A precise count is not available, but a reasonable estimate is that several million North Vietnamese veterans and civilians from the Vietnam War are still alive today, while the number of people who fought as North Vietnamese soldiers is now likely in the hundreds of thousands or fewer , depending on age and service date.

Why it is hard to pin down

The war ended in 1975, so anyone who served as an adult then would now be roughly in their 70s to 100s. That means many surviving North Vietnamese veterans are elderly, and the total living population connected to North Vietnam includes both former soldiers and civilians.

Best estimate

  • Former North Vietnamese soldiers still alive: likely well under 1 million , and probably closer to a few hundred thousand.
  • North Vietnamese civilians who lived through the war and are still alive: likely millions , because many were children or young adults during the conflict and are still alive today.

What the sources suggest

The war caused very heavy losses on the Vietnamese side, with estimates of Vietnamese deaths ranging from just under 1 million to over 3 million, which means the surviving population from that era is still substantial but aging. Broader discussions of war dead and missing Vietnamese also show that many wartime losses were never fully accounted for, making exact survivor counts impossible.

Practical takeaway

If your question is specifically about North Vietnamese veterans , the safest answer is: probably in the low hundreds of thousands today. If you mean people from North Vietnam who lived through the war , the number is still in the millions.

TL;DR: There is no exact count, but North Vietnamese war veterans who are still alive are likely in the hundreds of thousands , while all living people from North Vietnam who experienced the war are likely in the millions.