrants in rural areas and non migrants in urban areas This results in changes to economic structures In 1985 agriculture made up 37 2 of Vietnam s GDP in 2008 that number had declined to 18 5 In 1985 industry made up only 26 2 of Vietnam s GDP by 2008 that number had increased to 43 2 Urbanisation also helps to improve basic services which increase people s standards of living Access to electricity grew from 14 of total households with electricity in 1993 to above 96 in 2009 In terms of access to fresh water data from 65 utility companies shows that only 12 of households in the area covered by them had access to the water network in 2002 by 2007 more than 70 of the population was connected Though urbanisation has many benefits it has some drawbacks since it creates more traffic and air and water pollution Many Vietnamese use mopeds for transportation since they are relatively cheap and easy to operate Their large numbers have been known to cause traffic congestion and air pollution in Vietnam In the capital city alone the number of mopeds increased from 0 5 million in 2001 to 4 7 million in 2013 With rapid development factories have sprung up which indirectly pollute the air and water for example in the 2016 Vietnam marine life disaster The government is intervening and attempting solutions to decrease air pollution by decreasing the number of motorcycles while increasing public transportation It has introduced more regulations for waste handling The amount of solid waste generated in urban areas of Vietnam has increased by more than 200 from 2003 to 2008 Industrial solid waste accounted for 181 of that increase One of the government s efforts includes attempting to promote campaigns that encourage locals to sort household waste since waste sorting is still not practised by most of Vietnamese society vte Largest cities and municipalities in Vietnam Source 2019 Vietnamese census National AssemblyRank Name Province Pop Rank Name Province Pop Ho Chi Minh City Hanoi 1 Ho Chi Minh City Municipality 8 993 082 11 Vinh Nghệ An 473 275 Haiphong Cần Thơ2 Hanoi Municipality 8 053 663 12 Thanh Hoa Thanh Hoa 436 8333 Haiphong Municipality 2 028 514 13 Nha Trang Khanh Hoa 422 6014 Cần Thơ Municipality 1 235 171 14 Buon Ma Thuột Đắk Lắk 375 5905 Da Nang Municipality 1 134 310 15 Tan Uyen Binh Dương 370 5126 Huế Municipality 1 128 620 16 Vũng Tau Ba Rịa Vũng Tau 357 1247 Bien Hoa Đồng Nai 1 055 414 17 Thai Nguyen Thai Nguyen 340 4038 Thủ Đức Ho Chi Minh City 1 013 795 18 Thủy Nguyen Haiphong 333 8109 Thuận An Binh Dương 596 227 19 Bắc Giang Bắc Giang 326 35410 Dĩ An Binh Dương 474 681 20 Hạ Long Quảng Ninh 322 710Some cities were established or expanded after the 2019 census was conducted including Thủ Đức Thuận An Huế Dĩ An Vinh Tan Uyen Thanh Hoa Thủy Nguyen Bắc Giang Hạ Long Excluding converted population including temporary residents Languages The national language of the country is Vietnamese a tonal Austroasiatic language Mon Khmer which is spoken by the majority of the population Vietnam s minority groups speak a variety of languages including Tay Mường Cham Khmer Chinese Nung and Hmong The Montagnard peoples of the Central Highlands also speak a number of distinct languages some belonging to the Austroasiatic and others to the Malayo Polynesian language families In recent years a number of sign languages have developed in the major cities Vietnamese calligraphy in Latin alphabet The French language a legacy of colonial rule is spoken by many educated Vietnamese as a second language especially among those educated in the former South Vietnam where it was a principal language in administration education and commerce Vietnam remains a full member of the International Organisation of the Francophonie La Francophonie and education has revived some interest in the language Russian and to a lesser extent German Czech and Polish are known among some northern Vietnamese whose families had ties with the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War With improved relations with Western countries and recent reforms in Vietnamese administration English has been increasingly used as a second language and the study of English is now obligatory in most schools either alongside or in place of French The popularity of Japanese Korean and Mandarin Chinese have also grown as the country s ties with other East Asian nations have strengthened Third graders can choose one of seven languages English Russian French Chinese Japanese Korean German as their first foreign language In Vietnam s high school graduation examinations students can take their foreign language exam in one of the above mentioned languages Religion Religion in Vietnam 2019 Vietnamese folk religion or no religion 86 32 Buddhism 4 79 Catholicism 6 1 Protestantism 1 Hoahaoism 1 02 Caodaism 0 58 Islam 0 07 Others 0 12 Under Article 70 of the 1992 Constitution of