Demographics of Vietnam
Originating in what is now southern
China and northern
Vietnam, the
Vietnamese people pushed southward over two millennia to occupy the entire eastern seacoast of the
Indochinese Peninsula. Ethnic Vietnamese, or Viet (known officially as Kinh), live in the lowlands and speak the
Vietnamese language. This group dominates much of the cultural and political landscape of Vietnam.
The Vietnamese government recognizes
54 ethnic groups, of which the Viet is the largest; according to official Vietnamese figures (1999 census), ethnic Vietnamese account for 86% of the nation's population. 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).
The
Khmer Krom are found in the delta of the
Mekong River, in the south of Vietnam, where they form in many areas the majority of the rural population. They live in an area which was previously part of Cambodia and which Vietnam conquered in the 17th and 18th centuries. Official Vietnamese figures put the Khmer Krom at 1.3 million people.
Vietnam's approximately 2.3 million ethnic , concentrated mostly in southern Vietnam, constitute Vietnam's second-largest minority group. Long important in the Vietnamese economy, Vietnamese of Chinese ancestry have been active in rice trading, milling, real estate, and banking in the south and shopkeeping, stevedoring, and mining in the north. Restrictions on economic activity following reunification in 1975 and the subsequent but unrelated general deterioration in Vietnamese-Chinese relations sent chills through the Chinese-Vietnamese community. In 1978-79, some 450,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees (many officially encouraged and assisted) or were expelled across the land border with China.
The central highland peoples commonly termed
Degar or Montagnards (mountain people) comprise two main ethnolinguistic groups--
Malayo-Polynesian and
Mon-Khmer. About 30 groups of various cultures and dialects are spread over the highland territory.
Other minority groups include the
ChamHmong, and Thai.
Vietnamese is the official language of the country. It is a language pertaining to the
Austroasiatic language family, a language family also including
Khmer,
Mon, etc. Vietnamese was spoken by 65.8 million people in Vietnam at the 1999 census. Another 1.6 million Vietnamese speakers are found outside of Vietnam. Thus Vietnamese is the most spoken language of the Austroasiatic family, being spoken by three to four times more people than the second most spoken language of the family, Khmer. Both languages, however, are extremely different: under the influence of Chinese, Vietnamese has become a
tonal language, while Khmer has remained non-tonal. Vietnamese was heavily influenced by Chinese and a great part of the Vietnamese vocabulary is Chinese, while Khmer was heavily influenced by
Sanskrit and
Pali and a great part of its vocabulary is now made up of Indian words, so that both languages look very dissimilar on the surface. Since the early 20th century, the Vietnamese have used a Romanized script introduced by the French. Previously, Chinese characters and an (
see Vietnamese language).
See also:
List of ethnic groups in VietnamPopulation: 83,689,518 (July 2005 est.)
Age structure: :0-14 years: 29.4% (male 12,524,098; female 11,807,763) :15-64 years: 65% (male 26,475,156; female 27,239,543) :65 years and over: 5.6% (male 1,928,568; female 2,714,390)(2004 est.)
Population growth rate: 1.3% (2004 est.)
Birth rate: 19.58 births/1,000 population (2004 est.)
Death rate: 6.14 deaths/1,000 population (2004 est.)
Net migration rate: -0.45 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2004 est.)
 |
Demographics of Vietnam, Data of FAO, year 2005 ; Number of inhabitants in thousands. |
Sex ratio: :at birth: 1.08 male(s)/female:under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female:15-64 years: 0.97 male(s)/female:65 years and over: 0.71 male(s)/female:total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2004 est.)
Infant mortality rate::total: 29.88 deaths/1,000 live births:male: 33.71 deaths/1,000 live births:female: 25.77 deaths/1,000 live births (2004 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: :total population: 70.35 years:male: 67.86 years:female: 73.02 years (2004 est.)
Total fertility rate: 2.22 children born/woman (2004 est.)
Nationality::noun: Vietnamese (singular and plural):adjective: Vietnamese
Ethnic groups: Vietnamese 86%,
Khmer Krom 1.5%, 3%,
Muong,
Tai,
Meo,
Man,
Cham Religions: *
Mahayana Buddhism-
Taoism 78%
*
Theravada Buddhism 5%
* Christianity- 8%
**
Roman Catholic- 7%
**
Protestant- 1%
*
Muslim-0.7%
*
Cao Dai- 7-8 million followers
*
Hoa Hao (included as divergent subsect within greater Mahayana Buddhism)
* indigenous animistic beliefs
Languages: Vietnamese (official),
Khmer,
Chinese,
English,
French, tribal languages (
Tai-Kadai,
Mon-Khmer, and
Malayo-Polynesian)
Literacy: :definition: age 15 and over can read and write:total population: 94% (2004 consensus):male: 96.9%:female: 91.9% (2002)
*
1999 Census results*
Socioeconomic Atlas of Vietnam*
List of ethnic groups in Vietnam
