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Multicultural Viet Nam:

ethnicity and cultural diversity

Associate Professor, Dr Nguyen Thi Hien, vice director,

Viet Nam National Institute of Culture and Art Studies, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

espect for cultural diversity is a key issue that

plays an important role in the solidarity and

unification of various ethnic groups in Viet Nam.

Through thousands of years of the history of establish-

ment and protection of the country, its ethnic groups

have been unified in cultural diversity. This tendency

works out well due to the efforts of the Vietnamese

Government, constitution, Law on Cultural Heritage

and other legal documents. There follows a discussion

of the cultural identity of ethnic groups in Viet Nam

and the Vietnamese Government’s focus on cultural

rapprochement to achieve ethnic solidarity in the devel-

opment and the advancement of well-being.

Viet Nam is a country with 54 ethnic groups, among which

the Kinh is the major one and the other 53 groups are

minorities. The population of Viet Nam is 90 million,

with the ethnic minorities accounting for only 12 million

of these. They live in dispersed areas, or symbiotically in

certain villages or regions, in deltas, coastal areas, valleys,

hill feet or mountainous areas. Their cultural identities

contribute to multicultural Viet Nam. The land in Viet Nam

includes mountains, forests, plains, deltas, plateaus, coastal

areas and islands, with the mountainous area occupying

three-quarters of the entire territory. The habitation of the

ethnic groups is also diverse, and is located according to

the terrain and altitude.

In linguistic terms, the 54 ethnic groups are divided into

eight language groups, namely the Viet-Muong, Tay-Thai,

Mon-Khmer, Mong-Dao, Kadai, Austronesian, Sino and

Tibetan groups. These linguistic groups are distinguished

not only in their languages, but also in their habitations.

Image: Hoang Son

People of Vi Village in Phu Tho province bear a palanquin containing the Hung

Kings’ tablet at their traditional festival

Image: Nguy

ễ

n Trung Bình

Chau van singing at a spirit possession ritual at Tien Huong Palace in

Nam Đ

ị

nh province

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