Demographics of Vietnam

Birth, death and fertility rates

The total fertility rate of Vietnam has been influenced by the government's family planning policy, the two-child policy.

preliminary

Source: General Statistics Office of Vietnam.

Fertility rate by region and province

Source: General Statistics Office of Vietnam.

Ethnic groups

The Vietnamese government recognizes 54 ethnic groups, of which the Viet (Kinh) 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 million people. Vietnam's approximately 1 million ethnic Chinese, constitute one of Vietnam's largest minority groups. 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.

The relation between China and Vietnam also declined in this period, with Vietnam siding with the Soviet Union against China in the Chinese-Soviet split. Tensions peaked when Vietnam invaded Cambodia, an ally of China, to depose Pol Pot, resulting in a Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979. 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. In recent years the government has performed an about turn and is encouraging overseas Hoa to return and invest, but the ethnic Chinese population has been in continuous decline since the 1970s due to assimilation and low birth rates.

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 Cham—remnants of the once-mighty Champa Kingdom, conquered by the Vietnamese in the 15th century, Hmong, and Tai ("Thái").

Language

Vietnamese is the official language of the country. It belongs to the Austroasiatic language family, which also includes languages such as Khmer and Mon. Vietnamese was spoken by 85-90 million people in Vietnam at the 1999 census. In the early 21st century, around another four million Vietnamese speakers are found outside of Vietnam. Thus Vietnamese is the most spoken language of the Austroasiatic family, being spoken by three times more people than the second most spoken language of the family, Khmer. Both languages, however, are extremely different: Vietnamese is a tonal, monosyllabic, phonetic language while Khmer has remained non-tonal. Vietnamese was heavily influenced by Chinese and a small 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. (See Vietnamese language and Vietnamese alphabet).

Religions

Only a small fraction of the Vietnamese adheres to institutional religions, according to the 2009 official census.

Vietnamese Folk Religion, 44.7%

Buddhism, 38.3%

Christianity, 7.2%

Roman Catholic, 6.7%

Protestant, 0.5%

Hòa Hảo, 1.5%

Cao Đài, 1.1%

Estimates for the year 2010 published by the Pew Research Center:

Vietnamese folk religion, 56.0%

Buddhism, 35.2%

Christianity, 6.8%

CIA World Factbook demographic statistics

The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.

Sex ratio

at birth: 1.07 male(s)/femaleunder 15 years: 1.08 male(s)/female15–64 years: 0.98 male(s)/female65 years and over: 0.63 male(s)/femaletotal population: 0.98 male(s)/female

(2008 est.)

Life expectancy at birth

total population: 75.6 yearsmale: 71.3 yearsfemale: 80.7 years

(2016 est.)

Literacy

definition: age 15 and over can read and writetotal population: 95.6% (2014 census)male: 96.9%female: 91.9% (2012)