Vietnam all citizens enjoy freedom of belief and religion All religions are equal before the law and each place of worship is protected under Vietnamese state law Religious beliefs cannot be misused to undermine state law and policies According to a 2007 survey 81 of Vietnamese people did not believe in a god Based on government findings in 2009 the number of religious people increased by 932 000 The official statistics presented by the Vietnamese government to the United Nations special rapporteur in 2014 indicate the overall number of followers of recognised religions is about 24 million of a total population of almost 90 million According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam in 2019 Buddhists account for 4 79 of the total population Catholics 6 1 Protestants 1 0 Hoahao Buddhists 1 02 and Caodaism followers 0 58 Other religions includes Islam Bahaʼis and Hinduism representing less than 0 2 of the population The majority of Vietnamese do not follow any organised religion though many of them observe some form of Vietnamese folk religion Confucianism as a system of social and ethical philosophy still has certain influences in modern Vietnam Mahayana is the dominant branch of Buddhism while Theravada is practised mostly by the Khmer minority About 8 to 9 of the population is Christian made up of Roman Catholics and Protestants Catholicism was introduced to Vietnam in the 16th century and was firmly established by Jesuits missionaries mainly Portuguese and Italian in the 17th centuries from nearby Portuguese Macau French missionaries from the Paris Foreign Missions Society together with Spanish missionaries from the Dominican Order of the neighbouring Spanish East Indies actively sought converts in the 18th 19th and first half of the 20th century A significant number of Vietnamese people especially in the South are also adherents of two indigenous religions of syncretic Caodaism and quasi Buddhist Hoahaoism Protestantism was only recently spread by American and Canadian missionaries in the 20th century the largest Protestant denomination is the Around 770 000 of the country s Protestants are members of ethnic minorities particularly the highland Montagnards and Hmong people Although it is one of the country s minority religions Protestantism is the fastest growing religion in Vietnam expanding at a rate of 600 in recent decades Several other minority faiths exist in Vietnam these include Bani Sunni and non denominational sections of Islam which is practised primarily among the ethnic Cham minority There are also a few Kinh adherents of Islam other minority adherents of Baha i as well as Hindus among the Cham s Education Vietnam has an extensive state controlled network of schools colleges and universities and a growing number of privately run and partially privatised institutions General education in Vietnam is divided into five categories kindergarten elementary schools middle schools high schools and universities A large number of public schools have been constructed across the country to raise the national literacy rate which stood at 90 in 2008 Most universities are located in major cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with the country s education system continuously undergoing a series of reforms by the government Basic education in the country is relatively free for the poor although some families may still have trouble paying tuition fees for their children without some form of public or private assistance Regardless Vietnam s school enrolment is among the highest in the world The number of colleges and universities increased dramatically in the 2000s from 178 in 2000 to 299 in 2005 In higher education the government provides subsidised loans for students through the national bank although there are deep concerns about access to the loans as well the burden on students to repay them Since 1995 enrolment in higher education has grown tenfold to over 2 2 million with 84 000 lecturers and 419 institutions of higher education A number of foreign universities operate private campuses in Vietnam including Harvard University United States and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Australia The government s strong commitment to education has fostered significant growth but still need to be sustained to retain academics In 2018 a decree on university autonomy allowing them to operate independently without ministerial control is in its final stages of approval The government will continue investing in education especially for the poor to have access to basic education Health Development of life expectancy in Vietnam since 1950 By 2015 97 of the population had access to improved water sources In 2016 Vietnam s national life expectancy stood at 80 9 years for women and 71 5 for men and the infant mortality rate was 17 per 1 000 live births Since the partition North