Originating in what is now southern China and northern Vietnam, the Vietnamese people pushed southward over two millennia to occupy the entire eastern seacoast of the Indochinese Peninsula. Ethnic Vietnamese, or Viet (known officially as Kinh), live in the lowlands and speak the Vietnamese language. This group dominates much of the cultural and political landscape of Vietnam. The Vietnamese people (Vietnamese: người Việt or người Kinh) are an ethnic group originating from what is now northern Vietnam and southern China. ... Indochina, or the Indochinese Peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. ... Vietnamese (tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ[2]), formerly known under the French colonization as Annamese (see Annam), is the national and official language of Vietnam. ...

Vietnamese woman in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (August 2005). Photo by Peter Rimar

The Vietnamese government recognizes 54 ethnic groups, of which the Viet is the largest; according to official Vietnamese figures (1999 census), ethnic Vietnamese account for 86% of the nation's population. The ethnic Vietnamese inhabit a little less than half of Vietnam, while the ethnic minorities inhabit the majority of Vietnam's land (albeit the least fertile parts of the country). Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 501 pixel Image in higher resolution (1024 × 641 pixel, file size: 75 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) A Vietnamese woman sells packets of chewing gum to foreign tourists on a street corner in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (August 2005). ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 501 pixel Image in higher resolution (1024 × 641 pixel, file size: 75 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) A Vietnamese woman sells packets of chewing gum to foreign tourists on a street corner in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (August 2005). ... Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese: Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh  ) is the largest city in Vietnam and is located near the Mekong River delta. ...

The Khmer Krom are found in the delta of the Mekong River, in the south of Vietnam, where they form in many areas the majority of the rural population. They live in an area which was previously part of Cambodia and which Vietnam conquered in the 17th and 18th centuries. Official Vietnamese figures put the Khmer Krom at 1.3 million people. Khmer Krom (Khmer: ; Vietnamese: Khơ-me Crôm or Khơ-me dưới, which literally means Khmer from below (below referring to the lower areas of the Mekong Delta), are the indigenous ethnic Khmer minority living in southern Vietnam, especially in the delta of the Mekong River. ... View of the Mekong before the sunset The Mekong is one of the worlds major rivers. ...

Vietnam's approximately 1 million ethnic Chinese, concentrated mostly in southern Vietnam, constitute Vietnam's second-largest minority group. Long important in the Vietnamese economy, Vietnamese of Chinese ancestry have been active in rice trading, milling, real estate, and banking in the south and shopkeeping, stevedoring, and mining in the north. Restrictions on economic activity following reunification in 1975 and the subsequent but unrelated general deterioration in Vietnamese-Chinese relations sent chills through the Chinese-Vietnamese community. In 1978-79, some 450,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees (many officially encouraged and assisted) or were expelled across the land border with China. However in recent years the government has performed an about turn and is encouraging overseas Hoa to return and invest.

The central highland peoples commonly termed Degar or Montagnards (mountain people) comprise two main ethnolinguistic groups--Malayo-Polynesian and Mon-Khmer. About 30 groups of various cultures and dialects are spread over the highland territory. The Degar (referred to by French colonists as Montagnard) are the indigenous peoples of the central highlands of Vietnam. ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages. ... The Mon-Khmer languages are the autochthonous languages of Indo-China. ...

Other minority groups include the Cham--remnants of the once-mighty Champa Kingdom, conquered by the Vietnamese in the 15th century--Hmong, and Thai. This article is about the Cham people of Asia. ... South East Asia circa 1100 C.E. Champa territory in green. ...

Vietnamese is the official language of the country. It is a language pertaining to the Austroasiatic language family, a language family also including Khmer, Mon, etc. Vietnamese was spoken by 65.8 million people in Vietnam at the 1999 census. Another 1.6 million Vietnamese speakers are found outside of Vietnam. Thus Vietnamese is the most spoken language of the Austroasiatic family, being spoken by three times more people than the second most spoken language of the family, Khmer. Both languages, however, are extremely different: under the influence of Chinese, Vietnamese has become a tonal language, while Khmer has remained non-tonal. Vietnamese was heavily influenced by Chinese and a great part of the Vietnamese vocabulary is Chinese, while Khmer was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Pali and a great part of its vocabulary is now made up of Indian words, so that both languages look very dissimilar on the surface. Since the early 20th century, the Vietnamese have used a Romanized script introduced by the French. Previously, Chinese characters and an (see Vietnamese language). The Austroasiatic languages are a large language family of Southeast Asia and India. ... Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ) is one of the main Austroasiatic languages. ... The Mon language is an Austroasiatic language spoken in Myanmar and Thailand. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Tone (linguistics). ... The Sanskrit language ( , for short ) is an old Indo-Aryan language from the Indian Subcontinent, the classical literary language of the Hindus of India[1], a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Pāli is a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect or prakrit. ... Vietnamese (tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ[2]), formerly known under the French colonization as Annamese (see Annam), is the national and official language of Vietnam. ...

See also: List of ethnic groups in Vietnam Vietnam is a multi-ethnic country with over fifty distinct groups. ...

Miscellaneous

Population: 83,689,518 (July 2005 est.)

