relief; terrain
A terrain favourable to guerilla warfare
All-terrain vehicle (ATV); Off-road vehicle (ORV)
topography
Three quarters of Vietnam's territory is made up of mountainous and hilly regions. Vietnam has four distinctive mountain zones each having its own unique features. The first zone is the North-eastern zone or Viet Bac - a former revolutionary base between 1945 and 1954. The second zone is the North-western mountain range running from the northern area on the Sino-Vietnamese border to the western region in Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces on the central coast. The third mountain zone is the North Truong Son range, a long low mountain range running from the western part of Thanh Hoa province to the Hai Van Pass. The fourth and last mountain zone is the South Truong Son, a mountain range located in the western side of provinces situated on the southern end of the central coast. Forests and forest land account for 50 % of Vietnam's total land area. These forests are home to many kinds of plants and animals not found elsewhere in Southeast Asia or in many other parts of the world. Beneath the forests and forest land are valuable mineral deposits most of which remain untapped. Vietnam has two major deltas : Red River delta in the northern part and the Mekong River delta in the south. In addition, it is criss-crossed by thousands of large and small rivers (there is a river mouth on every 20 kilometres of coastline). Vietnam's coastline is 3,260 kilometres long. The country is washed up by the East sea to the east and by the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Off shore on Vietnam's continental shelf are thousands of islands and islets lying scattered from the northern to southern ends.