Testing the degree of urbanisation at the global level
Vietnam - Country summary
Vietnam
Introduction
This country summary is provided to support the assessment of the degree of urbanisation by national statistical
institutes. The goal of this assessment is to see whether the degree of urbanisation accurately captures a country's
cities, smaller settlements and rural areas.
Please note that inaccuracies in this country summary may be due to data quality. The results presented here are
based on a combination of two data sources: population and built-up areas.
The population source data are collected by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)
mostly from the national statistical offices - more information on the reference years and the geographic scale can be
found below.
Built-up areas are detected by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre using the Global Human Settlement
Layer method on satellite imagery from Landsat.
The degree of urbanisation can be applied to other data (e.g. census updates, better spatial resolution) that may
improve the available classification.
The degree of urbanisation is applied first to a population distribution grid. The results at the grid level are
subsequently used to classify municipalities. This second step could not be applied to the globe as municipal boundaries
were not consistently available.
Hanoi, Vietnam
Degree of urbanisation
Urban centre Urban cluster Rural grid cell (transparent)
The QR Code on the right opens an interactive version of the map above (minimum screen width resolution required: 600
pixels).
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Testing the degree of urbanisation at the global level
Vietnam - Country summary
Vietnam
Population (2015) Built-up area (sq km, 2015) Land (sq km, 2015)
38 883 089 2 370.78
41.61% 40.69% 21 893
6.48%
684.76 8 192 307 960
17 815 740 11.75% 2.42% 91.10%
19.06%
36 758 721 2 771.58
39.33% 47.56%
Degree of urbanisation
Urban centre Urban cluster Rural grid cell
Population (left) and Built-up area (in sq km, right) by degree of urbanisation
1975 1990 2000 2015 1975 1990 2000 2015
Urban 14 749 988 22 814 309 29 763 714 38 883 089 548.66 1 070.61 1 914.61 2 370.78
centres (30%) (33%) (37%) (42%) (20.60%) (31.00%) (38.90%) (40.70%)
Urban 23 646 818 31 961 009 35 244 214 36 758 721 1 658.34 1 968.73 2 463.68 2 771.58
clusters (49%) (47%) (44%) (39%) (62.40%) (57.00%) (50.10%) (47.60%)
Rural grid 10 361 118 13 464 854 15 314 207 17 815 740 452.14 415.06 540.04 684.76
cells (21%) (20%) (19%) (19%) (17.00%) (12.00%) (11.00%) (11.80%)
Total 48 757 925 68 240 172 80 322 136 93 457 550 2 659.14 3 454.40 4 918.32 5 827.13
Capital and list of settlements (2015) Definitions
Settlements Population Urban centre (in red) defines a city:
(in the settlements) An urban centre consists of contiguous grid cells of 1 sq km with a density of
at least 1500 inhabitants per sq km and a minimum total population of 50 000.
Hanoi 5 351 791 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php
/Glossary:Urban_centre
Ho Chi Minh City 11 508 477
Haiphong 1 048 471 Urban cluster (in orange) defines towns and suburbs:
Đà Nẵng 1 002 995 An urban cluster consists of contiguous grid cells of 1 sq km with a density of
at least 300 inhabitants per sq km and a minimum total population of 5 000.
Can Tho 675 114 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php
My Tho 544 778 /Glossary:Urban_cluster
Long Xuyen 509 969
Rural grid cell (trasparent/light grey) defines rural areas:
Sa Dec City 485 811 Grid cells of 1 sq km with a density below 300 inhabitants per sq km and other
Nha Trang 468 321 grid cells outside urban clusters or centres (see above).
Hue 418 624 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php
/Glossary:Rural_grid_cell
Detailed list of settlements
Notes about data:
The degree of urbanisation classifies municipalities based on their population share in three types of grid cells: 'Cities' have the majority
of their population in an urban centre; 'Towns and suburbs' have the majority of their population in an urban cluster, but are not
cities; 'Rural areas' have the majority of their population in rural grid cells.
For this summary, we have not been able to classify municipalities, but for ease of reading it refers to the types of grid cells using the
three classes of municipalities.
In case of cross-border settlement areas, only population and surfaces estimates related to the Country are considered in the national
figures.
The summary includes results from automatic data analytics workflows including global best available satellite data records collected by
the Landsat Earth Observation program and census data made available by National Statistical Offices. The data is aggregated in four
reference years 1975, 1990, 2000, 2015. They should be considered as nominal dates aggregating the best suitable data in the given
period. Despite the best efforts done, unavoidable information gaps in specific locations can result from unavailability of suitable satellite
data or census data. In particular, the uncertainty of the estimates is increasing in the older reference years.
This summary has been generated using multi-temporal GHSL datasets for the years 1975, 1990, 2000, and 2015, from the Community
pre-Release of GHS Data Package (GHS CR2018).
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Testing the degree of urbanisation at the global level
Vietnam - Country summary
Vietnam
Degree of urbanisation
Urban centre Urban cluster Rural grid cell (transparent)
The QR Code on the right opens an interactive version of the map above (minimum screen width resolution required: 600
pixels).
Baseline data source - Vietnam
Fostered by the GEO Human Planet Initiative
The population distribution layer has been produced using census information provided by CIESIN (GPWv4.10).
The total number of populated census units used is 688, having the average size of 480.0 km2.
The reference year of the population source data is 2009.
The statistics presented in this document are based on the country borders as defined in the database of Global Administrative
Areas, (GADM v2.8).
Disclaimer:
The designations employed and the presentation of material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of
the European Union concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its
frontiers or boundaries.
Kosovo: This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo
declaration of independence.
Palestine: This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the
Member States on this issue.
The Urban Centres are delineated from spatial grids in equal area World Mollweide geographical projection at 1x1 km resolution. The visualisation
of this map is provided in Web Mercator projection, resulting in an apparent visual distortion of the original grid shape.
Interactive versions of the content:
This fact sheet: https://ghsl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/gate.php?a=22413113412111
Map of Hanoi, Vietnam: https://ghsl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/gate.php?c=22413113412111
Full list of cities for Vietnam: https://ghsl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/cl.php?c=245
Map of Vietnam: https://ghsl.jrc.ec.europa.eu/gate.php?m=22413113412111
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