Vietnam has established a public health system that has reached down to the hamlet level After the national reunification in 1975 a nationwide health service was established In the late 1980s the quality of healthcare declined to some degree as a result of budgetary constraints a shift of responsibility to the provinces and the introduction of charges Inadequate funding has also contributed to a shortage of nurses midwives and hospital beds in 2000 Vietnam had only 24 7 hospital beds per 10 000 people before declining to 23 7 in 2005 as stated in the annual report of Vietnamese Health Ministry The controversial use of herbicides as a chemical weapon by the US military during the war left tangible long term impacts upon the Vietnamese people that persist in the country today For instance it led to three million Vietnamese people suffering health problems one million birth defects caused directly by exposure to the chemical and 24 of Vietnam s land being defoliated Since the early 2000s Vietnam has made significant progress in combating malaria The malaria mortality rate fell to about five per cent of its 1990s equivalent by 2005 after the country introduced improved antimalarial drugs and treatment Tuberculosis TB cases however are on the rise TB has become the second most infectious disease in the country after respiratory related illness With an intensified vaccination programme better hygiene and foreign assistance Vietnam hopes to reduce sharply the number of TB cases and new TB infections In 2004 government subsidies covering about 15 of health care expenses That year the United States announced Vietnam would be one of 15 states to receive funding as part of its global AIDS relief plan By the following year Vietnam had diagnosed 101 291 human immunodeficiency virus HIV cases of which 16 528 progressed to acquired immune deficiency syndrome AIDS 9 554 have died The actual number of HIV positive individuals is estimated to be much higher On average between 40 and 50 new infections are reported daily in the country In 2007 0 4 of the population was estimated to be infected with HIV and the figure has remained stable since 2005 More global aid is being delivered through The Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria to fight the spread of the disease in the country In September 2018 the Hanoi People s Committee urged the citizens of the country to stop eating dog and cat meat as it can cause diseases like rabies and leptospirosis More than 1 000 stores in the capital city of Hanoi were found to be selling both meats The decision prompted positive comments among Vietnamese on social media though some noted that the consumption of dog meat will remain an ingrained habit among many people CultureThe Temple of Literature in HanoiThe Imperial City of HuếThe Municipal Theatre Saigon Opera House in Ho Chi Minh City Vietnamese culture is considered part of Sinosphere Vietnam s culture has developed over the centuries from indigenous ancient Đong Sơn culture with wet rice cultivation as its economic base Some elements of the nation s culture have Chinese origins drawing on elements of Confucianism Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism in its traditional political system and philosophy Vietnamese society is structured around lang ancestral villages all Vietnamese mark a common ancestral anniversary on the tenth day of the third lunar month The influence of Chinese culture such as the Cantonese Hakka Hokkien and Hainanese cultures is more evident in the north where Buddhism is strongly entwined with popular culture Despite this there are Chinatowns in the south such as in Chợ Lớn where many Chinese have intermarried with Kinh and are indistinguishable among them In the central and southern parts of Vietnam traces of Champa and Khmer culture are evidenced through the remains of ruins artefacts as well within their population as the successor of the ancient Sa Huỳnh culture In recent centuries Western cultures have become popular among recent generations of Vietnamese Vietnamese traditional white school uniform for girls in the country the ao dai with the addition of non la a conical hat The traditional focuses of Vietnamese culture are based on humanity nhan nghĩa and harmony hoa in which family and community values are highly regarded Vietnam reveres a number of key cultural symbols such as the Vietnamese dragon which is derived from crocodile and snake imagery Vietnam s national father Lạc Long Quan is depicted as a holy dragon The lạc is a holy bird representing Vietnam s national mother Au Cơ Other prominent images that are also revered are the turtle buffalo and horse Many Vietnamese also believe in the supernatural and spiritualism where illness can be brought on by a curse or sorcery or caused by non observance of a religious ethic Traditional medical practitioners amulets and other