m is the Supreme People's Court.Local Government A system of people's councils, each representing a local jurisdiction, administers local government in Vietnam. Each council elects a committee to serve as an executive. The country is divided into 53 provinces and three municipalities: Hanoi, Haiphong, and Ho Chi Minh City.HISTORY 3 Over thousands of years the Vietnamese have passed down the legend of their origin as being descendants of the Dragon and the Fairy. An extremely strong son of a dragon, Lac Long Quan, having killed a sea monster, settled in what is now Vietnam, and married a fairy, Au Co. Together, they gave birth to a membrane with a hundred eggs which later became a hundred children. Fifty of the children followed the father to the sea, and fifty stayed with their mother in the mountainous area. The eldest son was proclaimed King Hung Vuong, and the country Van Lang, which today is Vietnam.From the 1st to the 6th centuries, the south of what is now Vietnam was part of theIndianised kingdom of Funan. The Hindu kingdom of Champa appeared around present-day Danang in the late 2nd century and had spread south to what is now Nha Trang by the 8th century. The Chinese conquered the Red River Delta in the 2nd century and their 1000-year rule, marked by tenacious Vietnamese resistance and repeated rebellions, ended in 938 AD when Ngo Quyen vanquished the Chinese armies at the Bach Dang River. During the next few centuries, Vietnam repulsed repeated invasions by China, and expanded its borders southwards from the Red River Delta, populating much of the Mekong Delta. In 1858, French and Spanish-led forces stormed Danang after several missionaries had been killed. A year later, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) was seized. By 1867, France had conquered all of southern Vietnam, which became the French colony of Cochin-China. Communist guerillas under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh resisted French domination. Ho Chi Minh's...
