Vietnam

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Vietnam

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The Vietnamese government recognizes 54 distinct ethnic groups. The majority ethnic Vietnamese, also called Viet or Kinh, make up about 86 percent of the nation's population. They are concentrated largely in the alluvial deltas and in the coastal plains and have little in common with the minority peoples of the highlands, whom they historically have regarded as hostile and barbaric. A homogenous social group, the Viet exert influence on national life through their control of political and economic affairs and their role as purveyors of the dominant culture. By contrast, the ethnic minorities, except for the Khmer Krom and the Hoa (ethnic Han Chinese), are found mostly in the highlands that cover two-thirds of the national territory.

Related Topics:
Ethnic Vietnamese - Khmer Krom - Hoa - Han Chinese

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Religions

Predominantly Confucian and Mahayana Buddhist (esp. Mainstream Pure Land schools and Zen-inspired syncretists); with Roman Catholic, Protestant, Cao Dai, and Hoa Hao minorities. The likely largest Protestant churches are the Evangelical Church of Vietnam and the

Related Topics:
Confucian - Mahayana Buddhist - Pure Land - Zen - Roman Catholic - Protestant - Cao Dai - Hoa Hao - Evangelical Church of Vietnam

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Montagnard Evangelical Church. Membership to Sunni and Bashi Islam are usually accredited to the ethnic Cham minority, but there are also a few ethnic Vietnamese adherents to Islam in the southwest.

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Minorities

According to official figures from the 1999 census of Vietnam, the largest ethnic minorities of Vietnam were:

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• Tày: 1,477,514 people
• Thái: 1,328,725
• Muong: 1,137,515
• Khmer Krom: 1,055,174
• Hoa: 862,371

The Tày people live primarily in the mountains and foothills of northern Vietnam. Their language is a member of the Tai languages, belonging to the Central Tai subgroup and closely related to the Zhuang language of southern China.

Related Topics:
Tai languages - Zhuang language

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Thái is a name used by Vietnamese authorities for a group of people also from the mountainous northern region of Vietnam and whom western linguists say actually speak separate languages: Tai Dam, Tai Dón, Tai Daeng, Tai Hang Tong, Tày Tac, and Tai Thanh. All these languages are closely related and belong to the Southwestern Tai subgroup of the Tai languages. This official "Thái" ethnicity should not be confused with the Thai people of Thailand. The Thai people of Thailand speak languages belonging to the Lao-Phutai branch of the Southwestern Tai subgroup, while the "Thái" of Vietnam speak languages belonging to the East Central branch of the Southwestern Tai subgroup. Although the Thái ethnicity is officially recognized in Vietnam, western linguistics do not recognize it and prefer to classify Tai Dam, Tai Dón, Tai Daeng, etc., as separate ethnic groups, in which case the {{IPA|Mường}} minority moves to second largest minority of Vietnam, Khmer Krom move to third position, and Hoa to fourth position.

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The {{IPA|Mường}} live in the mountains of north central Vietnam and speak a Mon-Khmer language closely related to the Vietnamese language.

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The Khmer Krom live in the fertile delta of the Mekong River in southern Vietnam and are ethnically the same as the Khmer people who make up the majority of the population of Cambodia. There is no consensus on the exact number of Khmer Krom living in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government reported 1,055,174 Khmer Krom at the 1999 census.

Related Topics:
Delta - Mekong River - Khmer - Cambodia

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The Hoa (ethnic Han Chinese) are mainly lowlanders and, more specifically, urban dwellers. They speak predominantly Cantonese (known to the Vietnamese as Qu?ng ?ông), but there are also speakers of Hakka (Khách Gia), Hokkien/Fujian (Phúc Ki?n), Chaozhou, etc. Up to the 1979 Vietnamese census, the Hoa were the largest minority of Vietnam. However, since the North Vietnamese took over South Vietnam in 1975 many Hoa left Vietnam, especially in the 1980s, so that at the 1999 census the Hoa were only the fifth largest minority (or the fourth largest if the Thái are not considered as an homogenous ethnic group).

