Legend tells us that Vietnam is the homeland of many nationalities and all are descendants of Lac Long Quan and Au Co, hatching out of a hundred eggs, half of them following their mother to the mountain, the other half accompanying their father to the sea.  They joined hands to build the nation from “three mountains, four seas and the landmass”.  For centuries the peoples of Vietnam have lived in harmony with nature and nature does not betray human effort.  The Viet (Kinh) are Vietnam’s majority ethnic group more than 88% of the country’s population.  They developed as a distinct ethnic group between 200BC and 200AD through the fusion of people of Indonesian and Thai stock.  They have lived for over two  thousand years growing rice, and as a result, have historically preferred to live in lowland areas suitable for rice growing - the central coastal plains and the two river deltas, the Red and the Mekong. Over 2000 years they have slowly pushed southward, defeating the Chams in the 15^th century and taking over the Mekong Delta from the Khmers in the 18^th century.

The remaining 12%, approximately 8 million, belong to 53 distinct ethnic groups.  The Hoa are the second largest group, they are the country’s ethnic Chinese, living predominantly in urban areas.  Though families have lived in Vietnam for generations, they have historically tried to maintain their separate Chinese identities, language and school systems.  60,000 Cham are the remnant of the once-vigorous kingdom of Champa, which flourished from the 2^nd to 15^th centuries, most live along the coast.  Most of the Chams, who were profoundly influenced by both Hinduism and Buddhism, are now Muslims.   There is a superb collection of Cham statues at the Cham Museum in Danang.  Vietnam’s other 51 ethnic groups live mostly in the highland regions, some, like the Tay, are quite large, numbering about one million people, other groups are tiny, such as the Romam and the O Du, each of these number little more than 100 persons.  The mountainous area of Vietnam, the Truong Son Mountain range, stretches from north to south and covers two-thirds of the country and because they lived in this mountainous area the name Montangards, or mountain people was given to these minority people by the French.  They are fiercely independent-minded and resent interference from outsiders; traditions, customs, language and dress is distinctly different one from another.

Return to Vietnam Cultural Journey Tour           Return to Vietnam Index