Why are there 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam, a small country?

Viet Nam is a neighboring country in the southwest of China. It can be said that China has deep roots. Their country's tradition, culture, politics, economy and other fields are deeply influenced by Chinese civilization. Politically, it is also a vassal state of China for thousands of years. From historical records, it can be found that since Qin Shihuang Ying Zheng unified the Central Plains, northern Vietnam has long belonged to China. Therefore, if you find that there are many Han Chinese in Vietnam now, you don't have to feel very much.

After Vietnam's independence, according to the practices of the Soviet Union and China at that time, the people in China were divided into many ethnic groups according to their beliefs and traditions. Although the territory of Vietnam is not as big as that of the Soviet Union and China, there are certainly many ethnic groups. Fifty-four ethnic groups were divided in tandem, while the Han people living in Vietnam were divided into three different ethnic groups by the Vietnamese government. Do you know why?

According to the latest census data of Vietnam, the total population of Vietnam is maintained at about 90 million, belonging to 54 different ethnic groups, among which the Jing nationality has the largest population, which means that the Han nationality belongs to a minority in Vietnam. As I mentioned above, the Han nationality is divided into three ethnic groups, including China people with the largest population, Ngái people with the second largest population and Shanyou people with the smallest population. Among all ethnic groups in Vietnam, Chinese are the most populous of the three ethnic groups, with nearly 900,000 people.

As you can see, the so-called China people are Han people living in Viet Nam. Due to the long-term influence of China culture, the Han nationality played a great role in a series of revolutions in modern Vietnam and attracted the attention of the Vietnamese government. Therefore, for a long time, the treatment of Han people in Vietnam was not high. It was not until the 1980s that Vietnam recognized the Han people as Vietnamese citizens, and everyone was equal. Because most of the Han people in Vietnam come from Guangdong and Guangxi, Cantonese is also the local lingua franca.

Shanyou people are distributed in northern Vietnam, with a total population of around100000. Although they are from China like China people and still have the habit of using Chinese characters, the Vietnamese government has listed them as a separate ethnic group to distinguish them from China people. Ngái people are descendants of the Han nationality who originally lived in Vietnam, and also belong to the Han nationality who settled in Vietnam earlier. They have always been a part of China people, but they were separated in modern times because of some differences in habits. According to textual research, the ancestors of Ngái people are Hakka people who originally lived in Guangdong and Guangxi, and they are also a nation closer to the standard Han nationality.