Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Statistics

National name: C�ng H�a Xa H�i Ch� Nghia Vi�t Nam

President: Tran Duc Luong (1997)

Prime Minister: Phan Van Khai (1997)

Area: 127,243 sq mi (329,560 sq km)

Population (2001 est.): 79,939,014 (average annual rate of natural increase: 1.5%); birth rate: 21.2/1000; infant mortality rate: 30.2/1000; density per sq mi: 628

Capital: Hanoi

Largest cities (1992 est.): Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), 3,015,743; Hanoi, 1,073,760. Other large cities (1989): Haiphong, 456,049; Da Nang, 370,670; Nha Trang, 213,687; Qui Nho'n, 160,091; Hu� 211,085

Monetary unit: Dong

Languages: Vietnamese (official), French, English, Khmer, Chinese

Ethnicity/race: Vietnamese 85%�90%, Chinese 3%, Muong, Thai, Meo, Khmer, Man, Cham

Religions: Buddhist, Roman Catholic, Islam, Taoist, Confucian, Animist

Literacy rate: 94% (1995)

Economic summary: GDP/PPP (1999 est.): $143.1 billion; per capita $1,850. Real growth rate: 4.8%. Inflation: 4%. Unemployment: 25% (1995 est.). Arable land: 17%. Agriculture: paddy rice, corn, potatoes, rubber, soybeans, coffee, tea, bananas; poultry, pigs; fish. Labor force: 38.2 million (1998 est.); agriculture, 67%; industry and services, 33% (1997 est.). Industries: food processing, garments, shoes, machine building, mining, cement, chemical fertilizer, glass, tires, oil, coal, steel, paper. Natural resources: phosphates, coal, manganese, bauxite, chromate, offshore oil and gas deposits, forests, hydropower. Exports: $11.5 billion (f.o.b., 1999 est.): crude oil, marine products, rice, coffee, rubber, tea, garments, shoes. Imports: $11.6 billion (f.o.b., 1999 est.): machinery and equipment, petroleum products, fertilizer, steel products, raw cotton, grain, cement, motorcycles. Major trading partners: Japan, Germany, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, France, South Korea, U.S., China, Thailand, Sweden.

Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 775,000 (1995); mobile cellular: 178,000 (1998). 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): 5 (1999).

Transportation: Railways: total: 2,652 km. Highways: total: 93,300 km; paved: 23,418 km; unpaved: 69,882 km (1996 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, Hong Gai, Qui Nhon, Nha Trang. Airports: 48 (1999 est.).

International disputes: maritime boundary with Cambodia not defined; involved in a complex dispute over the Spratly Islands with China, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and possibly Brunei; maritime boundary with Thailand resolved, August 1997; maritime boundary dispute with China in the Gulf of Tonkin; Paracel Islands occupied by China but claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan; offshore islands and sections of boundary with Cambodia are in dispute; agreement on land border with China was signed in December 1999, but details of alignment have not been made public.

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 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 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, premier 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 mi 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 do Maui (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 its 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 toward political and economic change of reform-minded officials have been thwarted by Vietnam's ruling Communist Party. In April 2001, however, reform-minded 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, any change will come slowly and cautiously. Manh previously served as chairman of the National Assembly.

See Also: Vietnam Online http://www.Vietnamonline.net

(Source: www.infoplease.com )

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