Facts
About
Vietnam

Official Name: Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Government type: Communist state

Capital: Hanoi

Location: Southeast Asia - bordered by Laos, Cambodia, and China

Population: Over 83 million

Economy: The average working person in Vietnam earns around $10 per week.

Climate: mainly tropical

Terrain: low, flat delta in south and north; central highlands; hilly, mountainous in far north and northwest

Geography: Vietnam has over 2,000 miles of coastline. At its narrowest point, Vietnam is only 31 miles wide.

Natural hazards: occasional typhoons (May to January) with extensive flooding, especially in the Mekong River delta

*Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) was named after Ho Chi Minh, meaning 'bringer of light', which was one of the fifty or so aliases used by Nguyen Tat Thanh (1890-1969), communist guerrilla fighter and first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

*The Vietnam War began in 1958 and lasted until 1975.

*The country continues to experience protests from the Montagnard ethnic minority population of the Central Highlands over loss of land to Vietnamese settlers and religious persecution.