Demographics of Vietnam

Ethnolinguistic map of Indochina, 1970

The Vietnamese government recognizes 54 ethnic groups, of which the Viet (Kinh) is the largest; according to official Vietnamese figures (2019 census), ethnic Vietnamese account for 85.32% of the nation's population and the non-Vietnamese ethnic groups account for the remaining percent. 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.

The relation between China and Vietnam also declined following reunification in 1975, with Vietnam siding with the Soviet Union against China in the Chinese-Soviet split. Tensions peaked when Vietnam and Cambodia started a war, Cambodia lead by Pol Pot being a Chinese ally, 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").

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, mostly refugees from the Vietnam-American War. 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, with up to around 50-70% words having Chinese origins, whilst Khmer was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, uses a abugida writing system, and has a great part of its vocabulary originating from Indian languages. Since the early 20th century, the Vietnamese have used a Romanized script introduced by the French, developed by Jesuit missionaries led by Alexandre de Rhodes and later on, refined by Vietnamese scholars to produce what is now known the Vietnamese language and the Vietnamese alphabet.

According to the 2019 Census, the religious demographics of Vietnam are as follows:[10]

• 86.32% Vietnamese folk religion or non religious
• 6.1% Catholicism
• 4.79% Buddhism (mainly Mahayana)
• 1.02% Hoahaoism
• 1% Protestantism
• <1% Caodaism
• 0.77 Others

It is worth noting here that the data is highly skewered, as a large majority of Vietnamese may declare themselves atheist yet practice forms of traditional folk religion or Mahayana Buddhism.[11]

Estimates for the year 2010 published by the Pew Research Center:[12]

• Vietnamese folk religion, 45.3%
• Unaffiliated, 29.6%
• Buddhism, 16.4%
• Christianity, 8.2%
• Other, 0.5%

Population pyramid 2017

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

• Racism in Vietnam
• List of ethnic groups in Vietnam
• Overseas Vietnamese

• 2006 Vietnam's population estimates
• 1999 Census results
• Socioeconomic Atlas of Vietnam