North Vietnam

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (or North Vietnam) was created by the partition of Vietnam in 1954 after the defeat of France at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. North Vietnam's capital was Hanoi and it was ruled by a Communist government allied with the Soviet Union and China and fought against the United States and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

With the fall of Saigon (now officially Ho Chi Minh City, but still called Saigon by its inhabitants) to North Vietnamese forces in 1975, political authority within South Vietnam was taken by the Communist backed Republic of South Vietnam. This government merged with North Vietnam on July 2, 1976, to form a single nation called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, commonly known simply as Vietnam.