About Viet Nam:
Viet Nam is a country of southeast Asia in eastern Indochina of the South China Sea. Ruled by China from 221 B.C. to A.D. 939 and from 1407 to 1428, it was occupied by the French in the 19th century.
After the fall of the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, it was partitioned into North Viet Nam and South Viet Nam. The country was reunited in April 30, 1975 after the end of the Viet Nam War. Hanoi is the capital and Saigon the largest city.

Viet Nam in the eyes of most people in the world still is a “new” country due to the lack of information to worldwide. People know about Vietnam as a communist country who just recovered a bit from the war after 1975.
In reality, Vietnam is a country which is full of natural landscapes, kindly people and many tranquil villages.
Viet Nam has Truong Son mountain range which stays along the border between Laos – Viet Nam – Cambodia that creates the beautiful highlands with many minority villages. With the long coast from South to North, Vietnam owns many beautiful beaches which are among the finest in all of Southeast Asia.
The Mekong Delta itself has vast of fields and Vietnam cuisine is very possibly the most delicious you will ever find.


Viet Nam flag:

- The flag of Viet Nam was designed since 1940 and was used during an uprising against French rule that year.  - After April 1975, the South was used the flag with 3 colors, blue and red with yellow star in the middle. The red flag became the flag of a united Viet Nam since 1976.

Geography :

Vietnam is located in the southeastern extremity of the Indochinese peninsula and occupies about 331,688 square kilometers, of which about 25 percent was under cultivation in 1987. The S-shaped country has a north-to-south distance of 1,650 kilometers and is about 50 kilometers wide at the narrowest point. With a coastline of 3,260 kilometers, excluding islands, Vietnam claims 12 nautical miles as the limit of its territorial waters, an additional 12 nautical miles as a contiguous customs and security zone, and 200 nautical miles as an exclusive economic zone. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. Soils: The soils of the Red River and Mekong River deltas, the two major deltas of Viet Nam, are composed of rich alluvium except where damming for flood control has altered the stream flow. Soils in the uplands are poor as a result of leaching of nutrients from the ground by the abundant rainfall. Rivers: The Red River in the north and the Mekong River in the south are the two major freshwater streams. The Red flows almost directly southeast from the northwestern highlands, whereas the Mekong follows an irregular path from Cambodia, crosses southernmost Viet Nam, and empties in the South China Sea through a complex network of distributaries. Both rivers have been leveed to prevent flood damage.

Borders:
The boundary with Laos, settled, on an ethnic basis, between the rulers of Vietnam and Laos in the mid-seventeenth century, was formally defined by a delimitation treaty signed in 1977 and ratified in 1986.
The frontier with Cambodia, defined at the time of French annexation of the western part of the Mekong River Delta in 1867, remained essentially unchanged, according to Hanoi, until some unresolved border issues were finally settled in the 1982-85 period.
The land and sea boundary with China, delineated under the France-China treaties of 1887 and 1895, is "the frontier line" accepted by Hanoi that China agreed in 1957- 58 to respect. However, in February 1979, following China's limited invasion of Vietnam, Hanoi complained that from 1957 onward China had provoked numerous border incidents as part of its anti-Vietnam policy and expansionist designs in Southeast Asia. Among the territorial infringements cited was the Chinese occupation in January 1974 of the Paracel Islands, claimed by both countries in a dispute left unresolved in the 1980s.
Source: U.S. Library of Congress


Vietnam tribes:
Vietnam is a multi-ethnic country with over fifty distinct groups (54 are recognized by the Vietnamese government), each with its own language, lifestyle, and cultural heritage. Many of the local ethnic groups are known collectively in the West as Montagnard or Degar. The largest ethnic groups are: Kinh (Viet) 86.2%, Tay 1.9%, Tai Ethnic 1.7%,Mường 1.5%, Khmer Krom (Khơ Me Crộm) 1.4%, Hoa 1.1%, Nùng 1.1%, Hmong 1%, others 4.1% (1999 census). The Vietnamese term for ethnic group is người thiểu số or dân tộc thiểu số (literally "minority people").


