Vietnam language

Almost every nation has its own language that speaks of its culture and heritage, so does Vietnam. 'Vietnamese' is the official language of Vietnam. Having a similarity with Cambodia's official language 'Khmer', Vietnamese is a bit difficult language especially for the foreigners. Other than Vietnamese, Chinese, Khmer, Cham and other tribal languages are also spoken in Vietnam.

Spoken by about 68 million people in Vietnam, Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language. Apart from Vietnam, Vietnamese is also spoken in countries like Australia, Cambodia, Finland, France, Laos, Germany, Netherlands, Senegal, UK, USA, China, Canada, Norway and Philippines.

Originally Vietnamese was written with a Siniform script, which was essentially Chinese in structure, but later Vietnamese literature developed a more Vietnamese style. Kim Van Kieu, the 'Tale of Kieu', a romantic novel written by Nguyen Du is one of the greatest literary work in Vietnamese. It was in the 17th century, when the Roman Catholic missionaries introduced a system of writing Vietnamese in the Latin alphabets.

Vietnam Provinces

Vietnam is a small Southeast Asian nation, picturesque and beautiful, and is recognized more for its fighting spirit during the one and a half decade long Vietnam War and the Nobel peace prize winner nationalist leader Aung San Su Chi. Though Vietnam is relatively a smaller country geographically, there are sixty four Vietnam provinces existing presently along with five municipalities existing at the same level. Historically however there were five Vietnam provinces. A brief idea about these provinces will act as a Vietnam travel guide of provinces to the visitor.

The largest municipality in Vietnam is Ho Chi Minh City which is the most populous city with over 5 million people living there as well as the top level administrative unit. Among the Vietnam provinces, while Thanh Hoa is the most populous one with over three and a half million people, the mountainous Vietnam province of Lai Chau is the least populous. The largest province in terms of land area in Vietnam is Nghe An covering an area of 16,487 Sq Kms while Bac Ninh is the smallest with 804 sq Kms of area.

The provinces of Vietnam are grouped into eight regions for the convenience of administrative work. These regions are
- North west called the Tay Bac
This region contains four inland provinces, two of which are along Vietnam’s border with Laos and one with China.

- North east called Dong Bac
This region holds eleven Vietnam provinces, many of which are mountainous, lying north of the Red River Lowlands which is highly populated.

- River Delta called Dong Bang Song Hong
This region holds nine small but populous provinces and two municipalities based around the Red River. The municipalities are Hanoi, the national capital and Haiphong.

- North Central Coast called Bac Trung Bo
The six provinces held by this region lies within the stretch from the coast in the east to Laos in the west.

- South Central Coast called Nam Trung Bo
This region includes five coastal provinces and the municipality of Danang.

- Central highlands called Tay Nguyen
This mountainous region contains five inland provinces mostly inhabited by ethnic minorities with a small Vietnamese population.

- Southeast called Dong Nam Bo
This region is a part of lowland southern Vietnam, north of Mekong delta. Seven provinces are included in this region along with the municipality of Ho Chi Minh City.

- Mekong River Delta called Dong Bang Song Cuu Long
There are twelve small and populous Vietnam provinces along with the municipality of Can Tho that lies in this southern most region of Vietnam.