A long struggle for independence

1st Century A.D.

The Kingdom of Funan

The kingdom of Funan rose in the South from the first to the sixth century AD. It produced refined art and architecture, and an elaborate system of canals for transport and irrigation of rice. The kingdom also had trade contact with China, Indonesia, India, Persia, and even the Roman Empire.

Late 2nd Century A.D.

Kingdom of Champa

The Hindu kingdom
of Champa appeared around Da Nang in the late 2nd century. Like Funan, it became Indianized by adopting Hinduism, using Sanskrit as the sacred language, and producing Indian-influenced art. A semi-pirate state, Champa was in constant warfare with the Vietnamese to the north and the Khmers to the west.

2nd Century A.D.

The Chinese invaded

the Red River delta in the North in the second century BC. They colonized Vietnam, with brief breaks due to Vietnamese rebellions, for more than a thousand years — from 111 BC to AD 938. At that time in the North, Vietnamese society was organized on a feudal basis — slash-and-burn agriculture, hunting, fishing, and trade with neighboring peoples.

Chinese immigration led to Chinese ownership of large tracts of land. The Chinese attempted to impose a Chinese-style state. Local rulers fiercely resisted.

Vietnamese culture in the north took its lead from China with a Confucian approach to society, “meritocratic” awarding of bureaucratic positions via the examination system, and a written legal code. Vietnam used Chinese characters to write its own language.

1700s

Two ruling families, the Trinh and Nguyen lords, struggle for power in the last two decades of the century.

1802

All of Vietnam finally unite under a single ruler, the Nguyen Dynasty

1858

French attack Da Nang.

1884

French Rule

All of Vietnam is under French colonial rule. Frequent uprisings are brutally suppressed.

1940

World War II begins

Half of France falls to Germany. Japan invades Vietnam. Local French Vichy regime administers Vietnam for the Japanese. Communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh returns to Vietnam to lead the independence movement. Viet Minh party organizes to resist French and Japanese rule. Two million people die in famine. Viet Minh leads villagers to break into rice storage warehouses.

1945

Japanese surrender

Emperor Bo Dai formally abdicates to the Viet Minh, ending 1,000 years of Vietnamese monarchy. Ho Chi Minh reads Declaration of Independence for Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN). French troops land in Saigon to re-establish French colonial rule.

1945-1954

French War

French troops land in Saigon. War ends with defeat of French Army at Dien Bien Phu. Geneva Conference provisionally divides Vietnam into North and South

1965-1975

Vietnam War

Saigon falls in 1975.