Which two countries reunited in 1976 after 22 years of separation and hostility?

The division of this Southeast Asian nation began with the 1954 Geneva Accords, which split the country at the 17th parallel following the First Indochina War. This created two politically opposed states: a communist-led government in the North with its capital in Hanoi, and a U.S.-backed, anti-communist government in the South, centered in Saigon. The partition was meant to be temporary, with a national election planned for 1956 to create a unified government.

Those elections never happened, and the ideological divide hardened into a brutal, two-decade-long conflict known as the Vietnam War. The war pitted the North Vietnamese Army and its southern allies, the Viet Cong, against the army of the South and its main backer, the United States. The bitter fighting finally concluded on April 30, 1975, when North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon, leading to the collapse of the southern government.

Although the military conflict ended in 1975, the formal political merger took place the following year. On July 2, 1976, the two halves were officially brought together to create the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. To mark the occasion, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honor of the North's late revolutionary leader, officially ending the 22-year period of separation and war.