General Information on Vietnam (1)

Geography

Location

Located in Southeastern Asia, ( 21 02 N, 105 51 E, Time zone: UTC+7), bordering the Gulf of Thailand, Gulf of Tonkin, and South China Sea, Vietnam has a varied land topography, with three quarters of the country being mountains and forest, and a long a coastline of  3,444 km. With a total area of  331,210 sq km, of which land: 310,070 sq km, and water: 21,140 sq km, Vietnam size is, by comparison, slightly larger than New Mexico.

Boundaries

Land boundaries cover a total of 4,639 km, with border countries, Cambodia in the west and south west (1,228 km), China in the north (1,281 km), and Laos in the west (2,130 km). Extending 1,650 km from north to south, the country is only 50 km across at its narrowest point.

Rivers

There are two large and fertile delta systems in the country, the Red River (Sông Hồng) Delta in the north and the Mekong River (Sông Cửu Long) Delta in the south.

Climate

Like most of the SEA countries, Vietnam lies in the tropical monsoon zone.  Its elongated body running longitudinally creates 2 distinct climates in the north and south. In the north, there are four distinct seasons: spring from February to April; summer, hot and humid from May to July; cool autumn from August to October, and a cold and humid winter from November to January. In the south, there are two major seasons, a rainy season from May to October and a dry season from November to April.

(Extract from Business Vietnamese by Anh Tho Andres @authorhouse.co.uk, June 2011)