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The nation state under analysis today has a lot of meaning to me personally. Both my children are ¼ Vietnamese and my partner’s ethnicity is ½ Chinese (Hoa) and ½ Vietnamese (From her father’s side). During our nearly 30 year partnershp, I have experienced more Vietnamese culture than probably most expatriated Vietnamese have. I have a great deal of respect for their culture and perseverance through a 20th Century that was not very positive. Understanding the domination that the Chinese have had in the region going back two thousand years, how did these short, intelligent people gain their autonomy from their intimidating neighbors to the north? How did the Vietnamese end up with their chunk of paradise on their narrow strip along the South China Sea?
Vietnam rests alongside the South China Sea to the east and the Gulf of Thailand to the south. Vietnam’s population has exploded and recently passed 100 million in total population for a midsized nation (102 million exact) and is now the 14th most populous country on the planet. In comparison, California is 22% bigger (Wider going west to east) than Vietnam, but has only a population around 40 million. So Vietnam packs over two and a half times the amount of people in an area that is smaller. According to the WorldPopulationClock, Asians make up 59.1% of the individuals on this planet, a clear majority. Vietnam’s population when understanding how many individuals are packed into the Far East is not that much different from the norm in terms of density. The capital of Vietnam is Hanoi which rests to the north while the most populated city is Ho Chi Minh City (Also knows as Saigon) with a population that just passed 14 million lying near the Mekong River in the South. Since 1976, Vietnam is officially called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam after reunification being one of six remaining countries that continue to exist under Communist rule. The others are mostly in Asia: North Korea, Laos and China along with the Caribbean island of Cuba and South American nation of Venezuela. The currency of the nation is the Vietnamese Dong. For thousands of years, Vietnam was an agricultural hamlet. But with the centralization of the communist state, private ownership is now encouraged and Vietnam has become one of the primary producers of Bauxite (Aluminum) and has embraced the internationalists’ global economy with textiles and apparel being one of their largest exports as well as increasing their service economy through tourism and tech call centers. Currently, the Vietnamese economy is the most prosperous it has ever been and its share of global wealth has almost doubled over the past decade. Historically, tracing the history of the Vietnamese people usually starts with the Nguyen Dynasty. In the United States diaspora population, you would not be wrong to assume that half the Vietnamese people have the last name of “Nguyen.” Well, this summary explains why. “Approximately 36 to 40 million Vietnamese, or around 40% of the population, bear the surname Nguyen. Nguyen (Nguyễn) is the most common surname in Vietnam, with estimates suggesting that 30% to 40% of Vietnamese people carry it. Given Vietnam's population of roughly 100 million, this translates to 36 to 40 million individuals. The surname is also prevalent among the Vietnamese diaspora worldwide, further increasing the total number of people with this last name. Historical and Cultural Context of Nguyen The widespread use of Nguyen is not coincidental but the result of centuries of historical events and dynastic changes:
The Vietnamese were ruled by the Chinese for over a thousand years right around 200-300 BC before the time of Christ into the 900s. The Chinese dominated the region building infrastructure and due to the rebellious nature of the Vietnamese who fought their attempts at cultural assimilation, they divided the people up into rural communities and had them controlled by lords to fight any attempts at revolution or centralization. One of the most famous rebellions was called the Trung Sisters Rebellion. Trung Trac’s husband was murdered by the Chinese. She and her sister gathered together some tribal chiefs and destroyed Chinese strongholds. The women declared an independent Vietnamese kingdom around 40 AD. This was later crushed by the Han Chinese a mere three years later. The Chinese successfully controlled the area as long as their dynasties and empires thrived. But when the economy began to fail, the Vietnamese often rebelled. When the Tang Dynasty fell in 907 AD, a commander named Ngo Quyen defeated the Chinese in 939 and established the first ever independent Vietnam. Eventually, the entire nation was united under the Later Ly dynasty which had ties with both the Khmer and Chinese. But Islamic incursions into the region in the 12th and 13th Centuries by the Indian based Champa and the Khmer Empire based out of Angkor weakened the nation. As the Ly Dynasty fell, the Tran Dynasty re-established control and ruled for over 150 years into the 1400s. The Vietnamese for the first time in their history would soon be recognized as brave fighters (More on this later) as the Mongols invaded the area in the 1200s and Tran Hang Dao, the commander