South Vietnam
The
Republic of Vietnam (
Vietnamese:
Việt Nam Cộng Hòa), also known as
South Vietnam, was created by the partition of
Vietnam in
1954 after the defeat of
France at the
Battle of Dien Bien Phu. South Vietnam's capital was
Saigon and it was ruled by an anti-
Communist government alleged by many historians to have been nothing more than an
American-backed
puppet government.
Most US forces withdrew from South Vietnam in 1973. No longer able to successfully defend itself, the South Vietnamese government surrendered to North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front (NLF) on April 30, 1975. The Communist Republic of South Vietnam took power and ruled until a unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam was inaugurated on July 2, 1976.
Flag of South Vietnam