forms of spiritual protection and religious practices may be employed to treat the ill person In the modern era the cultural life of Vietnam has been deeply influenced by government controlled media and cultural programmes For many decades foreign cultural influences especially those of Western origin were shunned But since the recent reformation Vietnam has seen a greater exposure to neighbouring Southeast Asian East Asian as well to Western culture and media The main Vietnamese formal dress the ao dai is worn for special occasions such as weddings and religious festivals White ao dai is the required uniform for girls in many high schools across the country Other examples of traditional Vietnamese clothing include the ao tứ than a four piece woman s dress the ao ngũ a form of the than in five piece form mostly worn in the north of the country the yếm a woman s undergarment the ao ba ba rural working pyjamas for men and women the ao gấm a formal brocade tunic for government receptions and the ao the a variant of the ao gấm worn by grooms at weddings Traditional headwear includes the standard conical non la the lampshade like non quai thao and the traditional turban khăn vấn In tourism a number of popular cultural tourist destinations include the former Imperial City of Huế the World Heritage Sites of Phong Nha Kẻ Bang National Park Hội An and Mỹ Sơn coastal regions such as Nha Trang the caves of Hạ Long Bay and the Marble Mountains Literature Vietnamese dragon on Emperor Vĩnh Hựu s c 1736 edict conferring a title Vietnamese literature has centuries deep history and the country has a rich tradition of folk literature based on the typical six to eight verse poetic form lục bat called ca dao which usually focuses on village ancestors and heroes Written literature has been found dating back to the 10th century Ngo dynasty with notable ancient authors including Nguyễn Trai Hồ Xuan Hương Nguyễn Du and Nguyễn Đinh Chiểu Some literary genres play an important role in theatrical performance such as hat noi in ca tru Some poetic unions have also been formed in Vietnam such as the tao đan Vietnamese literature has been influenced by Western styles in recent times with the first literary transformation movement of thơ mới emerging in 1932 Vietnamese folk literature is an intermingling of many forms It is not only an oral tradition but a mixing of three media hidden only retained in the memory of folk authors fixed written and shown performed Folk literature usually exists in many versions passed down orally and has unknown authors Myths consist of stories about supernatural beings heroes creator gods and reflect the viewpoint of ancient people about human life They consist of creation stories stories about their origins Lạc Long Quan and Au Cơ culture heroes Sơn Tinh and Thủy Tinh which are referred to as a mountain and water spirit respectively and many other folklore tales Music Ca tru trio performance in northern Vietnam Traditional Vietnamese music varies between the country s northern and southern regions Northern classical music is Vietnam s oldest musical form and is traditionally more formal The origins of Vietnamese classical opera tuồng can be traced to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century when the Vietnamese captured a Chinese opera troupe Throughout its history Vietnam has been the most heavily impacted by the Chinese musical tradition along with those of Japan Korea and Mongolia Nha nhạc is the most popular form of imperial court music Cheo is a form of generally satirical musical theatre while Xẩm or hat xẩm xẩm singing is a type of Vietnamese folk music Quan họ alternate singing is popular in the former Ha Bắc province which is now divided into Bắc Ninh and Bắc Giang provinces and across Vietnam Another form of music called Hat chầu văn or hat văn is used to invoke spirits during ceremonies Nhạc dan tộc cải bien is a modern form of Vietnamese folk music which arose in the 1950s while ca tru also known as hat ả đao is a popular folk music Ho can be thought of as the southern style of Quan họ There is a range of traditional instruments including the đan bầu a monochord zither the đan gao a two stringed fiddle with coconut body and the đan nguyệt a two stringed fretted moon lute In recent times there have been some efforts at mixing Vietnamese traditional music especially folk music with modern music to revive and promote national music in the modern context and educate the younger generations about Vietnam s traditional musical instruments and singing styles Bolero music has gained popularity in the country since the 1930s albeit with a different style a combination of traditional Vietnamese music with Western elements In the 21st century the modern Vietnamese pop music industry known as V pop incorporates elements of many popular genres worldwide such as electronic dance and R amp