Vietnam Provinces (original) (raw)

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Updates:

Update 8 to Geopolitical Entities and Codes, the successor to FIPS standard 10-4, is dated 2012-05-01. It deleted the FIPS code for Ha Tay province. ISO 3166-2 deleted its code for Ha Tay on 2014-11-03. In the same update, ISO added diacritics as needed to the province names.

Update 15 to the GEC, the successor to the FIPS standard, is dated 2014-03-31. It changes the spelling of one province from Dac Lak to Dak Lak (with diacritics that I am not currently able to display).

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter II-3 is dated 2011-12-15. For Vietnam, the five municipalities have been given new ISO codes that are alphabetic rather than numeric. Previously, their codes were 48 for Can Tho,60 for Da Nang, 62 for Haiphong, 64 for Hanoi, and 65for Ho Chi Minh. This update doesn't reflect the removal of Ha Tay province.

FIPS 10-4 Change Notice 12, dated 2007-06-11, has FIPS codes for the three new provinces. The table has been updated accordingly. The standard also designates Can Tho and Da Nang as municipalities rather than provinces.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter number I-7 was published on 2005-09-13. It provides codes for the three new provinces created in 2003 (and reported here on 2003-11-27).

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-2 was published on 2002-05-21. The only change to Vietnamese provinces is a spelling correction, changing "thanh po" to "thanh pho" in the formal name of Ho Chi Minh.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-1 was published on 2000-06-21. The original ISO 3166-2 standard had assigned the same code, 24, to both Quang Binh and Quang Ninh provinces. The update changes the code for Quang Ninh to 13 to avoid duplication.

Country overview:

Vietnam was part of French Indo-China in 1900. It attained partial independence in 1949. In 1954, the French, tired of fighting the Communists in the north, but unwilling to abandon the country to them, agreed to partition it along the 17th parallel. The parts were North Vietnam (capital Hanoi) and South Vietnam (Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City). Conflict continued until the two countries were formally united on 1976-07-02.

Other names of country:

1. Danish: Vietnam
2. Dutch: Vietnam, Socialistische Republiek Vietnam (formal)
3. English: Vietnam, Viet Nam (variant), Socialist Republic of Vietnam (formal)
4. Finnish: Vietnam
5. French: Vi�t Nam m
6. German: Vietnam n
7. Icelandic: V�etnam
8. Italian: Vietnam m
9. Norwegian: Den sosialistiske republikk Vietnam (formal) (Bokm�l), Den sosialistiske republikken Vietnam (formal) (Nynorsk), Vietnam
10. Portuguese: Vietname, Vietnam, Vietn� m (Brazil), Rep�blica f Socialista do Vietname m (formal)
11. Russian: Социалистическая Республика Вьетнам (formal)
12. Spanish: Vietnam m, Rep�blica f Socialista de Viet Nam m (formal)
13. Swedish: Vietnam
14. Turkish: Vietnam, Vietnam Sosyalist Cumhuriyeti (formal)
15. Vietnamese: C�ng H�a X� H�i Chu Nghia Vi�t Nam (formal)

Origin of name:

Vietnamese viet: foreigner, nam: south, applied by Chinese to foreigners from the south

Primary subdivisions:

Vietnam is divided into tinh (provinces) and thu do (formerly called thanh pho; municipalities).

Postal code:

Vietnam uses six-digit postal codes, where the first two digits determine a province or city. The codes shown in the table above were valid as of 2002. If no postal codes were changed during subsequent province mergers and splits, some of the codes in Hanoi municipality would begin with 31 from the old Ha Tay province.

Further subdivisions:

See the Districts of Vietnam page.

Various sources, including the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, show the country divided into six to eight regions. There is no consistency to the regional division, even within the GSO. Their purpose seems to be statistical, not administrative. For that reason, I've decided not to list them.

