Total current population for Vietnam in 2025 is 100,103,979, a 0.61% increase from 2024.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>Total population for Vietnam in 2024 was <strong>99,497,680</strong>, a <strong>0.65% increase</strong> from 2023.</li>
<li>Total population for Vietnam in 2023 was <strong>98,858,950</strong>, a <strong>0.68% increase</strong> from 2022.</li>
<li>Total population for Vietnam in 2022 was <strong>98,186,856</strong>, a <strong>0.74% increase</strong> from 2021.</li>
</ul>Total population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship. The values shown are midyear estimates.

The median age in Vietnam was 31 years in 2020, meaning that half the population was younger than this at the time, and half older. This figure has increased since its low point in 1970, which was likely due to the Vietnam War. The median age is expected to increase to 49.3 years by 2100. Age structure The age structure in Vietnam changes slowly as people get older. This suggests that other demographic indicators are also slow to evolve, which in turn points to stability. This fact is convenient for policy makers, who can then rely on a consistent ratio of pensioners and students to workers. This is helpful in taxation and allocation of government spending. However, it also points to slow inprovement in indicators such as life expectancy. Economic implications Given Vietnam’s Communist government, it is not surprising that a large portion of its gross domestic product (GDP) comes from government expenditures. As such, the country needs a broad tax base. Since people’s earning potential rises with age until they retire, a relatively high median age is necessary to bear this tax burden. A low unemployment rate further bolsters this effect. This implies that the current demographic situation in Vietnam is sustainable.

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam metro area from 1950 to 2025.

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Ha Noi, Vietnam metro area from 1950 to 2025.

Project Overview The “Montagnards” (“mountain people” in the French language) represent a diverse array of cultures originating in the highlands of Vietnam. Largely isolated farmers or hunter-gather communities, the Montagnards were recruited by, and fought with, the American Special Forces throughout the Vietnam War. When the war ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Montagnards were especially persecuted in the new regime. Montagnard individuals began arriving in the US as refugees in the mid-1980’s and family reunification efforts have continually brought more refugees here to the present day. There are over 12,000 Montagnards living in Greensboro, North Carolina, representing several cultures and distinct languages, with a majority of them in Guilford County. This makes the Piedmont the largest Montagnard community outside of southeast Asia. This study aims to document access to mental health care across four distinct generations of Montagnard community members, in an effort to identify potential mental health concerns that may be unique to each generation. When considering the overall health of Montagnards, both physical and mental, it is important to consider former experiences in Vietnam like starvation, trauma, and chemical exposure, and also the experience of being a refugee and an immigrant living in the United States. The immigrant health paradox is the idea that oftentimes, even if a migrant arrives to the United States relatively healthy, their health tends to get poorer the longer they remain in the U.S. Prior studies looking at the immigration experience of Vietnamese found them to be disadvantaged in several indicators of mental health, and refugees in the U.S. have been observed to have an elevated burden of chronic disease. The first generation Montagnard elders (born by 1970), spent the most time in Vietnam and experienced trauma and persecution firsthand. Many are preoccupied by concerns of family members that got left behind in Vietnam. The second generation of Montagnards (born 1971-1985) directly experienced the trauma of Montagnard life post-1975, but unlike the first generation, they were young children when these events unfolded. The third generation (born 1985-1995) is, in many ways, in between. They are the link between the young and the old, and both Montagnard and American cultures. The fourth generation (born after 1995), or the youngest of the Montagnards, have a radically different experience and perspective from those of the older generations. Many members of this generation speak fluent English and were born and educated in the United States. Montagnard researchers have concerns about suicide in this population. The youngest Montagnards are faced with the challenge of reconciling their Montagnard and American identities. Health access is a known issue in the Montagnard community, and it is not hard to imagine how sociocultural, political, and economic variables can help to further compound and explain negative health outcomes. Five aspects of health access are studied in this project via a framework analysis of five dimensions of health services provision: approachability, acceptability, availability/accommodation, affordability, and appropriateness. Data Collection Overview This data are from the results of a qualitative research study about access to mental health care in the Montagnard population in North Carolina. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Montagnard individuals, and interviews were then transcribed and analyzed using Dedoose software. The study included 26 participants, with 2 participants in the first generation, 3 in the second generation, 12 in the third generation, and 9 in the fourth generation. The participants had to be at least 18 years old to participate in the study. For participants born in the US, age was determined by official US-issued government documents, such as a driver’s license or government ID. For individuals born in Vietnam, particularly in the oldest generation, birth dates given on governmental identification (i.e., immigration documents or driver’s licenses) are often incorrect since their birth dates were never known or documented officially. In these cases, the placement of an individual in a particular generation depended on their memories of the pivotal year (1975) and what they were doing at that time (i.e., were they a young child, or a soldier, etc.). All participants had to speak a language that can be translated by one of the available translators. There are many distinct languages within the Montagnard communities and we were only able to interview those individuals with whom we can be confident of the verbal and later transcribed translation. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we shifted data collection to a virtual format. All interviews beginning with the third participant were conducted virtually. Data collection occurred from March 2020 through August 2020. The virtual data collection consisted of two...

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Da Nang, Vietnam metro area from 1950 to 2025.

The anti-war movement in the United States arose during the 1960s in reaction to U.S. actions in Vietnam and the conscription of soldiers into the military through a draft lottery. The movement encompassed a broad swathe of U.S. society, largely stemming from social movements such as Students for a Democratic Society and the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as less conventional sources of dissent (at the time) such as clergy, artists, and military servicemembers themselves.

Protests escalated from 1968 onwards, with particularly notable moments around the 1968 Democratic Party national convention in Chicago, Illinois, and the Kent State University shootings, where four student protesters were killed by National Guard members. Media coverage of events such as the My Lai massacre in 1968, where around 400 unarmed Vietnamese villagers were killed by U.S. soldiers, further galvanized public opinion against the war and spurred on protests.

Throughout the 19th century, the share of military personnel employed by the United States government was below 0.2 percent of the total population in most years. There were noticeable spikes in enlistments and conscriptions during the American Civil War (1861-65), the First World War (1917-18*), and Second World War (1941-45*), as well as smaller increases during the Mexican-American War (1946-48) and the Spanish-American War (1898), but figures were generally much lower than the post-WWII era.

Following the Second World War, the United States abandoned many of its isolationist positions as it sought to become the world's leading superpower. This involved stationing millions of troops in overseas bases during the Cold War, in strategically important locations such as West Germany, Japan, and Taiwan. Additionally, involvement in conflicts such as the Korean War (1950-1953) and Vietnam War (1964-1973*) kept military employment high, usually between 1-2 percent until the 1970s. Figures remained just below the one percent mark until the 1990s, when the end of the Cold War and the growing influence of technology in conventional warfare saw a decrease in demand for many traditional combat roles. Despite U.S. involvement in a number of overseas conflicts in the 21st century, military personnel represented less than 0.5 percent of the total population in most years between 2000 and 2016.