B Media Vietnam Television VTV the main state television station Vietnam s media sector is regulated by the government under the 2004 Law on Publication It is generally perceived that the country s media sector is controlled by the government and follows the official communist party line though some newspapers are relatively outspoken The Voice of Vietnam VOV is the official state run national radio broadcasting service broadcasting internationally via shortwave using rented transmitters in other countries and providing broadcasts from its website while Vietnam Television VTV is the national television broadcasting company Since 1997 Vietnam has regulated public internet access extensively using both legal and technical means The resulting lockdown is widely referred to as the Bamboo Firewall The collaborative project OpenNet Initiative classifies Vietnam s level of online political censorship to be pervasive while Reporters Without Borders RWB considers Vietnam to be one of 15 global internet enemies Though the government of Vietnam maintains that such censorship is necessary to safeguard the country against obscene or sexually explicit content many political and religious websites that are deemed to be undermining state authority are also blocked Cuisine Traditionally Vietnamese cuisine is based around five fundamental taste elements Vietnamese ngũ vị spicy metal sour wood salty water bitter fire and sweet earth Common ingredients include fish sauce shrimp paste soy sauce rice fresh herbs fruits and vegetables Vietnamese recipes use lemongrass ginger mint Vietnamese mint long coriander Saigon cinnamon bird s eye chilli lime and basil leaves Traditional Vietnamese cooking is known for its fresh ingredients minimal use of oil and reliance on herbs and vegetables it is considered one of the healthiest cuisines worldwide The use of meats such as pork beef and chicken was relatively limited in the past Instead freshwater fish crustaceans particularly crabs and molluscs became widely used Fish sauce soy sauce prawn sauce and limes are among the main flavouring ingredients Vietnam has a strong street food culture with 40 popular dishes commonly found throughout the country Many notable Vietnamese dishes such as gỏi cuốn salad roll banh cuốn rice noodle roll bun rieu rice vermicelli soup and phở noodles originated in the north and were introduced to central and southern Vietnam by northern migrants Local foods in the north are often less spicy than southern dishes as the colder northern climate limits the production and availability of spices Black pepper is frequently used in place of chillis to produce spicy flavours Vietnamese drinks in the south also are usually served cold with ice cubes especially during the annual hot seasons in contrast in the north hot drinks are more preferable in a colder climate Some examples of basic Vietnamese drinks include ca phe đa Vietnamese iced coffee ca phe trứng egg coffee chanh muối salted pickled lime juice cơm rượu glutinous rice wine nước mia sugarcane juice and tra sen Vietnamese lotus tea Holidays and festivals Special Tết decoration in the country seen during the holiday The country has eleven national recognised holidays These include New Year s Day on 1 January Vietnamese New Year Tết Nguyen Đan from the last day of the last lunar month to fifth day of the first lunar month Hung Kings Festival on the 10th day of the third lunar month Reunification Day on 30 April International Workers Day on 1 May and National Day on 2 September During Tết many Vietnamese from the major cities will return to their villages for family reunions and to pray for dead ancestors Older people will usually give the young a li xi red envelope while special holiday food such as banh chưng rice cake in a square shape together with variety of dried fruits are presented in the house for visitors Many other festivals are celebrated throughout the seasons including the Tết Trung Thu and various temple and nature festivals In the highlands Elephant Race Festivals are held annually during the spring riders will ride their elephants for about 1 6 km 0 99 mi and the winning elephant will be given sugarcane Traditional Vietnamese weddings remain widely popular Sports Mỹ Đinh National Stadium in Hanoi The Vovinam Kim Ke and are widespread in Vietnam while football is the country s most popular sport Its national team won the ASEAN Football Championship in 2008 2018 and 2024 and reached the 2007 AFC Asian Cup quarter finals of 2019 AFC Asian Cup its junior team of under 23 became the runners up of 2018 AFC U 23 Championship and reached fourth place in 2018 Asian Games while the under 20 managed to qualify the 2017 FIFA U 20 World Cup for the first time in their football history And the under 17 achieved the fourth place per 10 Teams of the 2000 AFC U 16 Championship The women s national football team had