Source [8] shows the number of lower-level subdivisions: cities under provinces, urban districts, towns, rural districts, precincts, towns under districts, and communes. According to it, as of 2004-12-31, Vietnam was divided at the secondary level into 25 cities under provinces, 42 urban districts, 536 rural districts, and 59 towns; at the tertiary level into 1,181 precincts, 583 towns under districts, and 9,012 communes. (The source doesn't make it clear, so the tertiary level may not be exhaustive, or may have additional structure not shown.)

Territorial extent:

1. Vietnam claims the Paracel and Spratly islands in the South China Sea.
2. Ba Ria-Vung Tau includes the Con Dao islands.
3. Kien Giang includes the islands Phu Quoc, Rai, Tre, and others in the Gulf of Siam.

The UN LOCODE page for Vietnam lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names:

1. Haiphong: Vietnamese hai: sea, phong: room
2. Hanoi: Vietnamese ha: river, noi: interior
3. Ho Chi Minh City: named for North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh (pseudonym of Nguyen Ai Quoc, 1890-1969)

Change history:

1. By 1900 the French had established a protectorate (tantamount to a colony) over Indo-China, known as the Indochinese Union or French Indo-China. It was divided into the territories of Anam (French name Annam; capital Hu�), Cambodia (Cambodge; Phnom Penh), Cochin China (Cochinchine; Saigon), Laos (Laos; Louang Prabang), and Tongking (Tonkin; Hanoi). Anam, Cochin China, and Tongking were essentially equivalent to present-day Vietnam. The Vietnamese names for them were Trung Bo, Nam Bo, and Bac Bo respectively, meaning Center, South, and North. They were subdivided into provinces.
2. 1954-07-21: Cease-fire agreement signed between France and the Viet Minh rebels, partitioning Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam at the parallel 17� North.
3. 1954-12-29: North and South Vietnam became independent.
4. 1959: South Vietnam consisted of 22 provinces of Cochin China and most of 13 provinces of Annam; North Vietnam consisted of 4 provinces of Annam and 29 provinces of Tonkin (?). Their formal names were Republic of Vietnam and Democratic Republic of Vietnam, respectively.
5. 1976-07-02: North and South Vietnam merged to form Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Name of Saigon changed to Ho Chi Minh City.
6. ~1978: Cao Lang province split into Cao Bang and Lang Son.
7. 1979-05-30: Vung Tau-Con Dao dac khu (special zone) formed by taking the area around Vung Tau (Cape Saint Jacques) from Dong Nai, and the Con Dao islands from Hau Giang. Before this change, the FIPS codes of Dong Nai and Hau Giang were VM08 and VM18, respectively. Name of Gia Lai-Cong Tum province changed to Gia Lai-Kon Tum. At this time, the provinces were as follows:

1. ~1990: Binh Tri Thien province split into Quang Binh, Quang Tri, and Thua Thien. Nghia Binh province split into Binh Dinh and Quang Ngai. Phu Khanh province split into Khanh Hoa and Phu Yen.
2. ~1992: Ha Nam Ninh, Ha Son Binh, and part of Hanoi provinces reorganized to form Ha Tay, Hoa Binh, Nam Ha, and Ninh Binh. Ha Tuyen province split into Ha Giang and Tuyen Quang. Hoang Lien Son province split into Lao Cai and Yen Bai. Nghe Tinh province split into Ha Tinh and Nghe An. Gia Lai-Kon Tum province split into Gia Lai and Kon Tum. Part of Dong Nai province annexed to Vung Tau-Con Dao special zone to form Ba Ria-Vung Tau province. Thuan Hai province split into Binh Thuan and Ninh Thuan. Hau Giang province split into Can Tho and Soc Trang. Cuu Long province split into Tra Vinh and Vinh Long. The result was the division shown below.

