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. 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, 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 communist-led Viet Minh coalition front launched the August Revolution and declared Vietnam's independence from the Empire of Japan in 1945.
Vietnam went through prolonged warfare in the 20th century. After World War II, France returned to reassert colonial control in the First Indochina War, but was defeated in 1954 amid the global Cold War. As a result of the accords signed between the Viet Minh and France, Vietnam was also separated into two parts. The Vietnam War later broke out between the communist North Vietnam, supported by the Soviet Union and China, and the anti-communist South Vietnam, supported by the United States.
Upon the North Vietnamese victory in 1975, Vietnam reunified as a communist state that self-designated as a socialist state under the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in 1976.
An ineffective planned economy, a trade embargo by the West, and wars with Cambodia and China crippled the country further. In 1986, the CPV launched economic and political reforms similar to the Chinese economic reforms, transforming the country to a socialist-oriented market economy. The reforms facilitated Vietnamese reintegration into the global economy and politics.
Vietnam is a developing country with an upper-middle–income economy. It has high levels of corruption, censorship, environmental issues, and a poor human rights record. It is part of international and intergovernmental institutions, including the ASEAN, the APEC, the Non-Aligned Movement, the OIF, and the WTO. It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council twice.
Etymology
The name Việt Nam (pronounced [viə̂tˀ nāːm], chữ Hán: 越南), literally "Viet South", means per Vietnamese word order "Viet of the South"; meanwhile, per Classical Chinese word order, "Việt Nam" ambiguously means either "South of the Viet" or "Viet people's Southern country".
A variation of the name, Nanyue (or Nam Việt, 南越), was first documented in the 2nd century BC. The term "Việt" (Yue) (Chinese: 越; pinyin: Yuè; Cantonese Yale: Yuht; Wade–Giles: Yüeh4; Vietnamese: Việt) in Early Middle Chinese was first written using the logograph "戉" for an axe (a homophone), in oracle bone and bronze inscriptions of the Shang dynasty (c. 1200 BC), and later as "越".
It referred to a people or chieftain to the northwest of the Shang. In the 8th century BC, a tribe on the middle Yangtze were called the Yangyue, a term later used for peoples further south. Between the 7th and 4th centuries BC, 'Yue'/'Việt' referred to the State of Yue in the lower Yangtze basin and its people. From the 3rd century BC, the term was used for the non-Chinese populations of southern China and northern Vietnam, with particular ethnic groups called Minyue, Ouyue, Luoyue (Vietnamese: Lạc Việt), etc., collectively called the Baiyue (Bách Việt, Chinese: 百越; pinyin: Bǎiyuè; Cantonese Yale: Baak Yuet; Vietnamese: Bách Việt; lit. 'Hundred Yue/Viet').
The term 'Baiyue'/'Bách Việt' first appeared in the book Lüshi Chunqiu compiled around 239 BC. By the 17th and 18th centuries AD, educated Vietnamese apparently referred to themselves as người Việt (Viet people) or người Nam (southern people).
The form Việt Nam (越南) is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình. The name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Hải Phòng that dates to 1558.
In 1802, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, who became Emperor Gia Long, established the Nguyễn dynasty. Gia Long asked the Jiaqing Emperor of the Qing dynasty to confer on him the title 'King of Nam Việt / Nanyue' (南越 in Chinese character) after seizing power in Annam.
Emperor Jiaqing refused because the name was related to Zhao Tuo's Nanyue, which included the regions of Guangxi and Guangdong in southern China, so he decided to call the area "Việt Nam" instead, meaning per Classical Chinese word order "land to the south of the Viet land" (Vietnamese: vùng đất phía Nam đất Việt).
However, the Vietnamese just understood "Việt Nam" as either, also per Classical Chinese word-order, "Viet people's Southern country" (Vietnamese: nước Nam của người Việt) or even per Vietnamese word order, "Viet of the South". Between 1804-13, the name Vietnam was used officially by Emperor Gia Long.