Related Topics:
Han Chinese - Cantonese - Hakka - Hokkien - Fujian - Chaozhou

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Beyond these five largest ethnic minorities, there 48 other minorities officially recognized by the Vietnamese government, giving a total of 53 minorities altogether. Many of these 53 minority groups only have a few thousand members or so. Vietnam also has a small number of racial Eurasians, people of Asian and Caucasian (white) parentage. Most of them are descendants of Vietnamese people mixed with either early French settlers or white American soldiers and personnel (or both), during the colonial period and Vietnam War. There are some who are racially mixed with blacks as well, another product during the Vietnam War from American soldiers. Mixed race individuals face the most discrimination in Vietnamese society and government, especially ones who are product of American soldiers (white or black) from the Vietnam War.

Related Topics:
Eurasian - White - French - American - Blacks

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Officially, the ethnic minorities are referred to as "national minorities". The French used the name Montagnard (plural Montagnards, meaning "mountain people") to call all the minorities (except the Khmer Krom and the Hoa), no matter what their actual language. The name Montagnard is still sometimes used today. Sometimes, the name Montagnard is used specifically for the {{IPA|Mường}} ethnic group.

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Human Rights NGOs point out the Vietnamese government's poor record with respect to ethnic minorities. In particular, the large Khmer Krom minority of southern Vietnam is denied elementary human rights in an effort by the Vietnamese government to Vietnamize the Khmer Krom, or force them to leave their native land and relocate to Cambodia. The Vietnamese government is afraid that the large native Khmer Krom population in the Mekong delta could allow Cambodia to officially claim back the fertile areas of the delta that were annexed by Vietnam more than 200 years ago. On the other hand, some in the Vietnamese government still pursue the centuries old policy of colonizing Khmer land, and it was reported that in the 1980s and 1990s some local Vietnamese officials have pushed the Cambodian-Vietnamese border several kilometers inside Cambodian territory, annexing tens of Cambodian villages, in violation of international treaties, thus further increasing the ethnic Khmer population inside Vietnam.

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Further north, there have been reports of tensions with the Tày people due to the government sponsored relocation of ethnic Vietnamese from the lowlands to the highlands inhabited by the Tày and other minorities. Protests and demonstrations by highland minorities have been reported.

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Percentage of ethnic Vietnamese

According to the 1999 census, ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh) numbered 65,795,718 and thus accounted for 86.2% of the total population of Vietnam.

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In terms of land area, 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).

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The birth rate of the ethnic Vietnamese (and also the Hoa), which historically was very high, has decreased a lot since the 1980s and is now reaching much lower levels, comparable to the birth rates in Thailand or Malaysia, while the birth rate of the minorities is still very high, comparable to birth rates in Cambodia or Laos.

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As a result, the ethnic minorities are now growing faster than the ethnic Vietnamese, which means that the percentage of ethnic Vietnamese in the total population is slowly decreasing year after year. According to official figures, at the 1979 census the ethnic Vietnamese accounted for 87.4% of the total population. The figure was down to 86.9% at the 1989 census, and 86.2% at the 1999 census.

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Languages

According to official figures, 86.2% of the population speak Vietnamese as a native tongue.

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Various other languages are spoken by the several minority groups in Vietnam. The most spoken languages are: Tày (1.5 million), Muong (1.2 million), Khmer (1.05 million), Cantonese (870,000, this figure also includes speakers of other Chinese dialects), Nung (860,000), Hmong (790,000), and Tai Dam (700,000).

Related Topics:
Tày - Muong - Khmer - Cantonese - Nung - Hmong - Tai Dam

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French, a legacy of colonial rule, is spoken by some (mostly older) Vietnamese as a second language. Russian- and to a much lesser extent Czech or Polish- is often known among "baby-boomers" whose families had ties with the Soviet bloc. In recent years, English has become a more popular language to learn and is increasingly used in business, among other things.

Related Topics:
French - Russian - Czech - Polish - Baby-boomer - Soviet bloc - English

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See also: List of ethnic groups in Vietnam

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