Vietnam War
- Vietnam calls it Kháng chiến chống Mỹ cứu nước (Resistance War against America to Save the Nation)
The start is disputed. A common convention, used by the US Department of Defense, is 1 November 1955; others date the war from the insurgency of 1959–1960, or the US war from 1961 or 1965, when direct US military involvement escalated. It ended on 30 April 1975.
Phases
- 1.Two states and a growing insurgency
- 2.US escalation and ground war
- 3.US withdrawal and the Paris accords
- 4.War between the Vietnamese parties and the final offensive
Sides
Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) and, from 1969, the Provisional Revolutionary Government, Pathet Lao, Khmer Rouge and, from 1970, the GRUNK, 
China, Soviet Union, and 
North Korea
Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), Kingdom of Laos (from 1959), Khmer Republic (1970–1975), 
United States, 
South Korea, 
Australia, 
New Zealand, 
Thailand, and 
Philippines
Cambodia
Laos
Russia
VietnamWhat happened
After the Geneva armistices, Ngô Đình Diệm proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam in the south in October 1955 and, with US backing, refused the elections set for 1956. From 1959 the North backed an armed insurgency in the south, led from 1960 by the National Liberation Front (the Viet Cong) and supplied along the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos. US military personnel in the South passed 23,000 by the end of 1964. After the Gulf of Tonkin incidents, direct US military involvement escalated from 1965: bombing of the North and ground troops, 543,400 at the 1969 peak. South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines sent forces to the South; the Soviet Union and China sent arms and supplies to the North, and China also sent anti-aircraft and engineering troops. The Tet Offensive of 1968 failed militarily but weakened US public support for the war. From 1969 US troops withdrew while fighting spread into Cambodia and Laos. The Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 ended direct US involvement, but not the war. In spring 1975 PAVN divisions overran the South, and on 30 April their tanks entered Saigon.
Outcome: The Republic of Vietnam surrendered on 30 April 1975; North and South were formally united as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on 2 July 1976.
Key events
Leaders
- Ho Chi Minh · President of North Vietnam, to 1969 · North Vietnam, the Viet Cong and their allies
- Lê Duẩn · First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam · North Vietnam, the Viet Cong and their allies
- Võ Nguyên Giáp · Defence minister and PAVN commander · North Vietnam, the Viet Cong and their allies
- Văn Tiến Dũng · PAVN chief of staff; led the 1975 offensive · North Vietnam, the Viet Cong and their allies
- Lê Đức Thọ · Negotiator at the Paris talks · North Vietnam, the Viet Cong and their allies
- Nguyễn Thị Định · Deputy commander of the Viet Cong's armed forces · North Vietnam, the Viet Cong and their allies
- Ngô Đình Diệm · President of South Vietnam, 1955–1963 · South Vietnam, the United States and their allies
- Nguyễn Văn Thiệu · President of South Vietnam, 1967–1975 · South Vietnam, the United States and their allies
- Dương Văn Minh · Last president of South Vietnam; surrendered on 30 April 1975 · South Vietnam, the United States and their allies
- Lyndon B. Johnson · US president, 1963–1969 · South Vietnam, the United States and their allies
- Richard Nixon · US president, 1969–1974 · South Vietnam, the United States and their allies
- William Westmoreland · Commander of US forces in Vietnam, 1964–1968 · South Vietnam, the United States and their allies
- Creighton Abrams · Commander of US forces in Vietnam, 1968–1972 · South Vietnam, the United States and their allies
- Chae Myung-shin · Commander of South Korean forces in Vietnam · South Vietnam, the United States and their allies
Deaths
Death tolls are estimates and often contested. Each is a range from its sources; a figure one party gives is marked as theirs.
Military deaths · PAVN and Viet Cong
- 1,100,000according to Vietnamese government (1995)
The first official figure, published in April 1995: 1.1 million fighters dead over 21 years of war.
- 849,018according to Vietnamese Ministry of Defence (2015)
The number recorded as "liệt sĩ" (martyrs, the official term for those who died in service) in the war against the United States, in a Ministry of Defence report on recovering remains.
- 666,000 – 937,000
Western estimates: about 666,000 (the estimate the Associated Press cited in 1995) to at least 937,000 (Dictionary of American History).
Military deaths · South Vietnamese armed forces
- 166,000 – 313,000
From more than 166,000 (Dictionary of American History) to 313,000 (R. J. Rummel's high estimate); a 1995 news report gave 223,748 South Vietnamese dead.
Military deaths · US armed forces
- 58,220according to US Department of Defense records (2008) · as of 29 April 2008
Deaths from all causes, in battle and out of it.
Sources
Military deaths · Australian forces
- 523 – 526
523 in the Australian War Memorial's account; 526 in the Department of Veterans' Affairs' 2025 count.
Civilian deaths · Vietnamese civilians
- 405,000 – 2,000,000
Contested. The low end is Guenter Lewy's 1978 estimate for 1965–1974; the high end is the Vietnamese government's 1995 figure of nearly 2 million civilians killed in North and South.
Sources
- Wikipedia (English). "Vietnam War."
- Wikipedia (English). "Vietnam War casualties."
- "Vietnam War (1960–1975): Military and Diplomatic Course." The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford University Press, via Encyclopedia.com.
- "Vietnam War." Dictionary of American History. Charles Scribner's Sons, via Encyclopedia.com.
- "Vietnam War." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Macmillan Reference USA, via Encyclopedia.com.
- "Vietnam War (1959–1975)." U*X*L Encyclopedia of U.S. History. Gale, via Encyclopedia.com.
- Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. "U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: the Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964."
- Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. "U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive, 1968."
- Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. "Ending the Vietnam War, 1969–1973."
- U.S. National Archives. "Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics" (Defense Casualty Analysis System extract, as of 29 April 2008).
- Australian War Memorial. "Vietnam War 1962–75."
- Associated Press. "Vietnam says 1.1 million died fighting for North." The Ledger-Star (Norfolk, Virginia), 4 April 1995.
- Wikipedia (Tiếng Việt). "Chiến tranh Việt Nam."
- Wikipedia (français). "Guerre du Viêt Nam."
- Gleditsch, N. P., Wallensteen, P., Eriksson, M., Sollenberg, M. & Strand, H. (2002). Armed Conflict 1946–2001: A New Dataset. Journal of Peace Research 39(5); Davies, S., Pettersson, T. & Öberg, M. (2026). Organized violence 1989–2025, and violent political protests. Journal of Peace Research 63(4); UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset v26.1, conflicts 262 (Laos), 293 (Vietnam) and 300 (Cambodia), CC BY 4.0
- Pribbenow, Merle. "North Korean Pilots in the Skies over Vietnam." NKIDP e-Dossier no. 2. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, November 2011.
- Lê Minh Nam. "Chuyên gia quân sự Liên Xô và hành trình 10 năm hỗ trợ Việt Nam chống Mỹ, cứu nước." VietnamNet, 2025.
- Wikipedia (中文). "抗美援越."
- Villard, Erik. "Were We Right to Be Afraid of China During the Vietnam War?" HistoryNet, 27 April 2022.
- Ministry of Defence of Vietnam, General Political Department, Policy Department. "Chuyên đề 4: Công tác tìm kiếm, quy tập hài cốt liệt sĩ từ nay đến năm 2020 và những năm tiếp theo" (2015), archived copy.
- Wikipedia (English). "Battle of Ap Bac."
- Wikipedia (English). "Siege of Khe Sanh."
- Wikipedia (English). "Operation Homecoming."