President: Nguyen Minh Triet Secretary-general of the Communist Party : Nguyen Phu Trong
Federal President (rotating): Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf (until 1 Jan 2013)
Population
91,519,289
7,925,517
Life Expectancy
72.410 years
81.170 years
Capital City
Hanoi
Bern
Largest city
Thanh pho Ho Chi Minh (population: 3,467,330)
Zurich (population: 341,730)
Human Development Index
0.718
0.955
GDP per capita
$3,400 US
$43,900 US
Literacy Rate
90.3%
99%
Corruption Perception Index
2.7
9
Percentage of Women in Parliament
25.8%
27.2%
Wealthiest Citizens
NA
Ernesto Bertarelli ($8.2bn US)
Unemployment Rate
2.300%
3.100%
Death Penalty
Legal
Abolished
Political System
Communist state
formally a confederation but similar in structure to a federal republic
Independence date
2 September 1945 (from France)
1 August 1291 (founding of the Swiss Confederation)
Religions
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)
Roman Catholic 41.8%, Protestant 35.3%, Muslim 4.3%, Orthodox 1.8%, other Christian 0.4%, other 1%, unspecified 4.3%, none 11.1% (2000 census)
Languages
Vietnamese (official), English (increasingly favored as a second language), some French, Chinese, and Khmer; mountain area languages (Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian)
German (official) 63.7%, French (official) 20.4%, Italian (official) 6.5%, Serbo-Croatian 1.5%, Albanian 1.3%, Portuguese 1.2%, Spanish 1.1%, English 1%, Romansch (official) 0.5%, other 2.8% (2000 census) note: German, French, Italian, and Romansch are all national and official languages
