Page last modified 19/August 2023

236) Vietnam

Community

Area 331,210 square kilometres (land area 310,070 square kilometres).�

North and South divided 1954, reunited 1976.

Population,

22,612,870 (1943)

25,350,000 (1950)

32,670,000 (1960)

43,400,000 (1970)

54,280,000 (1980)

68,000,000 (1990)

79,900,000 (2000)

87,967,000 (2010)

92,677,000 (2015)

95,540,000 (2018)

Ethnicity and Religion, %

	Chinese	Vietnamese (Kinh)
1970	6.0	87.0
1986		84.0
1990	0.1
2000		87.0
2010		85.8

Religion, %,

	Animist Indigenous	Buddhist	Christian R C	No religion
1963 (South)		70.0	10.0
1990			7.0
2010	45.3	16.4	8.2	29.6

Birth and death rates Below replacement rate = 2.1

	Fertility Rate	Birth Rate	Infant Mortality	Death Rate	% Aged Under 15	% Aged Over 65	% Urban
1950		42.0 (+13.0)	180.0	29.0	34.3	3.9	12.0
1960	6.3	41.0 (+19.0)		12.0	40.1	4.7	14.7
1970	6.5	38.0 (+26.5)	54.3	11.5*	43.8	5.4	18.3
1980	5.1	34.0 (+26.8)	46.4	7.2	40.9	5.3	19.2
1990	3.6	30.0 (+23.6)	36.7	6.4	37.4	5.7	20.3
2000	2.0	17.5(+12.0)	23.6	5.5	31.7	6.4	24.4
2010	1.9	17.5 (+11.8)	18.6	5.7	23.7	6.6	30.4
2015	2.0	16.9 (+11.1)	17.6	5.8	23.1	6.7	33.6
2016			17.3		23.1	6.9	34.2
2017	2.0	17.0 (+11.2)	16.9	5.8
2018			16.5		23.2	7.3

*Peak in death rate of 11.9 in 1972 as Vietnam War, and US bombing campaigns, escalated. Trend death rate was ca. 9.5 for 1972.

Life expectancy,

40.4 (1952); 39.0 (M),42.0 (F)

59.1 (1960); 55.6 (M), 62.7 (F)

59.7 (1970); 54.8 (M), 65.0 (F)

67.4 (1980); 63.1 (M), 72.0 (F)

70.4 (1990); 66.0 (M), 75.1 (F)

73.1 (2000); 68.4 (M), 78.1 (F)

75.0 (2010); 70.2 (M), 80.0 (F)

76.3 (2020); 71.7 (M), 80.9 (F)

Population of principal cities, 1000s MA = Metropolitan Area

	Da Nang	Hai Phong	HANOI^1	Ho Chi Minh City^2	Hue
1860				180
1905			110
1950		186	280	850
1960	105		415	1,264	104
1965		370	644
1970				1,750
1976			1,443
1979			2,571
1989	371	456	3,000		211
2009	770	847	3,289	5,900 MA
2016	1,347	2,104 MA	7,588 MA	8,426 MA	360

¹Founded in the 1^st century AD, Hanoi was captured by the French in 1873.� It was the capital of North Vietnam from 1954 to 1976.

²Ho Chi Minh City was formerly known as �Saigon, before the Vietnam War, however the name Saigon was only used from the end of the 1700s, although an earlier Khmer settlement may have existed here.� The French conquered Saigon in 1859, and the city was the capital of French Indo-China from 1887 to 1902.

Wealth; Gross Domestic Product (nominal values)

	GDP, US$ million	Total GDP, % of USA	GDP per capita, US$	GDP per capita % of USA
1970			140	2.67
1975	17,160	1.05	360	4.60
1980	27,850	1.00	514	4.08
1985	15,000	0.36	251	1.37
1990	8,000	0.14	98	0.41
1995	20,740	0.28	288	0.96
2000	33,600	0.34	433	1.19
2005	57,000	0.44	700	1.58
2010	116,000	0.78	1,333	2.76
2015	193,250	1.07	2,100	3.74
2016	202,600	1.09	2,185	3.80

GDP by primary sector

	Agriculture % GDP	Agriculture % employed	Industry % GDP	Industry % employed	Services % GDP	Services % employed
1980		70.0		10.0		19.0
1990	51.0	67.5	31.0	11.8	18.0	24.0
2000	25.0	67.0	38.5		38.5
2010	22.0	48.0	40.0	22.0	38.0	30.0
2016	16.3		32.7		40.9

Communications

Language,� Official; Vietnamese.� Chinese, French, Khmer, also spoken

Vietnamese, 84.0% (1990)

Literacy

25.0% (1940)

87.0% (1990)

92.7% (2000); 94.5% (M), 90.9% (F)

94.0% (2010); 96.1% (M), 92.0% (F)

94.5% (2015); 96.3% (M), 92.8% (F)

Physical communications � roads, In 2016 there were an estimated 45 million motorbikes on Vietnamese roads

	Roads (km)	Surfaced (km)	Motor vehicles	Cars	Commercial Vehicles
1962 South	19,500			40,500	20,800
1972	31,000	5,900
1986	65,000
1994	90,000	9,000
1999		23,569
2002	93,430			141,000	83,700
2006				532,000
2007	160,089			800,000
2010			1,550,000	1,430,000
2013	195,468	148,338	1,950,000	1,794,000
2015				2,000,000*

*Other estimates put the 2015 car total at 2,600,000

Railways;

First railway opened 1885, Saigon to Mytho.

Through trains from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City began running from 1977.� Vietnam�s� rail link with China was re-opened in 1996.

Length, kilometres

69 (1890)

213 (1900)

1,140 (1910)

1,602 (1920)

1,934 (1930)

2,584 (1940)

953 (1950)

1,976 (1956)

1,364 (1962, South)

2,300 (1967)

2,378 (1994)

2,600 (1996)

3,142 (2000)

2,402 (2005)

2,632 (2010)

2,600 (2014)

Electronic communications, Radio broadcasts began under the French colonial administration in the 1920s; the French established Radio Saigon at this time. Until 1945, when Vietnam gained independence, Vietnamese people were forbidden to possess a radio receiver. The first Vietnamese language radio broadcast was made on 2 September 1945, when Ho Chi Minh read out the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence. �TV broadcasts began (South Vietnam) 1966; (North Vietnam) 1970.

	Telephones (landlines)	Mobile Telephones	Radios	Televisions	PCs	Internet Users
1950			12,000
1960			125,000
1961 South	17,008
1964				106,100
1966			1,400,000
1974	46,509
1982	65,000		5,000,000	2,100,000
1990	98,500		6,900,000	2,600,000
1992		800			10,000
1995		23,500	7,800,000	3,200,000	100,000
1998						6,000
2000	2,543,000	788,500	8,500,000	14,000,000	600,000	200,000
2002						1,500,000
2003				17,000,000
2004					1,044,000
2005		9,590,000
2006					8,100,000
2008	29,600,000	70,000,000				20,800,000
2010						30,100,000
2013				23,000,000
2016	5,598,017	122,000,000				49,740,000

South Vietnam only

Tourism: Visitors to Vietnam,

7,000 (1987)

250,000 (1990)

1,351,000 (1995)

2,140,000 (2000)

3,477,000 (2005)

5,050,000 (2010)

7,944,000 (2015)