It was revived in the 20th century in Phan Bội Châu's History of the Loss of Vietnam, and by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (VNQDĐ). The country was usually called Annam and its people Annamites until 1945, when the imperial government in Huế adopted Việt Nam.
History
Prehistory and early history
Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age. Stone artefacts excavated in Gia Lai province have been claimed to date to 780,000 years ago, based on associated find of tektites, however this claim has been challenged because tektites are often found in archaeological sites of various ages in Vietnam. Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500,000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam.
The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from Mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance, and include isolated tooth fragments from Tham Om and Hang Hum. Teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have been found at Dong Can, and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu, Lang Gao and Lang Cuom.
Areas comprising what is now Vietnam participated in the Maritime Jade Road, as ascertained by archaeological research.
By about 1,000 BC, the development of wet-rice cultivation in the Ma River and Red River floodplains led to the flourishing of Đông Sơn culture, notable for its bronze casting used to make elaborate bronze Đông Sơn drums. This culture spread to the rest of Southeast Asia, including Maritime Southeast Asia, throughout the first millennium BC.
Dynastic Vietnam
According to Vietnamese legends, the Hồng Bàng dynasty of the Hùng kings, first established in 2879 BC, is considered the first state established in Vietnam (then known as Xích Quỷ and later Văn Lang). Văn Lang was established by Lạc Việt tribes, who were likely a confederacy of multilingual Austroasiatic and Kra-Dai speakers who occupied the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam.
In 257 BC, the last Hùng king was defeated by Thục Phán. He consolidated the Lạc Việt and Âu Việt tribes, who came from southern China, to form the Âu Lạc, proclaiming himself An Dương Vương.
In 179 BC, a Chinese general named Zhao Tuo (Triệu Đà) defeated An Dương Vương and consolidated Âu Lạc into Nanyue. However, Nanyue was itself incorporated into the empire of the Chinese Han dynasty in 111 BC after the Han–Nanyue War. Through Han rule, Confucianism was introduced into the region and came to influence Vietnamese societal norms and governance.
For the next thousand years, what is now northern Vietnam remained mostly under Chinese rule. Early independence movements, such as those of the Trưng Sisters and Lady Triệu, were temporarily successful, though the region gained a longer period of independence as Vạn Xuân under the Anterior Lý dynasty between AD 544 and 602.[verification needed] By the early 10th century, northern Vietnam had gained autonomy, but not sovereignty, under the Khúc family.
In AD 938, the Vietnamese lord Ngô Quyền defeated the forces of the Chinese Southern Han state at Bạch Đằng River and achieved full independence for Vietnam in 939 after a millennium of Chinese domination. By the 960s, the dynastic Đại Việt (Great Viet) kingdom was established, and Vietnamese society enjoyed a golden era under the Lý and Trần dynasties.
During the rule of the Trần dynasty, Đại Việt repelled three Mongol invasions. Meanwhile, the Mahāyāna branch of Buddhism flourished and became the state religion. Following the 1406–7 Ming–Hồ War, which overthrew the Hồ dynasty, Vietnamese independence was interrupted briefly by the Chinese Ming dynasty, but was restored by Lê Lợi, the founder of the Lê dynasty.
The Vietnamese polity reached their zenith in the Lê dynasty of the 15th century, especially during the reign of emperor Lê Thánh Tông (1460–1497). Between the 11th and 18th centuries, the Vietnamese polity expanded southward in a gradual process known as Nam tiến ("Southward expansion"), eventually conquering the kingdom of Champa and part of the Khmer Kingdom.
From the 16th century onward, civil strife and frequent political infighting engulfed much of Đại Việt. First, the Chinese-supported Mạc dynasty challenged the Lê dynasty's power. After the Mạc dynasty was defeated, the Lê dynasty was nominally reinstalled. Actual power, however, was divided between the northern Trịnh lords and the southern Nguyễn lords, who engaged in a civil war for more than four decades before a truce was called in the 1670s.
