Vietnam/Catalogs/Provinces

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Vietnam, both before and after independence, has been divided into administrative areas called provinces. The Vietnamese term for province is tinh. As opposed to Canadian provinces and U.S. states, they do change name, split, merge, and otherwise may have somewhat unstable designations. These changes are not all connected with colonial and unification events. [1]

Substructure

Subdivisions of provinces, called than pho in vietnamese, are districts' ' or municipalities; districts have wards.

The capital of a province (e.g., Can Tho Province often has the same name as the province, but with the suffix "city" or sometimes "town" (e.g., Can Tho City). There are some urban provinces for the larger cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon and Hue.

Superstructure

Vietnam has a number of traditional and administrative regional divisions. Going before the colonial period, there were still three divisions, for which both Vietnamese and Chinese names were used. Tonkin in the north, Dai Viet or the Empire of Annam was in the center, and Cochin China in the south. Tonkin included the Red River Delta while Cochin China contains the Mekong Delta.

The current General Statistical Office defines regions, apparently used for reporting:[2] rather than governance

  • A: North East
  • B: Red River Delta
  • C: North Central Coast
  • D: South Central Coast
  • E: Central Highlands
  • F: South East
  • G: Mekong River Delta
  • H: North West

During the Vietnam War, South Vietnam was divided into Corps tactical zones, later called military regions, from I Corps tactical zone in the north to IV Corps. North Vietnam had Military Regions composed of military districts.

Today, there are a number of regions, used mostly for convenience in nomenclature.

References

  1. Gwillam Law, Provinces of Vietnam, Administrative Divisions of Countries ("Statoids")
  2. , Number of administrative units as of 31 December 2007 by province