Vietnam Military

Vietnam 1997

Vietnam is a country located in Asia. According to AbbreviationFinder, VN is the two-letter ISO code of Vietnam, and VNM is the three-letter country abbreviation for Vietnam.

Yearbook 1997

Vietnam. Through the reform policy (Đôi Mo迂i), initiated in 1986, the Vietnam Communist Party tried to liberalize the economy without diminishing its power. However, during the year, bureaucracy, unprofitable state-owned enterprises and corruption in the administration, police and party continued to hamper development.

According to Countryaah, the national day of Vietnam is September 2. Eight arrested, two of them police, were sentenced to death in May in Hanoi for smuggling large amounts of heroin. Even more worrying for the rulers was that thousands of peasants in the northern province of Thai Binh in May and June protested violently against the taxes and abuse of power by corrupt authorities. It was the worst unrest reported after the country’s reunification in 1975. The regime responded by promising cleansing in local authorities.

A new National Assembly, President, Prime Minister and Party President was appointed during the year to continue Đôi Mo迂i. At the July 20 election, more young and well-educated members and more women (26%) came into Parliament. However, with 384 of its 450 seats, the Communist Party retained its absolute grip on government power.

Two months later, Parliament voted for 60-year-old Trân Đu迂c Lu迂o迂ng to become new president after leaving Lễ Đu迂c Anh. New Prime Minister after Vo Văn Kiễt became 63-year-old Phan Văn Khai. The rejuvenation of the country’s leadership trophy was completed in December, when the Communist Party Central Committee appointed 66-year-old General Lễ Kha Phiễu to succeed 80-year-old Đô Mu迂o迂i as the party’s secretary general – the highest post of the regime.

In foreign policy, Vietnam and the US normalized their relations and exchanged the first ambassadors in May; Lễ Văn Bang arrived in Washington and Douglas Peterson – prisoner of war in Vietnam 1966-73 – to Hanoi. Later in the year, Madeleine Albright visited Vietnam as the first US foreign minister after the war.

In early November, southern Vietnam was hit by a typhoon that killed over 580 people and robbed about 150,000 people of their homes and crops.

Vietnam Military


Tropical monsoon climate. The main rainy season is from April to October, but with local differences. The summers are hot and humid (average annual temperature 25ºC, between 2000 mm and 3000 mm of precipitation). The north is subtropical with greater contrasts between summer and winter.

Between the spirit of the mountains and the spirit of the waters

The most beloved Vietnamese folk tales is the story of the spirit of the Mountains and the spirit of the Waters, both of whom lost their hearts to the beautiful princess. The spirit of the mountains performed the male work required of the groom candidate more quickly and took the beauty as his wife to his castle, but the lost and enraged Spirit of the Waters let go of the typhoons and floods in his anger. They destroyed fields and dams, temples and houses. And while the Spirit of the Mountains managed to repair the damage with that batch, the annoyed Spirit of the Waters returns every year as the monsoon rains begin their vengeance.

The southern part of Vietnam is a tropical, but the north is a cooler subtropical zone. The rainy season is during the Southern Monsoon from May to September. Of the two major rivers in Vietnam, the vast estuary of the southern Mekong receives rainfall of up to 3,000 mm per year. In the north, around the Red River (Song Koi), which flows into the Gulf of Tonkin. To the north, the spirit of the waters, or typhoons, most often strikes between July and November, in the south they can be expected in the spring.

Located on the coast of the South China Sea, Vietnam is a long (1650 km) and narrow (at least only 50 km) mountainous country almost the size of Finland, which is divided into three regions. To the north of the Chinese border is Tonkin, where the country’s capital, Hanoi, is located. The highlands and the central part of Vietnam, which spans the narrow coastal strip to the east, are called Annam. To the south is the Alava Sludge and Estuary, known as Kochinkina. The name of its million city, Saigon, changed to Ho Chi Minh after North Vietnam conquered the south in 1975.

Country data

Area: 330,967 km2 (world rank: 65)

Residents: 95,541,000

Population density: 289 per km2 (as of 2017, world rank: 15)

Capital: Ha Noi (Hanoi)

Official languages: Vietnamese

Gross domestic product: 223.9 billion US $; Real growth: 6.8%

Gross national product (GNP, per resident and year): 2170 US$

Currency: 1 dong (D) = 100 Xu


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Telephone 030 53630108,
Fax 030 53630200

Head of State: Tran Dai QuangDang Thi Ngoc Thinh, Head of Government: Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Outside: Pham Binh Minh

National holiday: 2.9.

Administrative structure
58 provinces and 5 self-governing cities

State and form of government
Constitution of 1992
Socialist Republic
Parliament: National Assembly (Quoc Hoi) with 500 members, election every 5 years; General Secretary of the Central Committee and the Politburo of the Communist Party determine policy guidelines
election of the head of state by parliament every 5 J.
Voting age 18 years

the population
of Vietnamese, last census in 2009: 85,846,997 pop.
approximately 60 ethnic groups: approx. 87% Vietnamese (Kinh); Hmong, Thai, Khmer, Chinese

Cities (with population): (As of 2009) Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh (Ho Chi Minh City; formerly Saigon) 5,880,615 residents, Ha Noi 2,316,772 (A 6.4 million), Da Nang 770,911, Hai Phong 769,739, Can Tho 731,545, Bien Hoa 652,646, Hué 302,983, Nha Trang 292,693, Vung Tau 282,415

Religions: over 50% Buddhists, 8-9% Christians (especially Catholics; Protestant “house churches”), 3-4% followers of Caodaism, 2-3 % Followers of Hoa Hao; Minority of Muslims (as of 2006)

Languages: 80% Vietnamese; Minority languages; Chinese, French, English

Employees by economic sector: Agriculture. 41%, industry 25%, business 34% (2017)

Unemployment (in% of all economically active persons)
no information

Inflation rate (in%): 2017: 3.5%

Foreign trade: import: US $ 211.5 billion (2017); Export: US $ 214.3 billion (2017)