The reforms facilitated Vietnamese integration into global economy and politics. In 1986, the Communist Party initiated economic and political reforms, transforming the country to a market-oriented economy. An ineffective planned economy, trade embargo by the West, and wars with Cambodia and China crippled the country.

Upon North Vietnamese victory in 1975, Vietnam reunified as a unitary socialist state under the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1976. The Vietnam War began shortly after, during which the nation was divided into communist North supported by the Soviet Union and China, and anti-communist South supported by the United States. After World War II, France returned to reclaim colonial power in the First Indochina War, from which Vietnam emerged victorious in 1954. Vietnam went through prolonged warfare through the 20th century. Following the August Revolution, the nationalist Viet Minh under the leadership of communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh proclaimed independence from France in 1945. The Nguyễn-the last imperial dynasty-fell to French colonisation in 1887. Successive imperial dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded southward to the Mekong Delta. The Han dynasty annexed and put the Vietnamese under Chinese rule from 111 BC, until the first independent imperial dynasty emerged in 939.

The first known Vietnamese nation during the first millennium BC centred on the Red River Delta, located in modern day northern Vietnam. Vietnam was inhabited as early as the Paleolithic age. Its capital is Hanoi and its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Vietnam borders China to the north, Laos and Cambodia to the west, and shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea. With a population of over 96 million, it is the world's fifteenth-most populous country. Located at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, it covers 311,699 square kilometres. Vietnam ( Vietnamese: Việt Nam, ( listen)), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is a country in Southeast Asia. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of chữ nôm, chữ Hán and chữ quốc ngữ.

War divides the nation 1861 map