Subdivisions of Vietnam

Vietnam is a unitary state in Southeast Asia. Vietnam is officially subdivided into 3 administrative tiers:

The fourth tier or village level also exists as hamlet (xóm, ấp) and village (làng, thôn, bản). However this is not an official tier.

There are:

The local authority at provincial level includes:

The provinces are subdivided into provincial cities, towns (for urban area) and rural districts. Normally the provincial city or town is the capital of that province.

The municipalities are subdivided into rural districts and urban districts. There is no official capital of the municipality but usually the seat of local authority is located at a central urban district.

Based on latest sources of General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO), there are 713 district-level subdivisions with 546 districts, 49 urban districts, 51 towns, 67 provincial cities.

The rural districts can be upgraded to towns which can be upgraded to provincial cities.

The local authority at district level includes:

The provincial cities and towns are subdivided into wards (for urban area) and communes (for rural area). There is no designated capital for provincial cities or towns, but usually the seat of local authority is located in a central ward.

The urban districts are subdivided into wards. The rural districts are subdivided into townships (for urban area) and communes (for rural area). There is no designated capital for urban and rural districts, but usually the seat of local authority is located in a central ward or central township

There are 11162 Commune-level units with 8978 communes, 1581 wards, 603 townships, GSO said in 2016.

Townships are known as thị trấn in Vietnamese, but less common type of townships are farm townships (thị trấn nông trường). The communes can be upgraded to townships (in rural districts) or wards (in provincial cities or towns).

The local authority at commune level includes:

Apart from administrative divisions, Vietnam is also divided into geographical regions, electoral divisions and military regions.

Vietnam is geographically divided into:

For electoral purpose, each province or municipality is divided into electoral units (đơn vị bầu cử) which are further divided into voting zones (khu vự bỏ phiếu). The number of electoral divisions varies from election to election and depends on the population of that province or municipality.

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