Age structure:

0-14 years: 29.4% (male 12,524,098; female 11,807,763)

15-64 years: 65% (male 26,475,156; female 27,239,543)

65 years and over: 5.6% (male 1,928,568; female 2,714,390)

(2004 est.)

Population growth rate: 1.3% (2004 est.)

Birth rate: 19.58 births/1,000 population (2004 est.)

Death rate: 6.14 deaths/1,000 population (2004 est.)

Net migration rate: -0.45 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2004 est.)

Demographics of Vietnam, Data of FAO, year 2005 ; Number of inhabitants in thousands.

Sex ratio: Image File history File links Subject : evolution of demography in Vietnam (1961-2003) Source : Data FAOSTAT, year 2005 : http://faostat. ... Image File history File links Subject : evolution of demography in Vietnam (1961-2003) Source : Data FAOSTAT, year 2005 : http://faostat. ... Possible meanings: Faro Airport (Portugal) Federation of Astrobiology Organizations Financial Aid Office Food and Agriculture Organization This page expands a three-character combination which might be any or all of: an abbreviation, an acronym, an initialism, a word in English, or a word in another language. ...

at birth: 1.08 male(s)/female

under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female

15-64 years: 0.97 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 0.71 male(s)/female

total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2004 est.)

Infant mortality rate:

total: 29.88 deaths/1,000 live births

male: 33.71 deaths/1,000 live births

female: 25.77 deaths/1,000 live births (2004 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:

total population: 70.35 years

male: 67.86 years

female: 73.02 years (2004 est.)

Total fertility rate: 2.22 children born/woman (2004 est.)

Nationality:

noun: Vietnamese (singular and plural)

adjective: Vietnamese

Ethnic groups: Vietnamese 88%, French, Japanese, Cham, Eurasian, Amerasian, Africans, Montagnard, Muong, Tai, Meo, Hoa, Mang This article is about the Cham people of Asia. ... The term Eurasian refers to the cultural ties and linkages between those in a wider view of the Eurasian continent, centering on the Silk Road, and Central Asia. ... Amerasian is a term coined by author Pearl S. Buck, and adopted by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, for a person fathered abroad by U.S. servicemen to women of Asian nationalities. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The term Montagnard can refer to a mountain-dwelling people of central Vietnam: Degar a factional partisan of the party of The Mountain during the French Revolution This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The Muong are one of the ethnic groups inhabiting the mountainous region of Northern Vietname (also known as Montagnards). ... Tai peoples include: the Lao of Laos and Northeast Thailand the Northern Thai (Lanna or Thai Yuan) of Thailand the Thai of Thailand the Shan (Thai Yai) of Burma the Thai Lue of Laos and China (also called Dai) the Nung of China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam the Black Tai (Tai... Languages Hmong/Mong Religions Shamanism, Buddhism, Christianity, others The terms Hmong (IPA:) and Mong () both refer to an Asian ethnic group whose homeland is in the mountainous regions of southern China. ... The Hoa (Vietnamese: Viet Hoa, Chu Nom/Chinese character: 華, Mandarin: Yuènán huárén (越南華人), Cantonese: yuet naam wah kiu (越南華僑)) also referred to as either Chinese Vietnamese, Vietnamese Chinese, Sino-Vietnamese, or ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, are a Chinese minority in Vietnam. ... The Mang are an ethnic group living primarily in Vietnam, where they are one of that nations 54 officially recognized ethnic groups. ...

Religions:^{[citation needed]}

• Mahayana Buddhism- 78%
• Christianity- 8%
  • Roman Catholic- 7%
  • Protestant- 1%
• Theravada Buddhism 5%
• Cao Dai- 2%
• Muslim-0.7%
• Hoa Hao Buddhism (included as divergent subsect within greater Mahayana Buddhism) 2%
• indigenous animistic beliefs

Languages: Vietnamese (official), French (increasingly favored as a second language),English, Russian, tribal languages (Tai-Kadai, Cham, and Malayo-Polynesian) Relief image of the bodhisattva Guan Yin from Mt. ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ... Theravada (Pali; Sanskrit: Sthaviravada) is one of the eighteen (or twenty) Nikāya schools that formed early in the history of Buddhism. ... Tay Ninh Holy See Cao Dai (Cao Đài) is a relatively new, syncretist, monotheistic religion, officially established in Tây Ninh, southern Vietnam, in 1926. ... A Muslim (Arabic: مسلم, Turkish: Müslüman, Persian and Urdu: مسلمان, Bosnian: Musliman) is an adherent of Islam. ... Hòa Hảo (Chu Nom: 和好) is a Buddhist religious tradition founded in 1939 by Huynh Phu So, a native of the Mekong River Delta region of southern Vietnam. ... Buddhism is a dharmic, non-theistic religion, which is also a philosophy and a system of psychology. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Tai-Kadai languages, also known simply as Kadai, are a language family found in Southeast Asia and southern China. ... Cham is the language of the Cham people of Southeast Asia. ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages. ...

Literacy:

definition: age 15 and over can read and write

total population: 94% (2004 consensus)

male: 96.9%

female: 91.9% (2002)

Sources

• 1999 Census results
• Socioeconomic Atlas of Vietnam

See also

• List of ethnic groups in Vietnam