Vietnam

Vietnam curves in a long S down the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, broad at both ends and pinched to a narrow waist in the middle. The north is built around the Red River Delta and the karst islands of Ha Long Bay, the south around the vast Mekong Delta, and the Annamite Range runs down the spine between them. The north has a cool, damp winter; the south stays hot all year, with a monsoon wet season.

For a thousand years from 111 BC the Red River lands were ruled by Chinese dynasties, until Ngo Quyen’s victory at the Bach Dang River in 938 won lasting independence. Later dynasties pushed south, absorbing the Cham kingdoms and the Khmer lands of the Mekong. France colonised the country in the late nineteenth century. Ho Chi Minh declared independence in 1945; war with France ended at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 with the country divided, and a second war, involving the United States, ended with reunification in 1975.

Vietnamese is written in a Latin alphabet with tone marks, devised by missionaries in the seventeenth century. Tet, the lunar new year, is the great family festival, pho and banh mi have travelled the world, and fish sauce flavours almost everything. Since the Doi Moi reforms of 1986, rice from the Mekong, coffee from the Central Highlands, cashews and seafood have been exported in bulk, and factories around Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City assemble phones, clothing and shoes.