Government of Vietnam in the context of "National Liberation Front for South Vietnam"

The Viet Cong (VC) was an epithet and umbrella term to refer to the communist-driven armed movement and united front organization in South Vietnam. It was formally organized as and led by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, and conducted military operations under the name of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam (LASV). The movement fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the Vietnam War. The organization had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized and mobilized peasants in the territory the VC controlled. During the war, communist fighters and some anti-war activists claimed that the VC was an insurgency indigenous to the South that represented the legitimate rights of people in South Vietnam, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. It was later conceded by the modern Vietnamese communist leadership that the movement was actually under the North Vietnamese political and military leadership, aiming to unify Vietnam under a single banner.

North Vietnam established the National Liberation Front (NLF) on December 20, 1960, at Tân Lập village in Tây Ninh Province to foment insurgency in the South. Many of the VC's core members were volunteer "regroupees", southern Viet Minh who had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord (1954). Hanoi gave the regroupees military training and sent them back to the South along the Ho Chi Minh trail in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The VC called for the unification of Vietnam and the overthrow of the American-backed South Vietnamese government. The VC's best-known action was the Tet Offensive, an assault on more than 100 South Vietnamese urban centers in 1968, including an attack on the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The offensive riveted the attention of the world's media for weeks, but also overextended the VC. Later communist offensives were conducted predominantly by the North Vietnamese. The organization officially merged with the Fatherland Front of Vietnam on February 4, 1977, after North and South Vietnam were officially unified under a communist government.

Fifty-four ethnic groups in Vietnam have been officially recognized by the Vietnamese government since 2 March 1979. Each ethnicity has its own unique language, traditions, and culture. The largest ethnic groups are: Kinh 85.32%, Tày 1.92%, Thái 1.89%, Mường 1.51%, Hmong 1.45%, Khmer 1.32%, Nùng 1.13%, Dao 0.93%, Hoa 0.78%, with all others accounting for the remaining 3.7% (2019 census). The Vietnamese terms for ethnic groups are dân tộc (nation) and sắc tộc (ethnicity).

The Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF, alternatively Vietnamese Fatherland Front; Vietnamese: Mặt trận Tổ quốc Việt Nam) is constitutionally an integral component in the political structure of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and an umbrella group of mass movements and political coalition aligned with the Communist Party of Vietnam that dominates the National Assembly of Vietnam, forming the Government of Vietnam and all recognised national socio-political organisations.

It was founded in February 1977 by the merger of the Vietnam Fatherland Front of North Vietnam and the two so-called "Viet Cong" popular fronts, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the Alliance of National, Democratic and Peace Forces, in South Vietnam. It is considered the modern incarnation of the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh). It is an amalgamation of many smaller groups, including the Communist Party itself. Other groups that participated in the establishment of the Front are the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour, the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union (a.k.a. the Ho Chi Minh Youth) and the Ho Chi Minh Young Pioneer Organization. It also included the Democratic Party of Vietnam and Socialist Party of Vietnam, until they disbanded in 1988.

The five pillars (Vietnamese: bộ ngũ, pronounced [tɨ˧˦ t͡ɕu˧˨ʔ]; or ngũ trụ), previously the four pillars (tứ trụ), is an informal term for the five most important party-state leaders in the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Government of Vietnam. In modern usage, the five pillars refer to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, President of Vietnam, Prime Minister of Vietnam, Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam, and the Permanent Member of the Secretariat. Together, they are officially designated as the "Key Leaders of the Party and the State" (Vietnamese: Lãnh đạo chủ chốt của Đảng và Nhà nước) and can be considered as the de facto highest state leaders. Similar to China, there does not exist an official order of precedence for political leaders and rather they are inferred in a de facto fashion. However, since the chairmanship of the Communist Party was abolished, the General Secretary has been the highest ranking official in Vietnam. This division of power is formed to prevent dictatorial rule and preserve consensus-based leadership, which is officially called by the Vietnamese Communist Party as "democratic centralism". In 2025, the seat of Permanent Member of the Secretariat of CPV was designated as the fifth "key leader", virtually becoming the fifth pillar of the Vietnamese politics.

Unlike other communist states, the General Secretary of the party (or its predecessor) and the President of the state are largely occupied not by the same person, demonstrating the collective leadership in Vietnam. The only exceptions are: Hồ Chí Minh (1951–69), Trường Chinh (briefly in 1986), Nguyễn Phú Trọng (2018–21), and Tô Lâm (briefly in 2024), and except Hồ Chí Minh, all of those exceptions were practically elected to fulfill their successors' uncompleted terms of party general secretaryship or state presidency. Thus, the Party General Secretaries rarely hold offices that are nominally within the Vietnamese state apparatus and government except their parliament memberships, however is still managed to be the practical highest leader in the politics of Vietnam and is ideologically the highest commander of the People's Army of Vietnam, due to the ex officio occupation of the Secretaryship of the Party Central Military Commission.

The prime minister of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Thủ tướng Chính phủ, lit. 'government premier') is the head of government of Vietnam who presides over the meetings of the Government (formerly the Council of Ministers). The prime minister directs the work of government members, and may propose deputy prime ministers to the National Assembly.

The head of government is responsible to the National Assembly and serves as the deputy chairman of the Council for Defence and Security. Moreover, prime minister is also the chairman of the Council for National Education, Standing Member of the Central Military Commission and the Central Police Party Committee. The tenure of a prime minister is five years, and the term is renewable once. The current prime minister Phạm Minh Chính has served since 2021. In case of incapacity, a deputy prime minister assumes the office of acting prime minister until the prime minister resumes duty, or until the appointment of a new prime minister.

Hanoi Metropolitan Area (Vietnamese: Vùng thủ đô Hà Nội) is a metropolitan area currently planned by the government of Vietnam.