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Travel to Vietnam — Unbiased reviews and great
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Vietnam
Socialist Republic of Vietnam National name: Công Hòa Xa Hôi Chú Nghia
Viêt Nam President: Nguyen Minh Triet
(2006) Prime Minister: Nguyen Tan
Dung (2006)
Current government officials
Land area: 125,622 sq mi (325,361 sq km);
total area: 127,244 sq mi (329,560 sq km) Population (2007 est.): 85,262,356 (growth
rate: 1.0%); birth rate: 16.6/1000; infant mortality rate: 24.4/1000;
life expectancy: 71.1; density per sq mi: 679
Capital (2003 est.):
Hanoi, 2,543,700 (metro. area), 1,396,500 (city
proper) Largest cities: Ho Chi
Minh City (Saigon), 5,894,100 (metro. area), 3,415,300 (city proper);
Haiphong, 581,600; Da Nang, 452,700; Hué 271,900; Nha Trang, 270,100;
Qui Nho'n, 199,700 Monetary unit:
Dong
Languages:
Vietnamese (official); English (increasingly
favored as a second language); some French, Chinese, Khmer; mountain
area languages (Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian)
Ethnicity/race:
Kinh (Viet) 86.2%, Tay 1.9%, Thai 1.7%, Muong
1.5%, Khome 1.4%, Hoa 1.1%, Nun 1.1%, Hmong 1%, others 4.1%
(1999)
Religions:
Buddhist 9%, Catholic 7%, Hoa Hao 2%, Cao Dai
1%, Protestant, Islam, none 81% Literacy rate: 94% (2003 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$221.4 billion; per capita $2,600. Real growth rate: 8.5%.
Inflation: 8.3%. Unemployment: 5.3%. Arable land:
20%. Agriculture: paddy rice, coffee, rubber, cotton, tea,
pepper, soybeans, cashews, sugar cane, peanuts, bananas; poultry;
fish, seafood. Labor force: 46.42 million; agriculture 55.6%,
industry 18.9%, services 25.5% (July 2005). Industries: food
processing, garments, shoes, machine-building; mining, coal, steel;
cement, chemical fertilizer, glass, tires, oil, paper. Natural
resources: phosphates, coal, manganese, bauxite, chromate,
offshore oil and gas deposits, forests, hydropower. Exports:
$39.92 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.): crude oil, marine products, rice,
coffee, rubber, tea, garments, shoes. Imports: $39.16 billion
f.o.b. (2006 est.): machinery and equipment, petroleum products,
fertilizer, steel products, raw cotton, grain, cement, motorcycles.
Major trading partners: U.S., Japan, China, Australia, Germany,
Singapore, UK, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong (2004). Communications: Telephones: main lines in
use: 15.845 million (2005); mobile cellular: 9.593 million (2005).
Radio broadcast stations: AM 65, FM 7, shortwave 29 (1999).
Radios: 8.2 million (1997). Television broadcast stations:
at least 7 (plus 13 repeaters) (1998). Televisions: 3.57
million (1997). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 12,114
(2006). Internet users: 13.1 million (2006). Transportation: Railways: total: 2,600 km
(2006). Highways: total: 222,179 km km; paved: 42,167 km;
unpaved: 180,012 km (2004 est.). Waterways: 17,702 km
navigable; more than 5,149 km navigable at all times by vessels up to
1.8 m draft. Ports and harbors: Cam Ranh, Da Nang, Haiphong, Ho
Chi Minh City, Ha Long, Quy Nhon, Nha Trang, Vinh, Vung Tau.
Airports: 32 (2006). International
disputes: demarcation of the land boundary with China continues,
but maritime boundary and joint fishing zone agreement remains
unratified; Cambodia and Laos protest Vietnamese squatters and armed
encroachments along border; China occupies Paracel Islands also
claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan; involved in a complex dispute over
Spratly Islands with China, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and
possibly Brunei; claimants in November 2002 signed the “Declaration on
the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea,” a mechanism to ease
tension but which fell short of a legally binding “code of
conduct.”
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Vietnam occupies the eastern and southern part of the Indochinese
peninsula in Southeast Asia, with the South China Sea along its entire
coast. China is to the north and Laos and Cambodia are to the west. Long
and narrow on a north-south axis, Vietnam is about twice the size of
Arizona. The Mekong River delta lies in the south.
Government
Communist state.
History
The Vietnamese are descendants of nomadic Mongols from China and
migrants from Indonesia. According to mythology, the first ruler of
Vietnam was Hung Vuong, who founded the nation in 2879 B.C. China ruled the nation then known as Nam Viet as
a vassal state from 111 B.C. until the 15th
century, an era of nationalistic expansion, when Cambodians were pushed
out of the southern area of what is now Vietnam.
A century later, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to enter the
area. France established its influence early in the 19th century, and
within 80 years it conquered the three regions into which the country was
then divided—Cochin-China in the south, Annam in the central region, and
Tonkin in the north.
France first unified Vietnam in 1887, when a single
governor-generalship was created, followed by the first physical links
between north and south—a rail and road system. Even at the beginning of
World War II, however, there were internal differences among the three
regions. Japan took over military bases in Vietnam in 1940, and a
pro-Vichy French administration remained until 1945. Veteran Communist
leader Ho Chi Minh organized an independence movement known as the
Vietminh to exploit the confusion surrounding France's weakened influence
in the region. At the end of the war, Ho's followers seized Hanoi and
declared a short-lived republic, which ended with the arrival of French
forces in 1946.
