Vietnam
Country in Southeast Asia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Vietnam,[lower-alpha 4][lower-alpha 5] officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV),[lower-alpha 6] 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. 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 (commonly referred to by its former name, Saigon).
Socialist Republic of Vietnam | |
---|---|
Motto: Độc lập – Tự do – Hạnh phúc "Independence – Freedom – Happiness" | |
Anthem: Tiến Quân Ca "Army March" | |
Capital | Hanoi 21°2′N 105°51′E |
Largest city | Ho Chi Minh City 10°48′N 106°39′E |
Official language | Vietnamese[1] |
Ethnic groups (2019) |
|
Religion (2019) |
|
Demonym(s) | Vietnamese Viet (colloquial) |
Government | Unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic[5] |
Nguyễn Phú Trọng | |
Võ Thị Ánh Xuân (acting) | |
Phạm Minh Chính | |
Vương Đình Huệ | |
Legislature | National Assembly |
Formation | |
• Văn Lang | 7th century BC |
• Âu Lạc | 3th century BC |
111 BC | |
939 | |
1428 | |
• Nguyễn's unification | 1802 |
25 August 1883 | |
2 September 1945 | |
21 July 1954 | |
30 April 1975 | |
2 July 1976 | |
• Đổi Mới | 18 December 1986 |
28 November 2013[lower-alpha 2] | |
Area | |
• Total | 331,344.82[7][lower-alpha 3] km2 (127,932.95 sq mi) (66th) |
• Water (%) | 6.38 |
Population | |
• 2023 estimate | 100,300,000[10][11] (15th) |
• 2019 census | 96,208,984[2] |
• Density | 298/km2 (771.8/sq mi) (49th) |
GDP (PPP) | 2023 estimate |
• Total | $1.434 trillion[12] (26th) |
• Per capita | $14,285[12] (106th) |
GDP (nominal) | 2023 estimate |
• Total | $433.356 billion[12] (35th) |
• Per capita | $4,316[12] (119th) |
Gini (2018) | 35.7[13] medium |
HDI (2022) | 0.726[14] high (107th) |
Currency | Vietnamese đồng (₫) (VND) |
Time zone | UTC+07:00 (Vietnam Standard Time) |
Driving side | right |
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. The Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam 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 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; the country ranks among the lowest in international measurements of civil liberties, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion and ethnic minorities. It is part of international and intergovernmental institutions including the ASEAN, the APEC, the CPTPP, the Non-Aligned Movement, the OIF, and the WTO. It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council twice.
The name Việt Nam (Vietnamese pronunciation: [viə̀t naːm], 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.[15] A variation of the name, Nanyue (or Nam Việt, 南越), was first documented in the 2nd century BC.[16] 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".[17] At that time it referred to a people or chieftain to the northwest of the Shang.[18] In the early 8th century BC, a tribe on the middle Yangtze were called the Yangyue, a term later used for peoples further south.[18] Between the 7th and 4th centuries BC Yue/Việt referred to the State of Yue in the lower Yangtze basin and its people.[17][18] 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; "Hundred Yue/Viet").[17][18][19] The term Baiyue/Bách Việt first appeared in the book Lüshi Chunqiu compiled around 239 BC.[20] By the 17th and 18th centuries AD, educated Vietnamese apparently referred to themselves as người Việt (Viet people) or người Nam (southern people).[21]
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.[22] 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,[lower-alpha 7][24] meaning "South of the Viet" per Classical Chinese word order but the Vietnamese understood it as "Viet of the South" per Vietnamese word order.[15] Between 1804 and 1813, the name Vietnam was used officially by Emperor Gia Long.[lower-alpha 7] 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).[25] The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when the imperial government in Huế adopted Việt Nam.[26]