Total population | |
---|---|
~4,000,000 (estimates) | |
Regions with significant populations | |
United States | 1,799,632 (2010) |
Cambodia | 600,000 |
France | 350,000 (2014) |
Australia | 210,800 (2010) |
Taiwan | 200,000 (2014) |
Canada | 157,450 (2011) |
Germany | 150,000 (2011) |
Japan | 146,956 (2015) |
South Korea | 143,000 (2013) |
Czech Republic | 83,000 (2011) |
Malaysia | 70,000 (2013) |
United Kingdom | 55,000 |
Poland | 50,000 |
Laos | 30,000 (2012) |
China | 28,199 (2010) |
Norway | 21,721 (2014) |
Netherlands | 20,603 (2014) |
United Arab Emirates | 20,000 |
Sweden | 17,085 (2015) |
Belgium | 14,000 (2012) |
Russia | 13,954 (2010) |
Thailand | 10,000 |
Denmark | 14,669(2014) |
Switzerland | 14,496 |
Qatar | 8,000(2008) |
Macau | 7,199 (2011) |
New Zealand | 6,660(2013) |
Finland | 4,645 |
Ukraine | 3,850(2001) |
Hungary | 3,019 (2011) |
Italy | 3,000(2004–2005) |
Slovakia | 3,000 |
Bulgaria | 2,600 (2015) |
New Caledonia | 2,506 (2014) |
Overseas Vietnamese (Vietnamese: Người Việt hải ngoại, which literally means "Overseas Vietnamese", or Việt Kiều, a Sino-Vietnamese word (越僑) literally translating to "Vietnamese sojourner") refers to Vietnamese people living outside Vietnam in a diaspora. Of the about 3 million Overseas Vietnamese, a majority left Vietnam as refugees after 1975 as a result of the Fall of Saigon and the resulting takeover by the Marxist-Leninist North.
The term "Việt Kiều" is used by people in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to refer to ethnic Vietnamese living outside the country, and is not a term of self-identification. The Overseas Vietnamese community itself rarely use this for self-identification, instead, most prefer the technically correct term of Người Việt hải ngoại (literally translating to Overseas Vietnamese), or occasionally Người Việt tự do (Free Vietnamese).
Overseas Vietnamese can be generally divided into four distinct categories that rarely interact with each other:
Recently a new group of Vietnamese have been emerging. These naturally born Vietnamese who attended high school and college overseas (international student), are called by natives as "du học sinh"; they stay in those countries and work and live as permanent residents.
According to the 2010 census, near 1.8 million people who are of Vietnamese origin live in the United States, constituting about a half of all overseas Vietnamese. Out of 1,132,031 people aged 25 years old or over, 30.2% do not have a high school diploma, 21.5% are high school graduates or equivalent, 18.6% have a bachelor's degree, 22.8% have some college or an associate degree, and 6.9% have a graduate or professional degree. They tend to live in metropolitan areas in the West, especially in California and Texas. Significant areas where they are well represented include Orange County, California, San Jose, California, Houston, Texas, and Seattle, Washington. As almost all of them left Vietnam after 1975 to escape the communist Vietnamese government, they are generally antagonistic towards the current government of Vietnam.