of their military, repelled the Mongols making the Vietnam area one of the few places in Asia that the Mongols did not have any influence. He is still considered one of the greatest Asian military strategists of all-time. As the Tran Dynasty failed, the Chinese regained control of the Vietnamese land until again being expelled around 1418 which led to the founding of the 3rd Vietnamese Dynasty. This era is what led to the expansion of their territory which is similar in size to where Vietnam’s borders are now. The Vietnamese pushed south and conquered land from the fading Khmer Empire including taking Saigon in 1747. The country became long and narrow (Almost a 1000 miles) and the Southern Vietnamese began to evolve differently from their richer neighbors to the north. The kingdom did eventually divide and they fought Civil Wars amongst themselves multiple times over the next 150 years. During this period of time until the conquest by the French, all the dynasties of Vietnam were scholarly but the economy never diverted much from its agricultural and metallurgical core with different rulers just controlling these same resources and territories over long periods of time. The Portuguese were the first people to make contact with the Vietnamese in the 1500s. First Portugal and then France established a Christian presence there. Multiple Vietnamese rulers had no interest in preserving the European culture that was being established. Eventually, they kicked the French out. As this region was very prosperous for the French Empire, Napoleon III eventually sent a military force to take Vietnam in 1850. Over twelve long years, the French eventually took full control of their three protectorates and the Vietnamese signed a peace treaty in 1862. The French pushed south and did not take the entirety of that area until the 1870s along with Cambodia. North and Central Vietnam (Known as Tonkin and Amman respectively) took even longer to conquer, 1883, when the Vietnamese officially turned that section over to the French. Laos was added in 1887. The French would call the area Cochinchina. So coming into the present day, a question is often asked? Did the Vietnamese who had a lot of military success in their history, actually win four wars in the 20th Century? The answer is YES. Disgusted by the economic exploitation of the area by the French and the downgrading of Vietnamese citizens into second and third class tiers while forcing the women to “service” the French elite eventually led to rebellion. Even among the educated Vietnamese, the French prevented the population from participating in the modern day economy and civil liberties were non-existent. This was the beginning of the Vietnamese hatred for capitalism. Multiple uprisings occurred through the early 1900s which were always put down by the French military. After the French fell in World War II, Hitler gave Indochina to the Japanese who stationed over 30,000 troops there. After Japan took over administration, the French allowed the last Vietnamese administrator to declare independence despite the Japanese military having firm control over the nation. This led to the creation of the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh who despised the Japanese and who helped the Allies by feeding them information on troop movements and locations. The Viet Minh, a Communist organization and after gaining power due to their support of the French, ordered a general uprising near the end of the war and declared the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. After the war ended and the French regained control over the territory, Ho Chi Minh signed a treaty with them in 1946. But quickly, he realized that the autonomous state of Vietnam promised to him was a façade. Leading guerilla attacks on the French, Ho Chi Minh eventually got the French to acquiesce in 1954 which led to the division of North Vietnam into a Communist Country and South Vietnam which stayed under the influence of the Allied West. War number two followed with the United States. There is so much written about the Vietnam War that I will not go into detail about it here. But in late 1975, the entirety of Vietnam fell to the Communist north reuniting the country again as one. Reuniification occurred in 1976. After reunification, Vietnam won War number three with Cambodia who invaded the nation during the Communist reign of tyrant Pol Pot. After massacring over three thousand Vietnamese civilians, the Vietnamese launched an invasion of Cambodia in December of 1978 and took the country in a couple of weeks effectively ending the rule of the Khmer Rouge. This intervention likely saved millions of Cambodian lives who were struggling to survive in the Killing Fields. Vietnam called the new nation Kampuchea which Vietnam occupied till 1989. They turned the country over to the UN in 1991 which helped establish a government and enabled the first democratic elections inside Cambodia in 1993. The final war that the Vietnamese won was against China. They launched a war as a protest against the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and occupied a few cities in the North. Before that war escalated and knowing that the Vietnamese were coming back to capture what was taken, the Chinese withdrew.
