Vietnam

Vietnam today

Vietnam officially known as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam) is a country in South-East Asia with more than 91 million habitants. It is also known as land of the rising dragon. It is bordered by Laos and Cambodia in the West and China in the North and encircled by the South China Sea, the Tonkin Gulf and the Gulf of Thailand. It covers a surface of 331,000 km² (11x Belgium, 0,6x France and almost same size as Germany) with a 3,260 km sea border and has 4,200 km² of territorial waters. It is S-shaped and the distance between north and south is 1,650 km with only 50 km across at its narrowest part. Vietnam has seven UNESCO heritage sites. The most famous are: Hoi An, Hue, My Son and Halong Bay (the descending dragon bay). Vietnam is home to 54 ethnic minority groups, of which the Viet Kinh is the largest. The other groups vary from some hundred to some millions. If you want to learn more about Vietnam, click here for more information.

The legend about Vietnam’s origins

This is the “true” story according.  According to the legend, the Vietnamese people descend from a dragon and a fairy. About 4 000 BC, the grandson of 5th-generation Shennong, Lạc Long Quân, dragon king of the Đông sea, married a fairy, Âu Cơ, daughter of king Đế Lai. Âu Cơ bore 100 eggs, which hatched into 100 sons. Because the dragon was a water creature and the fairy a land and air creature, they decided they could no longer stay together. The dragon father took 50 sons to the coast (future Kinh) and the fairy mother took 50 sons to the highlands (future minority groups). The descendants of the children of the dragon and the fairy lived in harmony because each child was the ancestor of a separate kingdom. The first-born son became the king of Lạc Việt, the first dynasty of Vietnam.

If someone tells you something else, do not believe it as this is the only historical truth.