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Vietnam

OFFICIAL NAME: Socialist Republic of Vietnam

DATE OF FORMATION: 1976

POPULATION: 82.5 million

DENSITY: 657 people per square mile

LANGUAGES: Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, Khmer, Muong, Nung, Miao, Yao, Jarai

RELIGIONS: Buddhist 55%, Other and nonreligious 38%, Christian (mainly Roman Catholic) 7%

ETHNIC MIX: Vietnamese 88%, Other 6%, Chinese 4%, Thai 2%

GOVERNMENT: No multiparty elections

CURRENCY: Dông

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Vietnam lies on the eastern side of the Indochinese peninsula. Over half the country is dominated by the heavily forested mountain range, the Chaîne Annamitique. The most populated areas, which are also the most intensively cultivated, are along the Red and Mekong Rivers. Partitioned in 1954 after a war against France, Vietnam was not reunited until 1976, a few months after the communist north finally defeated the southern regime and its US allies in the Vietnam War. Vietnam is now a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party. Since 1986, the regime has pursued a liberal economic policy known as doi moi (renovation).