Vietnam existed as two separate states, communist North Vietnam and the US-allied Republic of Vietnam in the south, from 1954 until the fall of Saigon in 1975 brought the Vietnam War to its end, with formal reunification under a single communist government following in 1976. This division and the prolonged, devastating conflict that accompanied it shaped Vietnam’s modern identity profoundly, and the country’s rapid economic development in the decades since, particularly following market reforms introduced in 1986 known as Doi Moi, has transformed what was once one of the world’s poorest nations into one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing economies.
Vietnam’s recorded history stretches back over two thousand years, including nearly a millennium of Chinese rule beginning around 111 BCE, a period whose influence remains visible in Vietnamese language, cuisine, and cultural traditions despite the country’s long, often fiercely contested path toward independence.
A Long, Narrow Country Shaped by Its Coastline
Vietnam stretches over 1,600 kilometres from north to south along the eastern edge of the Indochinese Peninsula, a shape so elongated and narrow, particularly through its central regions, that the country is sometimes compared to a bent bamboo pole carrying rice baskets at each end, referencing the fertile river deltas at its northern and southern extremes. This geography has produced significant regional diversity within a single nation, from the cooler highlands and ancient capital of Hue in the centre to the tropical Mekong Delta in the far south.
Ha Long Bay, on Vietnam’s northeastern coast, contains nearly two thousand limestone karst islands rising dramatically from emerald waters, a UNESCO World Heritage Site formed over hundreds of millions of years of geological weathering.
Painting a Landscape of Rice Terraces and Karst
Vietnam’s layered rice terraces and dramatic limestone landscapes give a watercolourist rich green colour and striking natural form to work with. We’ve captured that character in our own Vietnam Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of Southeast Asia for a wall at home.
Divided for decades and reunified under a single name only in living memory, Vietnam remains a country whose rapid modern transformation sits atop a genuinely long and layered history.