Vietnamese Europeans

Overview

The Euro-Vietnamese population is by far the oldest and largest southeast Asian community in Europe with an estimated population of 650,000 as of 2006 [1]. Most of them are refugees and their children that fled the communist regime after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, but a smaller number also came from Northern Vietnam as workers and students invited by the former communist regimes in Eastern Europe; Vietnamese people in Russia form the largest such community.

In general, these two distinct communities still don't interact with each other because of the stigmas of the war, even though most of the former communist countries in Eastern Europe have since become member of the European Union. As a result, most Southern Vietnamese refugees live in Western Europe while their Northern counterparts live in Eastern Europe. However, there are also those who came to Eastern Europe from reunified post-1975 Vietnam.

The exact number of ethnic Vietnamese living in Europe is actually unknown due to statistical inacuracy although official censuses conducted in various European countries can give us an approximate idea of the real size of the community.

Compared to other Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese), the Euro-Vietnamese tend to assimilate faster into their host societies because of their smaller and more scattered presence.

Statistics

Rank	Country	Capital City	Population.
1	France	Paris	300,000
2	Germany	Berlin	120,000
3	Russia	Moscow	50,000
4	Poland	Warsaw	45,000
5	United Kingdom	London	35,000
6	Czech Republic	Prague	25,000
7	Norway	Oslo	18,000
8	Netherlands	Amsterdam	17,000
9	Sweden	Stockholm	16,000
10	Switzerland	Bern	12,000
11	Belgium	Brussels	10,000
12	Denmark	Copenhagen	9,000
14	Italy	Rome	5,000
13	Austria	Vienna	3,000
14	Finland	Helsinki	2,000
15	Spain	Madrid	2,000
Total	Europe		653,000