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Vietnam is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea – referred to in Vietnam as the East Sea – to the east. With an estimated 90.5 million inhabitants as of 2011, Vietnam is the world's 13th-most-populous country, and the eighth-most-populous Asian country.

The Vietnamese became independent from Imperial China in 938 AD, following the Battle of Bach Dang 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. Efforts to resist the French eventually led to their expulsion from the country in the mid-20th century, leaving Vietnam divided politically into two countries. Fighting between the two sides continued, with heavy foreign intervention, during the Vietnam War, which ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975.