Vietnam is located in the northern hemisphere, along the South-eastern fringe of the Asian continent. The territory is S-shaped and includes around 3,000 islands with a total area of 331,720 km2. Its climate is tropical and subject to the monsoons.

The land on which Vietnam is located was formed long before man first appeared on this earth, in geological terms sometime between the Pre Cambri and the Late Mesozoic periods, or 570 – 65 million years ago. Climatic and ecological changes that took place over a long period especially about 1.6 – 0.7 million years ago created appropriate conditions for life to develop.

Archaeological discoveries of Homo Erectus’ teeth in the caves ThamKhuyen, ThamHai (Lang Son province), Hum (Yen Bai province), the crudely flaked pebble implements in the mounts: Do, Nuong (ThanhHoa province), Dat (Dong Nai province)... proved that the aboriginals had been in the Paleolithic circa 500,000 years ago in Vietnam. And to the Neolithic, circa 10,000 years ago, the appearance of the ground stone tools, the pieces of coarse pottery in HoaBinh, Bac Son, Quynh Van cultures... considered that the ancients had been transferring from the gathering to cultivating economy.