North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty fully recognized in 1954. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it opposed the French-supported State of Vietnam and later the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam. The DRV invaded Saigon in 1975 and ceased to exist the following year when it merged with the south to become the current Socialist Republic of Vietnam.