page_title: Pith helmet
section_title: Vietnam
hierarchical_section_title: Pith helmet / Modern use / Vietnam
caption_attribution_description: English: A Vietnamese soldier wearing a pith helmet, 2017
context_page_description: The pith helmet, also known as the safari helmet, sun helmet, topee, sola topee or topi, is a lightweight cloth-covered helmet made of sholapith. The pith helmet is an adaptation of the native salakot headgear of the Philippines.
  It was often worn by European travelers and explorers, in the varying climates found in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the tropics, but was also used in many other contexts. They were routinely issued to European military personnel serving overseas "in hot climates" from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.
context_section_description: After the Second World War, the communist Viet Minh in French Indochina, and later the People's Army of Vietnam of the North, based their helmet design called mũ cối on the French pith helmet of the former colonial power and adopted it as their own. Today it is still widely worn by civilians in Vietnam (mostly in the North, but its use declined sharply in 2007 when the motorbike helmet became mandatory for motorbike riders). In design, the Vietnamese model was similar to the pre-Second World War civilian type, but covered in jungle green cloth, sometimes with a metal insignia at the front.
caption: A Vietnamese soldier wearing a pith helmet
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