Historical provinces of Vietnam

On the First Tier, Vietnam is divided into 58 provinces (Vietnamese: tỉnh) and 5 municipalities (Vietnamese: thành phố trực thuộc trung ương). Municipalities are the highest-ranked cities in Vietnam. Municipality are centrally-controlled city and have special status equal to the Province.

The provinces are divided into Provincial City, Town and Rural District as the Second Tier unit. At the Third Tier, Provincial City and Town is divided into Ward and Commune, while Rural District is divided into Township (thị trấn) and Commune.

Vietnamese provinces are controlled by a People's Council (Hội Đồng Nhân Dân), elected by the inhabitants. The number of councilors varies from province to province, depending on the population of that province. The People's Council appoints a People's Committee, which acts as the executive arm of the provincial government. This arrangement is a somewhat simplified version of the situation in Vietnam's national government. Provincial governments are expected to be subordinate to the central government.

The People's Committee (Uỷ Ban Nhân Dân) is, as mentioned previously, the executive arm at provincial level, and is responsible for formulating and implementing policy. It may be thought of as the equivalent of a cabinet. The People's Committee will have a Chairman and a Vice-Chairman, and between nine and eleven ordinary members.

The People's Court (Tòa án Nhân dân) is the judiciary branch at provincial level and responsible for judiciary trials. The People's Court is headed by a Chief Judge.

According to the census results of April 1, 2009, the population of Vietnam is 85,789,573 people. The most populous top-level administrative unit in Vietnam is Hồ Chí Minh City, one of the five centrally governed cities. It has 7,123,340 people living within its official boundaries. The second most populous administrative unit is the recently expanded Hà Nội with 6,448,837 people. Prior to the expansion of the capital city, this rank belonged to Thanh Hóa with 3,400,239 people. The least populous is Bắc Kạn, a mountainous province in the remote northeast with 294,660 people.

...
Wikipedia