1. 1993: Capital of Lai Chau province moved from Lai Chau to Dien Bien Phu.
2. 1994: Capital of Quang Ninh province, formerly named Hong Gai, merged with Bai Chay and took the name Ha Long.
3. 1996-11-06: Bac Thai province split into Bac Can and Thai Nguyen; Ha Bac province split into Bac Giang and Bac Ninh; Hai Hung province split into Hai Duong and Hung Yen; Minh Hai province split into Bac Lieu and Ca Mau; Nam Ha province split into Ha Nam and Nam Dinh; Quang Nam-Da Nang province split into Quang Nam province and Da Nang municipality; Song Be province split into Binh Duong and Binh Phuoc; Vinh Phu province split into Phu Tho and Vinh Phuc.
4. 2003-11-25: Can Tho province (former FIPS code VM48) split into Can Tho municipality and Hau Giang province; Dac Nong province split from Dac Lac (formerly VM07); Dien Bien province split from Lai Chau (formerly VM22); Than Uyen district transferred from Lao Cai province (formerly VM56) to Lai Chau province. For the seven divisions affected by these changes, the population, area, and 1965 provinces are probably inaccurate. To restore the main table to its appearance before these changes, delete the rows for Dac Nong, Dien Bien, and Hau Giang; then, change the data for the following three provinces as shown. Can Tho had HASC code VN.CT, 1999 population 1,811,100, area 2,951 km.�. Dac Lac had HASC code VN.DL, 1999 population 1,776,331, area 19,800 km.�. Lai Chau had HASC code VN.LC, 1999 population 588,666, area 17,131 km.�, and Dien Bien Phu was its capital.
5. 2008-08-01: Ha Tay province and parts of Hoa Binh and Vinh Phuc provinces merged with Hanoi municipality. Before this change, Ha Tay had a 1999 population of 2,386,770; approximate area, 2,147 km.�; HASC code, VN.HA; ISO code, 15; FIPS code,VM51; postal code prefix, 31; and corresponded roughly to the territory of Ha Dong and Son Tay provinces in 1965. Its capital was Ha Dong. The corresponding data for Hanoi were 2,672,122, 921, VN.HN, 64, VM44, 10, Hanoi, and Hanoi.

Other names of subdivisions:

1. Bac Can: Bac Kan (variant)
2. Dac Lac: Dak Lak (variant)
3. Dac Nong: Dak Nong (variant)
4. Hanoi: Han�i (Spanish)
5. Ho Chi Minh: Saigon (obsolete)

Sources:

1. [1] Library of Congress country study (retrieved 1999).
2. [2] Ministry of Posts and Telematics (http://www.mpt.gov.vn/details\_e.asp?Object=271032875&news\_ID=4539827, dead link, retrieved 2006-09-30).
3. [3] The United Nations Development Program website had maps of each of the provinces of Vietnam, and of seven "economic regions" of the country, as followed the creation of new provinces in 1996 (http://www.undp.org.vn/dmu/reference/en/provinces.htm, dead link, retrieved 2000-04-18).
4. [4] The French-language daily Le courrier du Vietnam had a description of the 1996 changes (http://www.refer.edu.vn/vietn\_ct/med/courrier/6931219.htm, dead link, retrieved 2000-04-18).
5. [5] Vietnam Web, a Vietnamese ISP, described the post-1996 provinces (http://home.vnn.vn/english/map/, dead link, retrieved 2000-04-18).
6. [6] Viet Nam News described the creation of new provinces in 2003 (http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/2003-11/05/Stories/01.htm, dated 2003-11-06, dead link, retrieved 2003-11-27).
7. [7] Geohive (http://www.geohive.com/cd/link.php?xml=vn&xsl=neo1, dead link, retrieved 2004-10-28; currently the Geohive data can be foundhere ).
8. [8] General Statistics Office of Vietnam webpage, retrieved 2005-10-20. The contents of that page have changed since then.
9. [9] 2009 Population and Housing Census , General Statistics Office Of Vietnam: Part III: Tabulated Tables (retrieved 2011-03-28).
10. [10] AsiaOne News story, dated 2008-08-01, retrieved 2011-03-28.

Galina Miklosic has posted a Belarusian translation of this page. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the translation, of course.