Since the renovation program (Doi Moi) in 1986, the economy of Vietnam has grownrapidly. GDP growth has averaged about 7% per year, and per capita GDP has doubled every five or six years: from $170/year in 1993 to $350/year in 1998 and to almost $700/year in 2004. The country has also made impressive achievements in poverty reduction: the number of people living below poverty line decreased from 58% in 1993 to 37% in 1998, and then to 19.5%in 2004. Other indicators of human welfare such as school enrollment, child/adult malnutrition,or access to clean water, have showed similar improvements (VASS 2006). However, there are rising concerns that the benefits from economic growth and development have been unequally distributed, since remote and mountainous regions tend to lag behind lowland and delta areas, and ethnic minorities still make up a disproportionately large fraction of the poor. Table 1 shows that of the four poorest regions – the Central Highlands,North Central Coast, Northern Uplands and the North West – only the North Central Coast and Northern Upland regions have experienced major reductions in the incidence of poverty—andyet they still remain among the poorest regions in the country. The persistence of poverty in the Highland and North West regions raise alarming concerns about the spatial characteristics ofpoverty in Vietnam.