Viet people
người Việt / người Kinh | |
|---|---|
Viet women wearing áo nhật bình along with khăn vành dây. | |
| Total population | |
| c. 90 million (2025) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Vietnam | 82,085,826 (2019) |
| Overseas communities | Majority of the Vietnamese diaspora |
| Languages | |
| Vietnamese, Vietnamese sign languages | |
| Religion | |
| Mainly folk religion syncretized with Buddhism; irreligious; Christian minority; others | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Other Vietic ethnic groups (Gin, Muong, Chứt, Thổ peoples) | |
The Viet people (Vietnamese: người Việt), also known in Vietnam as the Kinh people (Vietnamese: người Kinh, to distinguish from other ethnicities) are a Southeast Asian ethnicity native to northern Vietnam, who expanded southwards in the 2nd millennium CE. They speak Vietnamese, an Austroasiatic language, and are one of the four main Vietic-speaking groups in Vietnam, the others being the Mường, Thổ, and Chứt.
The Viet accounted for 85.32% of Vietnam's population in the 2019 census and are officially designated as the Kinh people to distinguish them from minority groups in the country, such as the Mường, Tày, Hmong, and Cham. Diasporic descendants of the Kinh in Guangxi, China, known as the Gin people, are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by China. The Viet constitute the majority of the Vietnamese diaspora worldwide.