History

In Vietnamese, đồng literally means copper or bronze. This originates from the practice of minting coins from copper before French colonization. When Vietnam was part of French Indochina, the standard unit of currency was the French Indochinese piastre. The Vietnamese text on these currencies called it đồng or less commonly bạc ("silver"). After the French left, North and South Vietnam each minted its own separate currency, both named đồng.

North Vietnam

The first đồng issued in North Vietnam appeared in 1946 and replaced the piastre at par. Two revaluations followed, in 1951 and 1958. The first was at a rate of 100:1, the second at a rate of 1000:1.

South Vietnam

The first đồng issued in South Vietnam appeared in 1952 and also replaced the piastre at par. On September 2, 1975, after the fall of Saigon, the currency in South Vietnam was changed to the "liberation" đồng worth 500 South Vietnamese đồng.

United Vietnam

After the nation was reunified, the đồng was also unified on May 3, 1978. The northern đồng could be exchanged for the new đồng at a 1:1 rate, while the southern "liberation" đồng could be exchanged for only 8 hào.

On September 4, 1985, the đồng was further revalued, with the new đồng worth 10 old đồng.

Coins

Due to chronic inflation, there have been no coins for a long time. The State Bank of Vietnam resumed issuing coins on 17 December, 2003. Before that, Vietnamese had to exchange banknotes for tokens with a clerk before purchasing goods from vending machines. Many resident expressed excitement of seeing coins for many years, as well as concern for the usefulness of the 200₫ coins.

Banknotes

After the 1985 redenomination, there have been 5 banknote series. Except the current 2003 series, all previous series were rather confusing and did not have a unified design theme. The first table below shows the latest banknotes prior to the 2003 series, 100₫ or higher.

Since 2003, Vietnam had replaced its paper currency with plastic polymer banknotes, which it claims will save money^[3]. Many newspapers in the country had criticized these changes, citing mistakes in printing and alleging that the son of the governor of the State Bank of Vietnam benefited from printing contracts^[3]. The government had clamped down on these criticisms by banning two newspapers from publishing for a month and considering other sanctions on other newspapers.

Pre-2003 Banknotes in Circulation
Image		Value	Dimensions	Main Colour	Description		Date of
Obverse	Reverse				Obverse	Reverse	printing	issue
		100₫	120 × 59 mm	Brown on green background	National designs	Phổ Minh Pagoda	1991	2 May, 1992
		200₫	130 × 65 mm	Orange	Ho Chi Minh	Agricultural production	1987	30 September, 1987
		500₫	130 × 65 mm	Pink	Ho Chi Minh	Port Haiphong	1988	15 August, 1989
		1,000₫	134 × 65 mm	Multicolor on lime background	Ho Chi Minh	Lumber productions	1988	20 October, 1989
		2,000₫	134 × 65 mm	Multicolor	Ho Chi Minh	Textile factory	1988	20 October, 1989
		5,000₫	134 × 65 mm	Blue	Ho Chi Minh	Trị An hydropower plant	1991	15 January, 1993
		10,000₫	140 × 68 mm	Red	Ho Chi Minh	Halong Bay	1993	15 October, 1994
		20,000₫	140 × 68 mm	Blue	Ho Chi Minh	Canned food factory	1991	2 March, 1993
		50,000₫	140 × 68 mm	Green	Ho Chi Minh	Nhà Rồng Port	1994	15 October, 1994
		100,000₫	145 × 71 mm	Brown	Ho Chi Minh	Uncle Ho's ethnic house	1994	1 September, 2000
These images are to scale at 0.7 pixels per millimetre, a standard for world banknotes.
Resourse from Wikipedia

2003 Polymer Series
Image		Value	Dimensions	Main Colour	Description		Date of
Obverse	Reverse				Obverse	Reverse	printing	issue
		10,000₫	132 × 60mm	Dark brown on greenish yellow	Ho Chi Minh	Offshore platform		30 August, 2006
		20,000₫	136 × 65 mm	Blue	Ho Chi Minh	Japanese bridge in Hoi An	First 2 digits of serial	17 May, 2006
		50,000₫	140 × 65 mm	Pink	Ho Chi Minh	Huế		17 December, 2003
		100,000₫	144 × 65 mm	Yellowish green	Ho Chi Minh	Temple of Literature		1 September, 2004
		200,000₫	148 × 65mm	Brownish-red	Ho Chi Minh	Halong Bay		30 August, 2006
		500,000₫	152 × 65 mm	Cyan-Green	Ho Chi Minh	Ho Chi Minh's birthplace in Kim Liên	First 2 digits of serial	17 December, 2003
These images are to scale at 0.7 pixels per millimetre, a standard for world banknotes.
Resourse from Wikipedia

A commemorative 50₫ banknote of polymer was issued in 2001, however, its face value is so minimal it is meant only for collectors.

Other uses of đồng

In the Vietnamese language, đồng can be used as a generic term for any currency by adding the country name as a qualifier. This practice is more common for more esoteric units of currency. In some overseas Vietnamese-speaking communities, notably Vietnamese Americans, it is used to denote the local currency (USD) and one must refer to VND as đồng Việt Nam (Vietnamese đồng). Similarly, hào and xu are occasionally used to translate U.S. "dime" and "cent" respectively into Vietnamese.

In modern-day Vietnam, because of the value of the currency is so small, one đồng could also be understood as one thousand đồng.