first appearance at the FIFA Women s World Cup in 2023 became the first 11 a side national football team to participate in a World Cup tournament and also traditionally dominates the Southeast Asian Games along with its chief rival Thailand Other Western sports such as badminton tennis volleyball ping pong and chess are also widely popular Vietnam has participated in the Summer Olympic Games since 1952 After the partition of the country in 1954 only South Vietnam competed in the games sending athletes to the 1956 and 1972 Olympics Since the reunification of Vietnam in 1976 it has competed as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam attending every Summer Olympics from 1988 onwards The present Vietnam Olympic Committee was formed in 1976 and recognised by the International Olympic Committee IOC in 1979 Vietnam has never participated in the Winter Olympic Games In 2016 Vietnam won their first gold medal at the Olympics Basketball has become an increasingly popular sport in Vietnam especially in Ho Chi Minh City Hanoi and Soc Trăng See alsoIndex of Vietnam related articles Outline of VietnamNotesThe census data was also cited in the United States Department of State s 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom regarding Vietnam However the report indicated that this figure did not include the potentially significant number of individuals who engage in Buddhist practices to a certain extent without being formally participated in a Buddhist religious group An earlier United States Department of State report from 2019 revealed that 26 4 per cent of the population identified with an organised religion This breakdown included 14 9 per cent identifying as Buddhist 7 4 per cent as Roman Catholic 1 5 per cent as Hoa Hảo Buddhist 1 2 per cent as Cao Đai and 1 1 per cent as Protestant The remainder did not identify with any religious group or observed beliefs such as animism or the reverence of ancestors tutelary and protective saints national heroes or esteemed local figures The most powerful political position is General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam not President The general secretary controls the Politburo and the Secretariat Vietnam s top decision making bodies making the officeholder the de facto leader of Vietnam In effect since 1 January 2014 The area of Vietnam mentioned here is based on the land area statistics provided by the Vietnamese government However alternative figures exist According to the CIA World Factbook Vietnam s total area is 331 210 square kilometres while the BBC cites a slightly different measurement of 331 699 square kilometres Vietnamese Việt Nam viet naːm The spelling Viet Nam or the full marked Vietnamese form Việt Nam is sometimes used in English by local and government operated media Viet Nam is in fact formally designated and recognised by the Government of Vietnam the United Nations and the International Organization for Standardization as the standardised country name See also other spellings Vietnamese Cộng hoa Xa hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam Also seen with the alternate spelling as Socialist Republic of Viet Nam or Socialist Republic of Việt Nam The other one being Laos At first Gia Long requested the name Nam Việt but the Jiaqing Emperor refused Neither the American government nor Ngo Đinh Diệm s State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference The non communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam however the French accepted the Việt Minh proposal that Vietnam be united by elections under the supervision of local commissions The United States with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom countered with the American Plan which provided for United Nations supervised unification elections The plan however was rejected by Soviet and other communist delegations References Vietnam The World Factbook Central Intelligence Agency 18 April 2023 Archived from the original on 10 June 2021 Retrieved 27 April 2023 General Statistics Office of Vietnam 2019 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom Vietnam Report Office of International Religious Freedom United States Department of State 2022 Archived from the original on 11 February 2024 Retrieved 11 February 2024 Vietnam Government Committee for Religious Affairs 2018 cited in 2019 Report on International Religious Freedom Vietnam United States Department of State Archived from the original on 26 September 2020 Retrieved 12 October 2020 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam FAOLEX Database Food and Agriculture Organization Archived from the original on 20 January 2024 Retrieved 20 January 2024 The Constitution defines Vietnam as having a socialist rule of law State of the people by the people and for the people Vietnam is a unitary state ruled by a one party system with coordination among