Hanoi in the context of "Clark Material Handling Company"

The Red River Delta or Hong River Delta (Vietnamese: Đồng bằng sông Hồng) is the flat low-lying plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries merging with the Thái Bình River in Northern Vietnam. Hồng (紅) is a Sino-Vietnamese word for "red" or "crimson". The delta has the smallest area but highest population and population density of all regions in Vietnam. The region, measuring some 15,000 square kilometres (6,000 sq mi) is well protected by a network of dikes. It is an agriculturally rich and densely populated area. Most of the land is devoted to rice cultivation.

Eight provinces, together with two municipalities (the capital Hanoi, and the port of Haiphong) form the delta. It had a population of almost 23 million in 2019.

A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a form of government that combines the state leadership of a communist party, Marxist–Leninist political philosophy, and an official commitment to the construction of a communist society. Modern communism broadly grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe as a program to replace capitalism with a stateless, classless, and moneyless society, but its application as Marxism–Leninism began later in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.

In the 20th century, several communist states were established, first in Russia with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then in portions of Eastern Europe, Asia, and a few other regions after World War II. The institutions of these states were heavily influenced by the writings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and others. However, the political reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev known as Perestroika and socio-economic difficulties produced the revolutions of 1989, which brought down all the communist states of the Eastern Bloc bar the Soviet Union. The repercussions of the collapse of these states contributed to political transformations in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and several other non-European communist states. Presently, there are five states which are officially communist in the world: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam.

The phonology of Vietnamese features 19 consonant phonemes, with 5 additional consonant phonemes used in Vietnamese's Southern dialect, and 4 exclusive to the Northern dialect. Vietnamese also has 14 vowel nuclei, and 6 tones that are integral to the interpretation of the language. Older interpretations of Vietnamese tones differentiated between "sharp" and "heavy" entering and departing tones. This article is a technical description of the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including phonetics and phonology. Two main varieties of Vietnamese, Hanoi and Saigon, which are slightly different from each other, are described below.

Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of Mainland Southeast Asia. With an area of about 331,000 square kilometres (128,000 sq mi) and a population of over 100 million, it is the world's 15th-most populous country. One of two communist states in Southeast Asia, Vietnam is bordered by China to the north, Laos and Cambodia to the west, the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east; it also shares maritime borders with Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia to the south and southwest, the Philippines to the east, and China to the northeast. Its capital is Hanoi, while its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam was inhabited by the Paleolithic age, with states established in the first millennium BC on the Red River Delta in modern-day northern Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed northern and central Vietnam, which were subsequently under Chinese rule from 111 BC until the first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded southward to the Mekong Delta, conquering Champa. During most of the 17th and 18th centuries, Vietnam was effectively divided into two domains of Đàng Trong and Đàng Ngoài. The Nguyễn—the last imperial dynasty—surrendered to France in 1883. In 1887, its territory was integrated into French Indochina as three separate regions. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the Viet Minh, a coalition front led by the communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, launched the August Revolution and declared Vietnam's independence from the Empire of Japan in 1945.

Northern Vietnam or Tonkin (Vietnamese: Bắc Bộ) is one of three geographical regions in Vietnam. It consists of three geographic sub-regions: the Northwest (Vùng Tây Bắc), the Northeast (Vùng Đông Bắc), and the Red River Delta (Đồng Bằng Sông Hồng). It is near China. Unlike tropical Central and Southern Vietnam, Northern Vietnam has a subtropical climate.

It has a total area of about 109,942.9 km. The region's largest city, Hanoi, serves as the country's capital. Among the three geographical regions, the oldest is Northern Vietnam. Vietnamese culture originated in the Red River Delta and the Kinh Vietnamese eventually spread south into the Mekong Delta.

Haiphong or Hai Phong (Vietnamese: Hải Phòng, pronounced [hǎːj fɔ̀ŋ͡m] ) is the third-largest city in Vietnam and is the principal port city of the Red River Delta. The municipality has an area of 1,526.52 km (589.39 sq mi). The city includes Bạch Long Vĩ and Cát Hải islands in the Gulf of Tonkin. It has a population of 2,130,898 in 2023. The city's economy has strength in manufacturing, as evidenced by large industrial parks and numerous smaller traditional handicraft villages. Historically, Haiphong was the first place in Vietnam and Mainland Southeast Asia to get electricity.

In the imperial era of Đại Việt, the Bạch Đằng River in Haiphong was a place of many legendary victories, led by now-legendary commanders Ngô Quyền and Trần Hưng Đạo. In the 16th century, Mạc dynasty promoted the coastal settlement as a secondary capital, growing to become an important port town of Đàng Ngoài. After the French conquest of Vietnam, in 1888, the president of the French Third Republic, Sadi Carnot, promulgated a decree to establish Haiphong as one of the principal cities of French Indochina. From 1954 to 1975, Haiphong served as the most important maritime city of North Vietnam. It was one of the directly controlled municipalities of a reunified Vietnam with Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 1976.

French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China), officially known as the Indochinese Union and after 1941 as the Indochinese Federation, was a group of French dependent territories in Southeast Asia from 1887 to 1954. It was initially a federation of French colonies (1887–1949), later a confederation of French associated states (1949–1954). It comprised Cambodia, Laos (from 1899), Guangzhouwan (1898–1945), Cochinchina, and Vietnamese regions of Tonkin and Annam. It was established in 1887 and was dissolved in 1954. In 1949, Vietnam was reunited and it regained Cochinchina. Its capitals were Hanoi (1902–1945) and Saigon (1887–1902, 1945–1954).

The Second French Empire colonized Cochinchina in 1862 and established a protectorate in Cambodia in 1863. After the French Third Republic took over northern Vietnam through the Tonkin campaign, the various protectorates were consolidated into one union in 1887. Two more entities were incorporated into the union: the Laotian protectorate and the Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan. The French exploited the resources in the region during their rule, while also contributing to improvements of the health and education system in the region. Deep divides remained between the native population and the colonists, leading to sporadic rebellions by the former.

The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam, and alternatively internationally as the French Indochina War) was fought in Indochina between France and the Việt Minh, and their respective allies, from 19 December 1946 until 1 August 1954. The Việt Minh was led by Võ Nguyên Giáp and Hồ Chí Minh. The conflict mainly happened in Vietnam.

At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that Indochina south of latitude 16° north was to be included in the Southeast Asia Command under British Admiral Mountbatten. The French return to southern Indochina was also supported by the Allies. On V-J Day, September 2, Hồ Chí Minh proclaimed in Hanoi the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). Also in September 1945, Chinese forces entered Hanoi, and Japanese forces to the north of that line surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time, British forces landed in Saigon, and Japanese forces in the south surrendered to the British. The Chinese acknowledged the DRV and the communist-led Việt Minh, then in power in Hanoi, even though they also supported pro-Chinese nationalist factions. The British refused to do that in Saigon, and deferred to the French. The DRV ruled as the only civil government in all of Vietnam for a period of about 20 days, after the abdication of Emperor Bảo Đại, who had governed Vietnam since 1926.