The Hoa people are the citizens and nationals of Vietnam of full or partial Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese migration into Vietnam dates back millennia but allusions to the contemporary Hoa today mostly refers to people of Chinese ancestry who immigrated to Vietnam during the 18th century, who especially trace their ancestry to various southern Chinese provinces. The Hoa are an ethnic minority group in Vietnam as part of the Chinese community there, and can also be found in other regions such as in the Americas. They may also be called "Chinese-Vietnamese" or "Chinese people living in/from Vietnam" by the Vietnamese.

South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the capitalist southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of the Cold War after the 1954 division of Vietnam. It first received international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon, before becoming a republic in 1955. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, the Republic of South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.