Geography of Vietnam

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The geography of Vietnam is the description of the physical condition of the national territory of Vietnam as well as the resulting interaction between this habitat and its inhabitants.

Vietnam is located on the east of mainland Southeast Asia and extends along the east side of the Indochinese Peninsula to the Gulf of Thailand .

location

Map of Vietnam

The extensive northern part of Vietnam borders on the northern part of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos to the west and the southern Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi to the north . The narrow central and southern part of the country extends from north to south on the Indochinese Peninsula between the South China Sea in the east and south, the Gulf of Thailand and Cambodia in the southwest and the southern part of Laos in the west.

Landscape image

The area of ​​the Socialist Republic of Vietnam almost corresponds to that of Germany . The country includes the vast plains of the Red River and Mekong River deltas , the entire eastern mainland coast of Southeast Asia and mountain ranges and plateaus in the hinterland. The north-south extension of Vietnam is about 1650 km, the east-west width in the north up to 500 km, at the narrowest point in central Vietnam only 50 km. The coastline is over 3400 km long, and the national borders with the three neighboring countries are over 3000 km long because of the elongated shape of Vietnam.

The silhouette of Vietnam is also described as a “bamboo pole with two rice bowls”, as there are two fertile river deltas in the north ( Bắc Bộ ) and in the south ( Nam Bộ ), in which a lot of rice is grown, and a narrow one in central Vietnam ( Trung Bộ ) , rather barren area characterized by forest and mountains. The proportion of mountains and plateaus is about 3/4 of the total area of ​​Vietnam.

Floating village in Halong Bay

Five landscapes can be distinguished in somewhat more detail:

  • Yunnan Highlands : Mountainous landscape in the north of the country, where Vietnam borders on China . Here is the Phan-xi-pang (3144 m) the highest mountain in the country. The region is the settlement area of ​​many ethnic minorities . The main tourist attraction in the area is the city of Sa Pa at the foot of Phan-xi-păng.
  • Red River Delta : This fertile area around the capital Hanoi extends to the Gulf of Tonkin . The most famous tourist attractions in the delta are the limestone cliffs south of Hanoi around Ninh Bình and Halong Bay , east of the capital.
  • Annamite Mountains : the mountainous, sparsely populated hinterland of central and southern Vietnam is mainly inhabited by ethnic minorities.
  • Annamite coastline : the narrow coastline between the mountains and the South China Sea in central and southern Vietnam is relatively densely populated.
  • Mekong Delta : fertile, also densely populated alluvial plain , on the northeastern edge of which is the megacity of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).

Important cities

The two most important cities by far are the capital Hà Nội and the port city Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh (Ho Chi Minh City) , which was formerly the capital of South Vietnam and is now increasingly referred to by its original name Sài Gòn . While Saigon is one of the fastest growing boom cities in the world, Hanoi has the image of being quieter and more elegant. In fact, Hanoi is far inferior to the southern metropolis in economic terms.

Other important cities are the port cities of Cần Thơ , Đà Nẵng , Hải Phòng and Nha Trang , which are strongly French in their cityscape, as many churches and villas from the colonial era have been preserved. The city of Huế as the capital during the last imperial dynasty and the imperial summer residence Đà Lạt in the southern highlands are of great historical importance and attract many visitors. The trading town of Hoi An is also visited by many tourists. Purely industrial cities, however, are Vinh , Ninh Bình , Mỹ Tho or Bến Tre .

The entire coast is littered with beaches, some of which are undeveloped for tourists. Examples are Mũi Né , Long Hải and Vũng Tàu on the South China Sea and Hà Tiên on or the island of Phú Quốc in the Gulf of Thailand .

Islands

A multitude of islands lie off the long coast of Vietnam, including

Vietnam is also making claims to the Spratly and Paracel Islands , two disputed archipelagos in the South China Sea .

climate

Hai Van Pass (Cloud Pass)

The climate of Vietnam is subtropical in the north and tropical and humid in the central and southern parts.

The north has a winter-dry subtropical climate with a cool and dry season from November to April and a hot and humid season from May to October. Most of the rain falls here between July and September.

In central Vietnam it both tropical monsoon climate is tropical and savanna climate. The seasons are less pronounced here than in the north. From January to August it is usually hot and dry, the rainy season is between September and December.

In the south it is tropically warm all year round. There are three seasons of the year: a warm and dry (November - January), a hot and dry (February - May) and, during the southeast monsoon, the rainy season (June - October).

The cloud pass north of Đà Nẵng forms the weather divide between north and south Vietnamese areas .