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 One of the fun things about analyzing and researching nation states is learning about a country that most people on the planet have very little knowledge about. This is the case for Andorra; a country I had no idea existed until my adulthood. Andorra is one of Europe’s few remaining micro-states and its existence like the others served a political purpose in history that allowed its formation. Other functioning microstates in Europe are: Monaco (Inside Southern France) San Marino (One of the oldest countries in the world surrounded by Italy) Liechtenstein (Nestled between Switzerland and Austria) Luxembourg (Between France, Belgium and Germany) The Holy See (Also known as Vatican City, the small nation housing the Pope) Three of the European microstates are located on a mountain range or solitary mountain. Andorra’s average elevation is over 6000 feet making it one of the highest elevated nations on the planet. Liechtenstein is a mountain country as well as San Marino whose entire nation is based around one mountain, Mount Titane. One defining aspect of micro-states is that many of them are some of the richest nations on Earth per capita. Due to its location between two historical empires, Andorra has benefitted from that relationship as well as being located high in the scenic Pyrenees mountains, the range that separates France from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and a tourist haven. Andorra's Flag  Andorra is only 180 square miles and a little over 30 miles wide at its largest width. This ranks it as the 178th largest nation in the world. Because of its free trade history, Andorra is one of the richest nations in Europe ranking 18th per capita in the world. The population is currently a little under 90,000 people. Because of its location between two Catholic nations, over 85% of Andorrans are Catholic. Andorra La Vella, its largest city of only a little over 22,000 residents, is its capital. The main language of Andorra is Catalan, but Spanish is also increasingly common. Native Andorrans make up only about a third of the population with the Spanish being the majority ethnicity at 40%. The country also has a significant French population. So how did this little nation stuck high up in the Pyrenees come into existence?
The history of this nation can be traced back to Hannibal going over the Pyrenees with his army during the Punic Wars of 218 BC. While scaling the Pyrenees, he encountered a pre-Roman Iberian native tribe called the Andosinis living in the region that is now Andorra. They were pastoral people using the natural resources of the mountains to survive. The Andosinis are often thought to have moved down the mountain and integrated with the northern Basque population of Spain who became world famous for their agricultural techniques. During the Gothic migrations from Germany at the end of the Roman Empire, medieval Spain was founded by the Visigoths in the late 400s who were eventually conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate in 721 leading to Spain being ruled by Muslims until 1492. But for the area in the Pyrenees, the rule of the Muslims was short lived. Due to their preference for the northern Franks, the people in the Pyrenees sided with Charlemagne in the 800s to form the Marca Hispanica, a neutral region that kept the Islamic Moors out of France. The first recognition of Andorra was by Charlemagne’s grandson Charles who gave the land to the Count of Urgell who would later transfer it to the Diocese of Urgell which remains one of the rulers of modern-day Andorra. Andorra’s current territory was fixed in 1278 when the French Count of Foix in Southern France and the Bishop of Urgell (Catalonia) signed a treaty giving them both equal rule over the territory. Over the years, the Spanish have migrated into the territory and have become the majority. But the Andorran people that live inside the country today can be traced back to the nation’s founding in 1278 when they were first identified with that title. Andorra has been neutral through almost every key war in history including the recent Spanish Civil War and World War II. Like other micro-states, Andorra thrives off being a financial services hub with low taxes and a constitution that emphasizes privacy and civil rights. Over time, the Count of Roix transferred his management of Andorra to the French crown while the Bishop of Urgell remains the ruler from the Spanish side. Andorra has been occupied a few times in history due to regional wars in either France or Spain. But because of its economic output and high quantity of skilled workers in various industries like metallurgy, textiles and service (Evolving into tourism), the country was always granted its autonomy back. It gained independence from the Kingdom of France in 1652, the Principality of Catalonia in 1715 and again from the French Empire by decree in 1814. In 1993, the country officially created its Constitution and became a member of the United Nations. One of the most famous historical moments for Andorra is that it became a hub for banned art and anti-censorship in opposition to the fascist rule of Franco in Spain to the south which helped it evolve into the free-market economy that currently thrives inside the nation today. Next week, a country that has a genetic tie in my family line, Vietnam. Until then. |
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July 2026
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