People
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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