Vietnam
/ Population
According
to the Asiaweek issue of July 6, 1994, the population of
Vietnam by the middle of 1994 counted about 73 million,
which in terms of population makes Vietnam the second largest
country in Southeast Asia after Indonesia with 191 millions.
Ethnically
Vietnam is the most homogenous country of Southeast Asia;
about 90 % of the population are Vietnamese. Nevertheless, there
are a large number of ethnic minorities, not quite as many as
in Burma and Indonesia (far more than 100 in each of these two
countries), but still, more than 50.
About 85
% of the 7 millions of Vietnam's ethnic-minority population
belong to indigenous ethnic minorities, whose settlement areas
have for many centuries been the mountain regions of Vietnam.
The largest groups are Thai and Hmong tribes. Contrary to what
is the case in Burma and Indonesia, ethnic minorities in Vietnam
are not strong enough to seriously aspire their own sovereign
states.
There are
about 1 million ethnic Chinese living in urban centres
in the South of the country. Since the Communist takeover the
Chinese suffer severe restrictions, reflecting the fact that ethnic
Chinese had played a dominant role in the capitalist economic
system before the Communist takeover.
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