Overview: The Vietnamese Wikipedia, commonly called Wikipedia tiếng Việt, is the Vietnamese-language edition of the multilingual encyclopedia project Wikipedia. It provides articles written in Vietnamese for readers and contributors worldwide. Content is created and maintained by volunteers according to collaborative editing principles, with software and hosting provided by the Wikimedia community.
History and development
The project began in November 2002 and grew steadily as contributors added articles, templates and categories. Over time the community adopted policies and editorial practices adapted from the broader Wikipedia family while developing local conventions for Vietnamese orthography, article structure and sourcing. As of November 2022 the edition contained about 1,278,000 articles and ranked among the larger language editions by article count.
Characteristics and structure
Like other Wikipedia editions, the Vietnamese site uses the MediaWiki platform and includes core features such as talk pages, revision history, templates, categories and cross-references. The community manages norms for neutrality, verifiability and notability while maintaining help pages and guides in Vietnamese. Editors often organize into topical groups to improve coverage on history, culture, geography and science.
- Language considerations: Vietnamese uses the Latin-based chữ Quốc ngữ alphabet; contributors also note regional vocabulary and stylistic differences when writing articles.
- Community tools: Automated bots, maintenance categories and quality-assessment tags help editors curate content.
- Interwiki links: Many articles link to other language editions and resources to aid multilingual readers.
Uses, impact and examples
The Vietnamese Wikipedia serves students, educators, researchers and the general public as a freely accessible reference in Vietnamese. It is used for classroom assignments, background reading and quick fact checks, and it contributes to digital preservation of Vietnamese-language knowledge. Volunteer-driven projects have focused on digitizing local history, biographies of notable Vietnamese figures, and articles about Vietnamese culture and geography.
Notable facts and distinctions
Notable aspects include its early founding date relative to many other editions and its substantial article count. The edition reflects local editorial choices about orthography and regional usage and, like all Wikipedia projects, balances openness with policies intended to ensure reliability. For readers or potential contributors, the site offers a gateway to both local Vietnamese content and the wider global encyclopedia network via Wikipedia.