Rural commune (Vietnam)

A rural commune (Vietnamese: xã Chữ nôm:社) is a third-level (commune-level) administrative subdivision of Vietnam. Rural communes are subdivisions of counties (Vietnamese: huyện), which are in turn subdivisions of provinces (Vietnamese: tỉnh).

The rural commune is one of three possible third-level subdivisions in Vietnam, along with commune-level towns (Vietnamese: thị trấn), which are also county subdivisions, and wards (Vietnamese: phường, literal meaning: urban subdistrict), which are subdivisions of urban districts, county-level towns, or provincial cities. The term xã is sometimes used to refer to all third-level administrative subdivisions of Vietnam, including rural communes, wards and commune-level towns.

Certain small villages are not officially regarded as administrative communes.

As of December 31, 2008, Vietnam had 9,111 rural communes. Thanh Hoá Province contained the highest number of rural communes (586) amongst all province-level administrative units, followed by Nghệ An Province with 436 and Hanoi with 408. Đà Nẵng, with only 11 rural communes, contained the fewest. Counted together, the ten province-level administrative units containing the most rural communes—namely, Thanh Hoá (586), Nghệ An (436), Hanoi (408), Thái Bình (267), Phú Thọ (251), Hà Tĩnh (238), Hải Dương (234), Quảng Nam (210), Bắc Giang (207), and Lạng Sơn (207)—contain one-third of all the rural communes in Vietnam. Three of these are located in the Red River Delta region, three more in the Đông Bắc (Northeast) region, three in the Bắc Trung Bộ (North Central Coast) region, and one in the Nam Trung Bộ (South Central Coast) region.

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