State bodies in exercising legislative executive and judicial rights Viet Nam News 2014 Phe duyệt va cong bố kết quả thống ke diện tich đất đai năm 2022 Approval and announcement of land area statistics for 2022 PDF Decision 3048 QĐ BTNMT in Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Vietnam 18 October 2023 permanent dead link Vietnam The World Factbook Central Intelligence Agency 17 January 2024 Archived from the original on 10 June 2021 Retrieved 23 January 2024 Vietnam country profile BBC News 24 February 2020 Archived from the original on 28 May 2020 Retrieved 27 January 2021 Socio economic situation in the fourth quarter and 2023 Report General Statistics Office of Vietnam 29 December 2023 Archived from the original on 12 February 2024 Retrieved 12 February 2024 An Chi 31 December 2023 Dan số trung binh của Việt Nam năm 2023 đạt 100 3 triệu người Vietnam s Average Population Reaches 100 3 Million People in 2023 Nhan Dan in Vietnamese Archived from the original on 12 February 2024 Retrieved 12 February 2024 World Economic Outlook Database April 2024 Edition Vietnam www imf org International Monetary Fund 16 April 2024 Archived from the original on 16 April 2024 Retrieved 17 April 2024 Human Development Report 2023 24 PDF United Nations Development Programme 13 March 2024 p 289 Archived PDF from the original on 13 March 2024 Retrieved 13 March 2024 Seah A amp Nair C M 2004 Vietnam Marshall Cavendish Nguyen N amp Nguyen Q 2024 The Religious Aspect of Confucianism During The Ly Tran Dynasties Vietnam Griot Revista de Filosofia 24 2 234 246 Brindley Erica Fox 2015 Ancient China and the Yue Perceptions and Identities on the Southern Frontier c 400 BCE 50 CE Cambridge University Press p 27 The term Yue survives today in the name of the Vietnamese state yue nan 越南 or Viet south Viet of the South as the Vietnamese likely took it or South of the Viet as the Chinese likely took it Woods 2002 p 38 Norman amp Mei 1976 Meacham 1996 Yue Hashimoto 1972 p 1 Knoblock amp Riegel 2001 p 510 Lieberman 2003 p 405 Phan 1976 p 510 Shaofei amp Guoqing 2016 Ooi 2004 p 932 Tonnesson amp Antlov 1996 p 117 Tonnesson amp Antlov 1996 p 126 Derevianko A P Kandyba A V Nguyen Khac Su Gladyshev S A Nguyen Gia Doi Lebedev V A Chekha A M Rybalko A G Kharevich V M Tsybankov A A 21 September 2018 The Discovery of a Bifacial Industry in Vietnam Archaeology Ethnology amp Anthropology of Eurasia 46 3 3 21 doi 10 17746 1563 0110 2018 46 3 003 021 ISSN 1531 832X S2CID 229297187 Marwick Ben Pham Son Thanh Brewer Rachel Wang Li Ying 14 August 2021 Tektite geoarchaeology in mainland Southeast Asia PCI Archaeology doi 10 31235 osf io 93fpa S2CID 243640447 Archived from the original on 17 January 2022 Retrieved 17 January 2022 McKinney 2009 Akazawa Aoki amp Kimura 1992 p 321 Rabett 2012 p 109 Dennell amp Porr 2014 p 41 Matsumura et al 2008 p 12 Matsumura et al 2001 Oxenham amp Tayles 2006 p 36 Nguyen 1985 p 16 Karlstrom amp Kallen 2002 p 83 Oxenham amp Buckley 2015 p 329 Tsang Cheng hwa 24 January 2008 Recent advances in the Iron Age archaeology of Taiwan Bulletin of the Indo Pacific Prehistory Association 20 ISSN 1835 1794 Turton M 2021 Notes from central Taiwan Our brother to the south Taiwan s relations with the Philippines date back millennia so it s a mystery that it s not the jewel in the crown of the New Southbound Policy Taiwan Times Everington K 2017 Birthplace of Austronesians is Taiwan capital was Taitung Scholar Taiwan News Bellwood P H Hung H Lizuka Y 2011 Taiwan Jade in the Philippines 3 000 Years of Trade and Long distance Interaction Semantic Scholar Higham 1984 Nang Chung amp Giang Hai 2017 p 31 de Laet amp Herrmann 1996 p 408 Calo 2009 p 51 Kiernan 2017 p 31 Cooke Li amp Anderson 2011 p 46 Pelley 2002 p 151 Cottrell 2009 p 14 Duc Tran amp Thu Ha 2000 p 8 Yao 2016 p 62 Holmgren 1980 Taylor 1983 p 30 Buttinger 1968 p 18 Ch 2 Pelley 2002 p 177 Cottrell 2009 p 15 Thai Nguyen amp Mung Nguyen 1958 p 33 Chesneaux 1966 p 20 University of California 1972 p 24 Tuyet Tran amp Reid 2006 p 32 Hien Le 2003 p 65 Hong Lien amp Sharrock 2014 p 55 Kiernan 2017 p 226 Cottrell 2009 p 16 Hong Lien amp Sharrock 2014 p 95 Keyes 1995 p 183 Hong Lien amp Sharrock 2014 p 111 Hong Lien amp Sharrock 2014 p 120 Kiernan 2017 p 265 Anderson amp Whitmore 2014 p 158 Vo 2011 p 13 Ooi amp Anh Tuan 2015 p 212 Phuong Linh 2016 p 39 Anderson amp Whitmore 2014 p 174 Leonard 1984 p 131 Ooi 2004 p 356 Hoang 2007 p 50 Tran 2018 Hoang 2007 p 52 Hoang 2007 p 53 Li 1998 p 89 Lockard 2010 p 479 Tran 2017 p 27 McLeod 1991 p 22 Woods 2002 p 42 Cortada 1994 p 29 Mojarro Jorge 10 March 2020 The day the Filipinos conquered Saigon The Manila Times Archived from the original on 21 November 2022 Retrieved 12 April 2021 Keith 2012 p 46 Keith 2012 pp 49 50 McLeod 1991 p 61 Ooi 2004 p 520 Cook 2001 p 396 Frankum 2011 p 172 Nhu Nguyen 2016 p 37 Richardson 1876 p 269 Keith 2012 