In a response to the editorial, “Is Vietnam a small country or not?”, a reader from the US has written in to say Vietnam is not really a small country.

The figures he has quoted may not tally exactly with those published by Vietnam’s statistics office but are good enough to support his arguments.

Here below is the letter and we hope to receive more from you.

Dear Sirs,

Besides the fact that Vietnam has a heroic history, a resourceful people, and a rich culture, it is not really small in terms of size or population when compared to other countries.

Actually, of the 266 geographical entities in the world, Vietnam ranks 72nd in size, being larger than Poland , Italy, and the Philippines (75th, 76th and 77th respectively) and way larger than the entire United Kingdom (The UK includes England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and ranks 84th). Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/geo_are_tot

In population, Vietnam ranks 13th out of 267, larger than Germany (14th), France (21st), the UK (22nd), and Italy (23rd). With 83.5 million people, Vietnam is not only larger than the Republic of Korea (24th at 48.6 million) and North Korea (ranks 27th at 22.9 million) but also ahead of both of them combined (at 71.5 million, a unified Korea will still be well below Vietnam). Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/peo_pop

In GDP terms, Vietnam ranks 56th out of 184 – not bad for a country that was in bondage for almost a century, for a third of that time being devastated by famine, war, and blockade, and that has only known economic growth for just under 20 years. Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_gdp .

As a developing nation, its per capita GDP is still low but at the growth rate of 7.5 percent, it has steadily climbed up the ranks.

So, why then is Vietnam often referred to as a "tiny" country, especially by people of Vietnamese origin? I think there are three reasons:

Over the centuries, in fact over the millenia, our country was overshadowed by China. Therefore, compared to that country, ours must have seemed quite small.

That complex was further aggravated by the more recent domination by western powers. Compared to the might and wealth of the West, many of our people must have felt small and insignificant.

Fortunately, not all of them felt that way or history would have been quite different!

You can also blame it on the Mercator projection, the natural defect of trying to portray the Earth which is in the form of a globe onto a flat two-dimentional map: the further you get away from the equator (in either direction), the more an area is enlarged. Vietnam is located near the equator and is therefore shown almost in its true size while those countries further north are shown to be much larger than they really are (that expains why many people think the UK is larger than Vietnam).

It is important for us to have an accurate and current picture of our homeland and to encourage our children and, later, our grandchildren to do likewise.

To me, one of the first steps, be it ever so small, is to stop referring to Vietnam as our "tiny country" (Nước Việt Nam nhỏ bé của chúng ta) and to discourage others from doing so by pointing out the facts.

Sincerely,