Vietnam was divided into North (Trịnh) and South (Nguyễn) from 1600 to 1777. During this period, the Nguyễn expanded into the Mekong Delta, annexing the Central Highlands and the Khmer lands in the Mekong Delta. The division of the country ended a century later when the Tây Sơn brothers helped Trịnh to end Nguyễn; they also established a new dynasty and ended Trịnh.
However, their rule did not last long, and they were defeated by the remnants of the Nguyễn lords, led by Nguyễn Ánh. Nguyễn Ánh unified Vietnam, and established the Nguyễn dynasty, ruling under the name Gia Long.
French Indochina
In the 1500s, the Portuguese explored the Vietnamese coast and reportedly erected a stele on the Chàm Islands to mark their presence. By 1533, they began landing in the Vietnamese delta but were forced to leave because of local turmoil and fighting. They also had less interest in the territory than they did in China and Japan.
After they had settled in Macau and Nagasaki to begin the profitable Macau–Japan trade route, the Portuguese began to involve themselves in trade with Hội An. Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries under the Padroado system were active in both Vietnamese realms of Đàng Trong (Cochinchina) and Đàng Ngoài (Tonkin) in the 17th century.
The Dutch also attempted to establish contact with Cochinchina in 1601 but failed to sustain a presence there after several violent encounters with the locals. The Dutch East India Company only managed to establish official relations with Tonkin in the spring of 1637 after leaving Dejima in Japan to establish trade for silk.
Meanwhile, in 1613, the first English attempt to establish contact with Hội An failed following a violent incident involving the East India Company. By 1672, the English established relations with Tonkin and were allowed to reside in Phố Hiến.
Between 1615 and 1753, French traders also engaged in trade in Vietnam. The first French missionaries arrived in 1658, under the Portuguese Padroado. From its foundation, the Paris Foreign Missions Society under Propaganda Fide actively sent missionaries to Vietnam, entering Cochinchina in 1664 and Tonkin in 1666.
Spanish Dominicans joined the Tonkin mission in 1676, and Franciscans were in Cochinchina from 1719 to 1834. Vietnamese authorities became concerned by increasing Christianisation activities, and after several Catholic missionaries were detained, the French Navy intervened in 1843 to free them. In a series of conquests from 1859 to 1885, France eroded Vietnam's sovereignty.
At the siege of Tourane in 1858, France was aided by Spain (with Spanish and Filipino troops from the Philippines) and perhaps some Tonkinese Catholics. After the 1862 Treaty of Saigon, and especially after France completely conquered Lower Cochinchina in 1867, the Văn Thân movement of scholar-gentry class arose and committed violence against Catholics across central and northern Vietnam.
Between 1862 and 1867, the southern third of the country became the French colony of Cochinchina. By 1884, the entire country was under French rule, with the central and northern parts of Vietnam separated into the two protectorates of Annam and Tonkin. The three entities were formally integrated into the union of French Indochina in 1887.
During this period, the French administration imposed significant political and cultural changes on Vietnamese society. A Western-style system of modern education introduced new humanist values. Most French settlers in Indochina were concentrated in Cochinchina, particularly in Saigon, and in Hanoi, the colony's capital.
During the early colonial period, guerrillas of the royalist Cần Vương movement rebelled against French rule and massacred around a third of Vietnam's Christian population. Anti-Catholic violence persisted in Nam Định, Quảng Trị, and Bình Định during the 1880s. The French strategy for pacification in Vietnam relied more on alliances with local notables than on Christian missions to establish control and manage resistance.
The French developed a plantation economy to promote export of tobacco, indigo, tea and coffee. However, they largely ignored the increasing demands for civil rights and self-governance. An increasing dissatisfaction even led to half-hearted, badly coordinated, and still worse executed plots to oust the French, such as the Hanoi Poison Plot of 1908 and the Thái Nguyên uprising of 1917.
A nationalist political movement soon emerged, with leaders like Phan Bội Châu, Phan Châu Trinh, Phan Đình Phùng, and Emperor Hàm Nghi fighting or calling for independence. This resulted in the 1930 Yên Bái mutiny by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (VNQDĐ), which the French quashed. The mutiny split the independence movement, as many leading members converted to communism.
