This paper proposes to investigate inequality in Viet Nam fromthe point of view of a study of the urban/rural gap by means of a multilevel model. Using data from the Viet Nam Household Living Standards Survey of 2002, the paper constructs a multilevel model, yielding random effects in theurban/rural gap which can be seen as location-specific random contributions to the urban/rural gap above and beyond the effects of known location characteristics, such as the level of education of the population, etc. The paper also demonstrates how the multilevel model can be used to obtains mall area estimates at the commune level.