Typhoons often rage during the rainy season , which can cause flooding, particularly in the Mekong Delta, but also in other coastal regions.

environment

The use of environmental toxins by the USA during the Vietnam War caused lasting damage to Vietnamese nature. Above all, the herbicide Agent Orange , contaminated with polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and furans such as TCDD , of which the US Air Force sprayed around 40 million liters over the country, is still having an effect in large areas, as the toxins decompose very slowly and one Have a half-life of about a decade.

The actual active ingredient di- and trichlorophenoxyacetic acid butyl ester damages green parts of plants, while the mutagenic / teratogenic contaminants, especially TCDD, cause considerable damage to fauna including humans. About half of the mangrove swamps that cannot regenerate themselves were destroyed during the war . The defoliated slopes in the interior of the country can still not be afforested, because only very resistant grasses can grow, which are very susceptible to wildfires during the dry season. In the rainy season, extreme erosion occurs in these regions .

The long-term effects of contamination with TCDD are not only still felt by those who came into direct contact with it at the time ( chloracne , cancer ). The poison also found its way into the food chain. Even 40 years after the end of the war, the resulting damage to genetic material is reflected in, among other things, significantly increased numbers of miscarriages, stillbirths and freak births.

In addition to environmental toxins, a large number of duds and landmines can also be found in rural areas . As before, farmers and scrap metal hunters are killed or injured by exploding ammunition every year.

Millions of hectares of tropical forests that had previously suffered from herbicides have been destroyed by slash and burn since the 1960s . The north, which is sometimes difficult to access, is particularly affected by this. The government tries to put a stop to it, but the pressure of the rapidly growing population and the poverty in the mountain provinces are causing people to burn down forests to gain arable land. Tropical woods such as teak are still illegally extracted in Vietnam, as in all of Southeast Asia, in spite of the strict legal regulations that are now in place, in order to manufacture furniture for the European, US and Japanese markets.

There are programs with, in some cases, large amounts of foreign aid, which are intended to strengthen the environmental awareness of the Vietnamese. The government and environmental organizations have high hopes for the development of ecotourism . They have already established several national parks - the oldest of them as early as 1962 - and some of the country's landscapes are under special protection by UNESCO .

Animals

Working elephant on the banks of the Perfume River in central Vietnam

Vietnam has a species-rich fauna that is threatened by the ongoing destruction of the forests. According to more recent estimates, only around 200 tigers , fewer than 60 Asian elephants and only 10 Java rhinos live there, all of whose survival is questionable. The rhinos were unknown to science until recently and are restricted to the area of Cat Tien National Park . Outside of Vietnam, the rare animals only live in the Ujung Kulon National Park on the island of Java . More Vietnam-based mammals include primates ( gibbons , slow loris , langurs , macaques ), predators (including sun bears , marbled cats and several civets species ), cloven-hoofed animals ( Kant Chile , barking deer , deer , Bantengrinder , Gaure ) and numerous bat and rodent species . The bird world is also rich in species, including pheasants , hornbills , owls , birds of prey , herons and numerous songbirds . Even crocodiles , snakes , lizards and frogs are native to this country, to countless species of insects and invertebrates . Several new species of Vietnam were described in the 1990s, including the Vu Quang beef and several muntja cards . The Vu Quang beef is protected in the Vu Quang National Park.

plants

In the flora of Vietnam, which was severely damaged by war, slash and burn or deforestation (see section “ Environment ”), more than 14,600 plant species from over 200 families could be registered. Vietnam's mangrove forests are - after those in the Amazon - the largest in the world. There are around 1000 different types of timber in Vietnam. In addition, rubber, cotton, coffee, tea, spices, rice, as well as various vegetables and fruits are grown. Geographically, one can see that agriculture is more likely to be practiced on the coast of Vietnam. In the interior, however, there is mostly tropical rainforest.

cards

  • Regions of Vietnam

  • Provinces of Vietnam

  • Topographic map

Web links

Wikimedia Atlas: Geography of Vietnam  - geographical and historical maps

literature

  • Martin H. Petrich: Vietnam . DuMont, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-7701-7659-5 . Comprehensive travel guide.
  • Hella Kothmann, Wolf-Eckhard Bühler: Vietnam . Bielefeld 2004, ISBN 3-8317-1099-6 . Handbook for individual travel and discovery, also off the main travel routes.
  • Baedeker: Vietnam . Ostfildern 2002, ISBN 3-89525-905-5 .
  • Lê Bá Thảo: Viet Nam - The Country and its Geographical Regions . Thế Giới Publishers, Hanoi 1997.
  • Friedrich Schwarzenauer, Lois Hechenblaikner (photos): Vietnam. Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7658-0771-0 . Expert, well-founded introduction to the country, nation and culture including an outline of history, professionally illustrated; good introduction, but does not replace current travel guides.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ climatic conditions in Vietnam .