Vietnam Ethnic Groups | Study.com

So, if 87% of people in Vietnam identify as Viet, what about the other 13%? Well, believe it or not, Vietnam is actually home to 54 distinct ethnic groups. How’s that for a substantial amount of diversity? How did Vietnam become so diverse? Well, outside of the river deltas, Vietnam is very mountainous. Since prehistoric times, small societies settled in various mountain valleys. While societies along the rivers could interact frequently and develop a shared identity, each of these mountain societies remained pretty isolated thanks to the terrain, and they all maintained a unique identity of their own. To this day, most of the ethnic populations in Vietnam live in these same mountain communities.

Considering that Vietnam is a pretty populous nation, 13% of the total population still adds up to around 8 million people. That’s only slightly less than the population of New York City, so we’re talking about a pretty sizeable number. The largest ethnic groups are the Tay, Thai, Muong, Hoa, Khmer, and Nung. Each of these populations contains about 1 million people. Some ethnic groups, however, are much smaller; the Brau, Roman, and Odu people only have populations of a few hundred each.

Ethnic groups in Vietnam by population