Vietnam is shaped like a triangle at the north with a ribbon of land running from its south-pointing apex in a c-curve that widens in the southern half of its length. The heart of the northern triangle is the fertile Red River delta flanked northeast and southwest by mountains. Southeast of this delta a narrow coastal plain constitutes the beginning of the c-curve, edged westward by the Annamite Mountains. The bend of the curve, wheter these mountains meet the sea, is a limestone plateau, and southwest is the other rice-growing delta: the Mekong, the end of the world's tenth longest river.
Vietnamese speakers are the overwhelming majority, but estimates of the minorities vary. The two most numerous are the city-dwelling Chinese and the Tho of the upriver parts of the Red River system. Despite the Marxian government the majority are Buddhist, though how many is problematic. Statistics distinguish Taoists and indiginous beliefs but it is my guess that syncretic combinations would raise the acknowledged proportion of Buddhists, especially in a freer society. Christians are less than one in ten, and Moslems fewer still. The northern of the two large cities is the capital, Hanoi(3), situated well inland in the Red River delta, with a metropolitan area embracing the Vietnamese culture hearth and extending to the sea. Southeast of Hanoi and further down the delta is the port of Haiphong, which also has more than a million residents. The southern metropolis, now call Ho Chi Minh City, is in the southwestern lowlands, north of the Mekong delta.
People probably arrived here about 10,000 years after leaving Ethiopia. More than two thousand years ago the Vietnamese were settled in the Red River delta. At this time the language was undoubtedly quite different--not yet influenced by Chinese--and perhaps the same language spoken by the ancestors of the Muong. Linguistically it is part of the Austroasiatic group of southeast Asia and I'm tempted to speculate that the linguistic ancestors of the Vietnamese were part of the Dong Son material culture. That would extend the linguistic continuity back five millenia.
Further south there used to be a linguistic divide, with the people of central Vietnam speaking Austronesian languages, eventually Cham. The old language of the Mekong is unclear; perhaps it was a relative of minority languages nearby or of Cham.
The local religions of this early time are only known through their vestiges in folklore, such as the tales of the Mountain spirit and Water Spirit of the Vietnamese. Hinduism arrived first in the south, then was replaced--though not entirely--by Buddhism. In the north Confucianism arrived with Chinese rulers, and many of the elite Confuscianist were also private Taoists. Buddhism first reached the Vietnamese by sea from the south, and was soon reinforced by the official patronage of Chinese rulers.
northwest
northeast
east of northern Vietnam
east of southern Vietnam
southwest
west of southern Vietnam
west of central and northern Vietnam
(1) Officially there is a space between Viet and Nam. The area studied here does not include the Spratley Islands.
(2) Xisha Qundao in Chinese, the language of the occupying power
(3) Officially there is a space between Ha and Noi.