President: Nguyen Minh Triet Secretary-general of the Communist Party : Nguyen Phu Trong
Population
313,847,465
91,519,289
Life Expectancy
78.490 years
72.410 years
Capital City
Washington, DC
Hanoi
Largest city
New York City (population: 8,008,280)
Thanh pho Ho Chi Minh (population: 3,467,330)
Human Development Index
0.95
0.718
GDP per capita
$49,000 US
$3,400 US
Literacy Rate
99%
90.3%
Corruption Perception Index
7.3
2.7
Percentage of Women in Parliament
16.6%
25.8%
Wealthiest Citizens
William Gates III ($40.0bn US)
NA
Unemployment Rate
9.000%
2.300%
Death Penalty
Legal
Legal
Political System
Constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition
Communist state
Independence date
4 July 1776 (from Great Britain)
2 September 1945 (from France)
Religions
Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, other Christian 1.6%, Jewish 1.7%, Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim 0.6%, other or unspecified 2.5%, unaffiliated 12.1%, none 4% (2007 est.)
Buddhist 9.3%, Catholic 6.7%, Hoa Hao 1.5%, Cao Dai 1.1%, Protestant 0.5%, Muslim 0.1%, none 80.8% (1999 census)
Languages
English 82.1%, Spanish 10.7%, other Indo-European 3.8%, Asian and Pacific island 2.7%, other 0.7% (2000 census) note: Hawaiian is an official language in the state of Hawaii
Vietnamese (official), English (increasingly favored as a second language), some French, Chinese, and Khmer; mountain area languages (Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian)
dong (VND) per US dollar - 16,548.3 (2008 est.), 16,119 (2007), 15,983 (2006), 15,746 (2005), NA (2004)
Military Budget as percentage of GDP
4.060%
2.500%
Beijing Olympics Medal Count
110
1
Location
North America, bordering both the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, between Canada and Mexico
Southeastern Asia, bordering the Gulf of Thailand, Gulf of Tonkin, and South China Sea, alongside China, Laos, and Cambodia
Area
9,826,675 km sq
331,210 km sq
Coastline
19,924 km
3,444 km
Climate
mostly temperate, but tropical in Hawaii and Florida, arctic in Alaska, semiarid in the great plains west of the Mississippi River, and arid in the Great Basin of the southwest; low winter temperatures in the northwest are ameliorated occasionally in January and February by warm chinook winds from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains
tropical in south; monsoonal in north with hot, rainy season (May to September) and warm, dry season (October to March)
