Brief History of the Vietnamese Dong
The word đồng (In this article we will use the word “Dong”, for simplicity) comes from bronze, the material with which pennies were made, since bronze coins were used during the dynastic periods of China and Vietnam. Later it was adapted to the official currency of Vietnam.
However, it is important to keep in mind that the Vietnamese Dong had different origins in North Vietnam and South Vietnam, and finally became unified once the country was reunited.
In North Vietnam, the Dong was introduced in 1946. Previously, the French Indochinese Piastra was used, which was replaced by the Dong. In South Vietnam, the Dong was introduced in 1953, but it remained in circulation alongside the Piastra until 1975, when a new Dong was introduced. When Vietnam was reunified in 1978, the Dong was also unified, adopting the value of the North Vietnamese Dong, while the South Vietnamese Dong was equal to 0.80 Dong.
The currency has undergone many revaluations based on the cycles of inflation that Vietnam's economy has gone through. For example, in 1985 the Dong was revalued to equal 10 Old Dongs. Currently, the Dong is one of the currencies with the lowest value in the world. As of the date of this article, 1 US Dollar is equivalent to 23,415 Dongs.
Since 2003, Vietnam has replaced all banknotes printed on cotton paper with polymer banknotes.
There are bills of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000, 200,000 and 500,000 Dong. You can find some of these denominations in our catalog of Vietnamese banknotes. Check it out by clicking HERE.