Population
By April 1, 2009, Vietnam had 85.789 million people, of which 49.5 percent were men and 50.5 percent women. Vietnam is the third most-populated country in Southeast Asia and 13th in the world.
According to the General Statistics Department, in the last ten years (1999-2009), Vietnam’s population increased by 9.47 million, at an annual population growth rate of 1.2 percent, compared to 1.7 percent in the 1989-1999 period.
The census conducted this April revealed that the country’s women/men ratio is 100/98.1 compared to 100/96.7 in 1999.
Of the total population, 25.3 million live in urban areas and nearly 65 million in the countryside.
Therefore, in ten years, the urban population rose by 3.4 percent a year and it was 0.4 percent for the countryside due to immigration and urbanisation.
All results of the census will be made public in September 2010.


Administration:
The capital of Viet Nam is Ha Noi.
Ho Chi Minh City, has known as Saigon, is the biggest City in Viet Nam.
There are 63 Cities/ provinces in the whole country.
There are 5 cities which belong to the center : Cần Thơ • Đà Nẵng • Hải Phòng • Hà Nội • Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh
Provinces (58):
An Giang • Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu • Bạc Liêu • Bắc Giang • Bắc Kạn • Bắc Ninh • Bến Tre • Bình Dương • Bình Định • Bình Phước • Bình Thuận • Cà Mau • Cao Bằng • Đắk Lắk • Đắk Nông • Điện Biên • Đồng Nai • Đồng Tháp • Gia Lai • Hà Giang • Hà Nam • Hà Tĩnh • Hải Dương • Hậu Giang • Hòa Bình • Hưng Yên • Khánh Hòa • Kiên Giang • Kon Tum • Lai Châu • Lạng Sơn • Lào Cai • Lâm Đồng • Long An • Nam Định • Nghệ An • Ninh Bình • Ninh Thuận • Phú Thọ • Phú Yên • Quảng Bình • Quảng Nam • Quảng Ngãi • Quảng Ninh • Quảng Trị • Sóc Trăng • Sơn La • Tây Ninh • Thái Bình • Thái Nguyên • Thanh Hóa • Thừa Thiên - Huế • Tiền Giang • Trà Vinh • Tuyên Quang • Vĩnh Long • Vĩnh Phúc • Yên Bái


The transportation:
   Public transfer:
- Via land : The highway 1 connects Ha Noi Capital to Ho Chi Minh City. There are the public bus for Ha Noi- Ho Chi Minh city and vice versa and it takes around 2 driving days.
- Train in Viet Nam:

With a total length of 2600 km, Vietnam Railways network connects residential area to cultural, agricultural and industrial center, except the Mekong river delta area.  Vietnam Railways is linked to China railways according to 2 directions:    * From Lao Cai province to Van Nam province.    * From Lang Son province to Quang Tay province. When it is more developed, Vietnam railway network is possibly linked to Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia railways network via which to Singapore and Laos railways.

- Airports :
There are many routes to connect the three International Airports to local airports around country. The three International Airport are Tan Son Nhat ( Saigon), Da Nang Airport ( Da Nang ) and Noi Bai Airport in Ha Noi.

Noi Bai Airport		Da Nang Airport		Tan Son Nhat Airport

List Airport in Vietnam

Airport	City
Tan Son Nhat	Saigon	SGN
Rach Gia	Rach Gia	VKG
Phu Quoc	Phu Quoc	PQC
Buon Ma Thuot	Buon Ma Thuot	BMV
Pleiku	Pleiku	PXU
Nha Trang	Cam Ranh	NHA
Lien Khuong	Da Lat	DLI
Qui Nhon	Qui Nhon	UIH
Tuy Hoa	Tuy Hoa	TBB
Chu Lai	Chu Lai	VCL
Da Nang	Da Nang	DAD
Phu Bai	Hue	HUI
Vinh	Vinh	DAD
Noi Bai	Ha Noi	HAN
Hai Phong	Hai Phong	HPH
Dong Hoi	Dong Hoi	VDH
Dien Bien Phu	Dien Bien Phu	DIN