People of Vietnam

In 1998, Vietnam had a population of over 76,000,000 and of these most of them lived around the Red and Mekong deltas, where the population density is around 1000 people per sq km.  The population is made up of mainly ethnic Vietnamese people (those whose ancestors moved to the area thousands of years before) who have settled in the lowlands, while the largest minority group consists of ethnic Chinese.  The Chinese immigrants (those whose families settled in the area within the last few hundred years) have settled for the most part in cities and provincial towns and consist of around 2,000,000 total population. 

In addition to the ethnic Chinese, there are other minorities that live in Vietnam namely the Khmer and the Cham, descendents of inhabitants who lived in central and southern Vietnam before the area was conquered by the Vietnamese.  Another portion of the population is made up of tribal groups, who as a whole represent about 7% of Vietnam's entire population.  Their ancestors came into Vietnam from other Asian countries.  These tribes make up about 50 different language and ethnic groups and live mainly in the mountainous area around the Red River Delta and in the Central Highlands.

Although the different ethics groups get along for the most part, the Vietnamese tend to show antipathy towards the dominance ethnic Chinese have in the national economy.  To further aggravate the situation, Vietnamese tend to be wary of China for their past domination in various parts of the country and take it out occasionally on the Chinese citizens of Vietnam.