Vietnam is officially called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia. Situated at the eastern side of landmass Southeast Asia, it covers 311,699 square kilometres. With a population of over 96 million, it is the world’s fifteenth-most populated nation.

Vietnam boundaries China to the north, Laos and also Cambodia to the west, and also shares maritime borders with Thailand with the Gulf of Thailand, and also the Philippines, Indonesia, as well as Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital is Hanoi and also its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam was inhabited as early as the Paleolithic age. The initial known Vietnamese nation during the very first millennium BC centred on the Red River Delta, located in modern north Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed and put the Vietnamese under Chinese policy from 111 BC, till the very first independent empire emerged in 939.

Succeeding monarchical dynasties taken in Chinese impacts with Confucianism as well as Buddhism, as well as broadened southward to the Mekong Delta. The Nguyễn– the last imperial dynasty– was up to French colonisation in 1887. Following the August Change, the nationalist Viet Minh under the management of communist cutting edge Ho Chi Minh proclaimed freedom from France in 1945.

Vietnam underwent extended warfare through the 20th century. After The Second World War, France went back to redeem colonial power in the First Indochina War, from which Vietnam emerged triumphant in 1954. The Vietnam Battle began shortly after, during which the nation was split into communist North supported by the Soviet Union and also China, and anti-communist South supported by the United States.

Upon North Vietnamese victory in 1975, Vietnam reunified as a unitary socialist state under the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1976. An ineffective organized economic situation, trade embargo by the West, and also wars with Cambodia as well as China paralyzed the country. In 1986, the Communist Party launched economic and also political reforms, transforming the country to a market-oriented economy.

The reforms assisted in Vietnamese assimilation into worldwide economy and politics. A creating country with a lower-middle-income economy, Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economic climates of the 21st century. It is part of global and also intergovernmental establishments including the United Nations, the ASEAN, the APEC, the CPTPP, the Non-Aligned Activity, the OIF, and also the WTO. It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council two times. Contemporary issues in Vietnam include corruption as well as a bad human rights record.