1954 Geneva Conference in the context of "South Vietnam"

The Korean Armistice Agreement (Korean: 한국정전협정; Hanja: 韓國停戰協定) is an armistice that brought about a cessation of hostilities of the Korean War. It was signed by United States Army Lieutenant General William Harrison Jr. and General Mark W. Clark representing the United Nations Command (UNC), North Korea leader Kim Il Sung and General Nam Il representing the Korean People's Army (KPA), and Peng Dehuai representing the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA). The armistice was signed on 27 July 1953, and was designed to "ensure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved."

During the 1954 Geneva Conference in Switzerland, Chinese Premier and foreign minister Zhou Enlai suggested that a peace treaty should be implemented on the Korean peninsula. However, the US secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, did not accommodate this attempt to achieve such a treaty. A final peace settlement has never been achieved. The signed armistice established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the de facto new border between the two nations, put into force a ceasefire, and finalized repatriation of prisoners of war. The DMZ runs close to the 38th parallel and has separated North and South Korea since the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953.

The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until its withdrawal in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

After the defeat of the French Union in the First Indochina War that began in 1946, Vietnam gained independence in the 1954 Geneva Conference but was divided in two at the 17th parallel: the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, took control of North Vietnam, while the US assumed financial and military support for South Vietnam, led by Ngo Dinh Diem. The North Vietnamese supplied and directed the Viet Cong (VC), a common front of dissidents in the south which intensified a guerrilla war from 1957. In 1958, North Vietnam invaded Laos, establishing the Ho Chi Minh trail to supply the VC. By 1963, the north had covertly sent 40,000 soldiers of its People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), armed with Soviet and Chinese weapons, to fight in the insurgency in the south. President John F. Kennedy increased US involvement from 900 military advisors in 1960 to 16,000 in 1963 and sent more aid to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), which failed to produce results. In 1963, Diem was killed in a US-backed military coup, which added to the south's instability.

North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; Vietnamese: Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa, (Vietnamese pronunciation: [vîəˀt nāːm zʌ̄n cû kôŋ͡mˀ hwàː]; VNDCCH), was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty recognized in 1954. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it opposed the French-supported State of Vietnam and later the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). North Vietnam launched a successful military offensive against South Vietnam in 1975 and ceased to exist the following year when it merged with the South to become the contemporary Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

During the August Revolution following World War II, Vietnamese communist revolutionary Hồ Chí Minh, leader of the Việt Minh Front, declared independence on 2 September 1945 and proclaimed the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The communist-led Viet Minh, cloaked in nationalism, was designed to appeal to a wider population than the Indochinese Communist Party could command.

The Mekong Delta (Vietnamese: Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, lit. 'Nine Dragon River Delta' or simply Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, 'Mekong River Delta'), also known as the South-western Region (Vietnamese: Tây Nam Bộ) or the Western Region (Vietnamese: Miền Tây), is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea through a network of distributaries. The Mekong delta region encompasses a large portion of south-western Vietnam, of an area of over 40,500 km (15,600 sq mi). The size of the area covered by water depends on the season. Its wet coastal geography makes it an important source of agriculture and aquaculture for the country.

The delta has been occupied as early as the 4th century BC. As a product of Khmer, Vietnamese, Chinese, and French settlement in the region, the delta and its waterways have numerous names, including the Khmer term Bassac to refer to the lower basin and the largest river branch flowing through it. After the 1954 Geneva Conference, Vietnam was split into two with South Vietnam inheriting the southern half of Vietnam becoming the State of Vietnam and eventually the Republic of Vietnam, also known as South Vietnam, with their own administrative states (see Category:Provinces of South Vietnam). After 1975, the Mekong Delta ceased being a part of the Republic of Vietnam, succeeded by the current Vietnamese nation. The region comprises 4 provinces: Đồng Tháp, An Giang, Vĩnh Long, and Cà Mau, along with the province-level municipality of Cần Thơ.

The State of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Quốc gia Việt Nam; chữ Hán: 國家越南; French: État du Viêt-Nam) was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1949 until 1955, first as an associated state of the French Union and later as an independent state (from 20 July 1954 to 26 October 1955). The state claimed authority over all of Vietnam during the First Indochina War, although large parts of its remote territory were controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The State of Vietnam was formed in 1949 within the framework of the French Union as a compromise between Vietnamese nationalists and the French, in opposition to the communists. It gained international recognition in 1950 and aligned politically with the Western Bloc. Former emperor Bảo Đại became Chief of State. Following the 1954 Geneva Accords between the communist Viet Minh and the French, the State of Vietnam lost its remaining foothold in the northern half of the country, where most rural areas were already controlled by the Viet Minh. Ngô Đình Diệm was appointed prime minister the same year and—after having ousted Bảo Đại in 1955—became president of the Republic of Vietnam.

The French protectorate of Laos (French: Protectorat français du Laos) was a French protectorate in Southeast Asia of what is today Laos between 1893 and 1953—with a brief interregnum as a Japanese puppet state in 1945—which constituted part of French Indochina. It was established over the Siamese vassal, the Kingdom of Luang Phrabang, following the Franco-Siamese crisis of 1893. It was integrated into French Indochina and in the following years further Siamese vassals, the Principality of Phuan and Kingdom of Champasak, were annexed into it in 1899 and 1904, respectively.

The protectorate of Luang Prabang was nominally under the rule of its King, but actual power lay with a local French Governor-General, who in turn reported to the Governor-General of French Indochina. The later annexed regions of Laos were, however, purely under French rule. During World War II, the protectorate briefly proclaimed independence under Japanese occupation in 1945. After the surrender of Japan shortly thereafter, the restoration of French control over the country was opposed by the newly established Lao Issara government, who ultimately failed by April 1946. The protectorate was reestablished, but not too long after the kingdom was expanded to encompass all Laotian regions and given self-rule within the French Union as the Kingdom of Laos. It achieved full independence after the Franco-Lao Treaty in 1953, during the final stages of the First Indochina War. The final dissolution of French Indochina came with the 1954 Geneva Conference.

North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; Vietnamese: Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa (Vietnamese pronunciation: [vîəˀt nāːm zʌ̄n cû kôŋ͡mˀ hwàː]); VNDCCH), was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty recognized in 1954. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it opposed the French-supported State of Vietnam and later the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). North Vietnam launched a successful military offensive against South Vietnam in 1975 and ceased to exist the following year when it merged with the South to become the contemporary Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

During the August Revolution following World War II, Vietnamese communist revolutionary Hồ Chí Minh, leader of the Việt Minh Front, declared independence on 2 September 1945 and proclaimed the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The communist-led Viet Minh, cloaked in nationalism, was designed to appeal to a wider population than the Indochinese Communist Party could command.

Zhou Enlai (Chinese: 周恩来; pinyin: Zhōu Ēnlái; Wade–Giles: Chou Ên-lai; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Mao Zedong and aided the Communist Party in rising to power, later helping consolidate its control, form its foreign policy, and develop the Chinese economy.

As a diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Advocating peaceful coexistence with the West after the Korean War, he participated in the 1954 Geneva Conference and the 1955 Bandung Conference and helped orchestrate Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China. He helped devise policies regarding disputes with the United States, Taiwan, the Soviet Union (after 1960), India, Korea, and Vietnam.