page_title: Vietnamese people
section_title: Earlier Vietnamese groups
hierarchical_section_title: Vietnamese people / Legend and early history / Earlier Vietnamese groups
context_page_description: Vietnamese people or Kinh people are a Southeast Asian ethnic group and nation native to Vietnam. They speak the Vietnamese language, the most widely spoken Austroasiatic language. They formed 85.32% of the population of Vietnam in the 2019 census, and are officially known as Kinh to distinguish them from minority ethnic groups within the country. The earliest recorded name for the ancient Vietnamese people is Lạc or Lạc Việt.
  Although the Vietnamese are geographically, linguistically and genetically Southeast Asian, they belong in the Chinese cultural sphere due to the historical Chinese domination of Vietnam. The Vietnamese are therefore culturally similar to neighbouring southern Han Chinese subgroups and ethnic minorities from South China. The word Việt derives from Bách Việt and Nam means "south". "Baiyue" was a name used by the Han Chinese in ancient times to describe various southern non-Chinese peoples. Together, Vietnam means "to the south of the Viet", as Vietnam is located south of the Bách Việt.
  The Viet are one of the 4 main groups of Vietic speakers in Vietnam, the others being the Muong, Thổ and Chứt.
context_section_description: Sometime after the advent of the societies found at Hòa Bình and Bắc Sơn, another group of people developed a culture in what is modern Nghệ An Province, where an aspect of their religion was manifested in large mounds of mollusk shells which had been collected from the Red River Delta. Bodies had been buried under these piles of shells in a seated position with bent knees - in the same position as many buried bodies found throughout Indonesia and the Philippines. This signifies to archaeologists that these early people had an advanced society based on fishing and that their religion was oriented toward the sea. At a location further south of the Tonkin Delta, in the central region of Vietnam's coast, remains of another culture have been found at Sa Huỳnh. The Sa Huỳnh culture existed from about 4000 to 1000 BCE. Tools, ornamental beads, and funerary jars have also been found at these archaeological sites. These jars were usually located at the water's edge and probably signified a dead person's journey out to sea.
  Throughout Southeast Asia, the Neolithic Period can be considered the period in which organized societies developed. During this period the Vietnamese people spread across a large area from the foothills of the Annamite Range to the eastern coast of Northern Vietnam. It is thought that they lived in small communities with groups of extended families living in a simple communal way. The growing of rice, their staple food, had developed into two distinct methods, shifting cultivation, done on a dry field, usually in upland areas, and wet rice cultivation, which involved the construction of dikes around rivers that collected water into knee-deep ponds in which the rice was grown.
caption: Map of Văn Lang, 500 BC
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