Vietnam,
[e][f] officially the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam,
[g][h] is a country at the eastern edge of
mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about 331,000 square kilometres (128,000 sq mi) and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's
fifteenth-most populous country.
One of the two
Marxist–Leninist states in Southeast Asia,
[i] Vietnam shares land borders with China to the north, and
Laos and
Cambodia to the west. It shares
maritime borders with
Thailand through the
Gulf of Thailand, and the
Philippines,
Indonesia, and
Malaysia through the
South China Sea. Its capital is
Hanoi and its largest city is
Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnam was inhabited by the
Paleolithic age, with states established in the first millennium BC on the
Red River Delta in modern-day
northern Vietnam.
[15] Before the Han dynasty's invasion, Vietnam was marked by a vibrant mix of religion, culture, and social norms.
[16] The
Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam, which were subsequently under
Chinese rule from 111 BC until the
first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive
monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through
Confucianism and
Buddhism, and
expanded southward to the
Mekong Delta,
conquering Champa.
During most of the 17th and 18th centuries, Vietnam was effectively divided into two domains of
Đàng Trong and
Đàng Ngoài. The
Nguyễn—the last imperial dynasty—surrendered to
France in 1883. In 1887, its territory was integrated into
French Indochina as three separate regions.
In the immediate aftermath of
World War II, the nationalist coalition
Viet Minh, led by the communist revolutionary
Ho Chi Minh, launched the
August Revolution and
declared Vietnam's independence from the
Empire of Japan in 1945.