Asiatravel.com offers over 500,000 Hotels, Flights, Travel Packages, Tours & Attractions up to 75% discount. All with last minute availability & instant confirmation plus up to 5% cash rebate exclusively for our customers. For more information visit http://www.asiatravel.com Vietnam (i/ˌviːətˈnɑːm/, /viˌɛt-/, /-ˈnæm/, /ˌvjɛt-/;[7] Vietnamese pronunciation: [viət˨ naːm˧] ( listen)) officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam ( listen)), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 90.3 million inhabitants as of 2012, it is the world's 13th-most-populous country, and the eighth-most-populous Asian country. The name Vietnam translates as "South Viet", and was officially adopted in 1945. The country is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east.[8] Its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976. The Vietnamese became independent from Imperial China in 938 AD, following the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Successive Vietnamese royal dynasties flourished as the nation expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century. The First Indochina War eventually led to the expulsion of the French in 1954, leaving Vietnam divided politically into two states, North and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified, with heavy foreign intervention, during the Vietnam War, which ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vietnam was then unified under a Communist government, but was politically isolated and impoverished. In 1986, the government initiated a series of economic and political reforms, which began Vietnam's path towards integration into the world economy.[9] By 2000, it had established diplomatic relations with most nations. Vietnam's economic growth has been among the highest in the world since 2000,[9] and in 2011 it had the highest Global Growth Generators Index among 11 major economies.[10] Its successful economic reforms resulted in it joining the World Trade Organization in 2007. However, the country still suffers from relatively high levels of income inequality, disparities in healthcare provision, and poor gender equality.[11][12][13][14][15] Vietnam has become a major tourist destination since the 1990s, assisted by significant state and private investment, particularly in coastal regions.[151] About 3.77 million international tourists visited Vietnam in 2009 alone.[152] Popular destinations include Hanoi, Saigon, the former imperial capital of Hué, the World Heritage Sites of Hoi An and Mỹ Sơn, coastal regions such as Nha Trang, the caves of Ha Long Bay and the Marble Mountains. Numerous tourist projects are under construction, such as the Binh Duong tourist complex, which possesses the largest artificial sea in Southeast Asia.[153] On February 14, 2011, Joe Jackson, the father of American pop star Michael Jackson, attended a ground breaking ceremony for what will be Southeast Asia's largest entertainment complex, a five-star hotel and amusement park called Happyland. The US$2 billion project, which has been designed to accommodate 14 million tourists annually, is located in southern Long An province, near Ho Chi Minh City. It is expected that the complex will be completed in 2014.[154] Info Taken from Wikipedia.com Credits to Wikipedia.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam

• published: 23 Dec 2013
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