p 53 Quach Langlet 1991 p 360 Ramsay 2008 p 171 Zinoman 2000 Lim 2014 p 33 Largo 2002 p 112 Khanh Huynh 1986 p 98 Odell amp Castillo 2008 p 82 Thomas 2012 Miller 1990 p 293 Gettleman et al 1995 p 4 Thanh Nien 2015 Vietnam Net 2015 Joes 1992 p 95 Pike 2011 p 192 Gunn 2014 p 270 Neville 2007 p 175 Smith 2007 p 6 Neville 2007 p 124 Tonnesson 2011 p 66 Waite 2012 p 89 Gravel 1971 p 134 Gravel 1971 p 119 Gravel 1971 p 140 Kort 2017 p 96 Olson 2012 p 43 DK 2017 p 39 van Dijk et al 2013 p 68 Guttman John 25 July 2013 Why did Sweden support the Viet Cong History Net Archived from the original on 17 May 2016 Retrieved 25 September 2019 Moise 2017 p 56 Vu 2007 Turner 1975 p 143 Heneghan 1969 p 160 Turner 1975 p 177 Crozier 1955 Turner 1975 pp 174 178 Gilbert 2013 p 292 Jukes 1973 p 209 Olsen 2007 p 92 Khoo 2011 p 27 Muehlenbeck amp Muehlenbeck 2012 p 221 Willbanks 2013 p 53 Duy Hinh amp Dinh Tho 2015 p 238 Isserman amp Bowman 2009 p 46 Alterman 2005 p 213 Lewy 1980 Gibbons 2014 p 166 Li 2012 p 67 Gillet 2011 Dallek 2018 Turner 1975 p 251 Frankum 2011 p 209 Eggleston 2014 p 1 History 2018 Tucker 2011 p 749 Brigham 1998 p 86 The New York Times 1976 Hirschman Preston amp Manh Loi 1995 Shenon 1995 Obermeyer Murray amp Gakidou 2008 Dohrenwend et al 2018 p 69 Vietnam Refugees Put at 1 4 Million The New York Times 26 January 1975 ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on 9 August 2021 Retrieved 9 August 2021 Elliott 2010 pp 499 512 513 Sagan amp Denny 1982 Spokesman Review 1977 p 8 Moise 1988 p 12 Kissi 2006 p 144 Meggle 2004 p 166 Hampson 1996 p 175 Khoo 2011 p 131 BBC News 1997 Van Phuc 2014 Murray 1997 pp 24 25 Bich Loan 2007 Howe 2016 p 20 Goodkind 1995 Gallup 2002 Wagstaff van Doorslaer amp Watanabe 2003 Vietnam s ruling Communist Party re elects chief Trong for rare third term France 24 31 January 2021 Archived from the original on 31 January 2021 Retrieved 18 May 2024 Nasuchon 2008 p 7 Protected Areas and Development Partnership 2003 p 13 Frohlich et al 2013 p 5 Natural Resources and Environment Program 1995 p 56 AgroViet Newsletter 2007 Huu Chiem 1993 p 180 Minh Hoang et al 2016 Huu Chiem 1993 p 183 Hong Truong Ye amp Stive 2017 p 757 Vietnamese Waters Zone Cosslett amp Cosslett 2017 p 13 Van De et al 2008 Hong Phuong 2012 p 3 Viet Nam News 2016 Vietnam National Administration of Tourism 2014 Boobbyer amp Spooner 2013 p 173 Cosslett amp Cosslett 2013 p 13 Anh 2016a The Telegraph Vu 1979 p 66 Riehl amp Augstein 1973 p 1 Buleen 2017 Vietnam Net 2018a Vietnamese amazed at snow capped northern mountains VnExpress 11 January 2021 Thi Anh Overland 2017 Report Flooded Future Global vulnerability to sea level rise worse than previously understood climatecentral org 29 October 2019 Archived from the original on 2 November 2019 Retrieved 3 November 2019 Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment UNESCO World Heritage Convention 1994 UNESCO World Heritage Convention 2003 BirdLife International 2016 Kinver 2011 Dall 2017 Dang Vu amp Nielsen 2018 Nam Dang amp Nielsen 2019 Banout et al 2014 Cerre 2016 Brown 2018 AFP staff 2016 MacLeod 2012 United States Agency for International Development Stewart 2018 Viet Nam News 2018a Nikkei Asian Review 2018 NHK World Japan 2018 Agent Orange Record Grantham H S et al 2020 Anthropogenic modification of forests means only 40 of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity Supplementary Material Nature Communications 11 1 5978 Bibcode 2020NatCo 11 5978G doi 10 1038 s41467 020 19493 3 ISSN 2041 1723 PMC 7723057 PMID 33293507 Berg et al 2007 Merola et al 2014 Miguel amp Roland 2005 Government of the United Kingdom 2017 LM Report 2000 United Nations Development Programme 2018 United States Department of State 2006 Van Thanh 2016 Government of Vietnam II Greenfield 1994 p 204 Baccini Impullitti amp Malesky 2017 The Economist 2008 Embassy of Vietnam in USA Ministry of Justice 1999 Vietnam parliament elects new president Vo Van Thuong www aljazeera com Archived from the original on 5 February 2024 Retrieved 19 September 2023 Vietnam picks new PM and president for next 5 years Nikkei Asia Archived from the original on 26 March 2024 Retrieved 19 September 2023 New president of Vietnam nominated by Communist Party Report www aljazeera com Archived from the original on 27 March 2024 Retrieved 19 September 2023 Vietnam s security chief To Lam becomes new president Al Jazeera 22 May 2024 Vietnam s Nguyen Phu Trong longtime leader and advocate of bamboo diplomacy dies Channel NewsAsia 19 July 2024 Retrieved 21 July 2024 Vietnam President To Lam gets top job as Communist Party chief Al Jazeera 3 August 2024 Retrieved 3 August 2024 Ngo Tung Yang Calvin 22 October 2024 Vietnam parliament elects military general Luong Cuong as president after months of political turmoil Channel NewsAsia Retrieved 24 October 2024 Japan Ministry of Land Infrastructure Transport and Tourism