Paris proposed a unified government within the French Union under the
former Annamite emperor, Bao Dai. Cochin-China and Annam accepted the
proposal, and Bao Dai was proclaimed emperor of all Vietnam in 1949. Ho
and the Vietminh withheld support, and the revolution in China gave them
the outside help needed for a war of resistance against French and
Vietnamese troops armed largely by a United States worried about cold war
Communist expansion.
A bitter defeat at Dien Bien Phu in northwest Vietnam on May 5, 1954,
broke the French military campaign and resulted in the division of
Vietnam. In the new South, Ngo Dinh Diem, prime minister under Bao Dai,
deposed the monarch in 1955 and made himself president. Diem used strong
U.S. backing to create an authoritarian regime that suppressed all
opposition but could not eradicate the Northern-supplied Communist Viet
Cong.
Skirmishing grew into a full-scale war, with escalating U.S.
involvement. A military coup, U.S.-inspired in the view of many, ousted
Diem on Nov. 1, 1963, and a kaleidoscope of military governments followed.
The most savage fighting of the war occurred in early 1968 during the
Vietnamese New Year, known as Tet. Although the so-called Tet Offensive
ended in a military defeat for the North, its psychological impact changed
the course of the war.
U.S. bombing and an invasion of Cambodia in the summer of 1970—an
effort to destroy Viet Cong bases in the neighboring state—marked the end
of major U.S. participation in the fighting. Most American ground troops
were withdrawn from combat by mid-1971 when the U.S. conducted heavy
bombing raids on the Ho Chi Minh Trail—a crucial North Vietnamese supply
line. In 1972, secret peace negotiations led by Secretary of State Henry
A. Kissinger took place, and a peace settlement was signed in Paris on
Jan. 27, 1973.
By April 9, 1975, Hanoi's troops marched within 40 miles of Saigon, the
South's capital. South Vietnam's president Thieu resigned on April 21 and
fled. Gen. Duong Van Minh, the new president, surrendered Saigon on April
30, ending a war that claimed the lives of 1.3 million Vietnamese and
58,000 Americans.
In 1977, border clashes between Vietnam and Cambodia intensified, as
well as accusations by its former ally Beijing that Chinese residents of
Vietnam were being subjected to persecution. Beijing cut off all aid and
withdrew 800 technicians.
Hanoi was also preoccupied with a continuing war in Cambodia, where
60,000 Vietnamese troops had invaded and overthrown the country's
Communist leader Pol Pot and his pro-Chinese regime. In early 1979,
Vietnam was conducting a two-front war: defending its northern border
against a Chinese invasion and supporting its army in Cambodia, which was
still fighting Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge guerrillas. Hanoi's Marxist policies
combined with the destruction of the country's infrastructure during the
decades of fighting devastated Vietnam's economy. However, it started to
pick up in 1986 under doi moi (economic renovation), an effort at
limited privatization. Vietnamese troops began limited withdrawals from
Laos and Cambodia in 1988, and Vietnam supported the Cambodian peace
agreement signed in Oct. 1991.
The U.S. lifted a Vietnamese trade embargo in Feb. 1994 that had been
in place since U.S. involvement in the war. Full diplomatic relations were
announced between the two countries in July 1995. In April 1997, a pact
was signed with the U.S. concerning repayment of the $146 million wartime
debt incurred by the South Vietnamese government, and the following year
the nation began a drive to eliminate inefficient bureaucrats and
streamline the approval process for direct foreign investment. Efforts of
reform-minded officials toward political and economic change have been
thwarted by Vietnam's ruling Communist Party. In April 2001, however, the
progressive Nong Duc Manh was appointed general secretary of the ruling
Communist Party, succeeding Le Kha Phieu. Even with a reformer at the helm
of the party, change has been slow and cautious.
In Nov. 2001, Vietnam's national assembly approved a trade agreement
that opened U.S. markets to Vietnam's goods and services. Tariffs on
Vietnam's products dropped to about 4% from rates as high as 40%. Vietnam
in return opened its state markets to foreign competition.
The government highlighted its efforts to crack down on corruption and
crime with the June 2003 conviction of notorious criminal syndicate boss
Truong Van Cam, known as Nam Cam. He was sentenced to death, along with
155 other defendants, and executed in June 2004.
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai visited the United States in June 2005,
becoming the first Vietnamese leader to do so since the Vietnam War ended.
He met with President Bush and several business leaders, including
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. The U.S. is Vietnam's largest trading
partner, buying about $7 billion in Vietnamese goods each year.
A corruption scandal rocked Vietnam in April 2006. Transport minister
Dao Dinh Binh resigned amid allegations that members of his staff
embezzled millions from the country and used the funds to bet on soccer
games. His deputy Nguyen Viet Tien was arrested for his role in the
scandal.
President Tran Duc Luong and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai resigned in
June 2006, making way for two younger leaders, President Nguyen Minh Triet
and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. Luong and Khai had led Vietnam since
1997 and were instrumental in Vietnam's two-decades-long transition to a
market economy, called doi moi, or renovation.
Vietnam became the 150th member of the World Trade Organization in
January 2007, after waiting 12 years to join the group.
(For a Vietnam War chronology, see Headline History, p.
642.)
See also Encyclopedia: Vietnam. U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Vietnam
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education,
Inc. All rights reserved.
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