th1nhng0-vietnamese-legal-documents

# Vietnamese Legal Documents A comprehensive dataset of **518,255 Vietnamese legal documents** sourced from [thuvienphapluat.vn](https://thuvienphapluat.vn) — the largest Vietnamese legal document repository. The dataset covers laws, decrees, circulars, decisions, and other official documents issued by Vietnamese government bodies, spanning from **1924 to 2026**. --- ## At a Glance | | | |---|---| | 🗂️ **Total documents** | 518,255 | | 📅 **Date range** | 1924 – 2026 | | 🏛️ **Issuing authorities** | 2,393 unique bodies | | 📋 **Document types** | 34 unique types | | ✅ **In effect** | 62.5% of documents | | ❌ **Expired** | 24.0% of documents | | 🌐 **Language** | Vietnamese | | 💾 **Content size** | ~3.3 GB (parquet) | --- ## Dataset Structure This dataset is split into **two configs** to allow fast metadata access without loading the full text. | Config | Split | Rows | Size | Description | |---|---|---|---|---| | `metadata` | `data` | 518,255 | ~80 MB | 12 metadata columns, no text content | | `content` | `data` | 518,255 | ~3.3 GB | `id` + full markdown document text | Join on the `id` column to get both metadata and content. --- ## Load the Dataset ```python from datasets import load_dataset # Load metadata only (fast, ~80 MB) ds = load_dataset("th1nhng0/vietnamese-legal-documents", "metadata") df = ds["data"].to_pandas() print(df.head()) # Load full text content (~3.3 GB) ds_content = load_dataset("th1nhng0/vietnamese-legal-documents", "content") # Join metadata + content import pandas as pd meta = load_dataset("th1nhng0/vietnamese-legal-documents", "metadata")["data"].to_pandas() text = load_dataset("th1nhng0/vietnamese-legal-documents", "content")["data"].to_pandas() df = meta.merge(text, on="id") print(df.columns.tolist()) ``` --- ## Schema ### `metadata` config | Column | Type | Description | |---|---|---| | `id` | int64 | Unique numeric document ID | | `document_number` | string | Official document number (e.g. `115/NQ-HĐBCQG`) | | `title` | string | Full Vietnamese title | | `url` | string | Source URL on thuvienphapluat.vn | | `legal_type` | string | Document type in English (Decision, Circular, Resolution, …) | | `legal_sectors` | string | Comma-separated sector/topic tags in English | | `issuing_authority` | string | Name of the issuing government body | | `issuance_date` | string | Issue date in `YYYY-MM-DD` format | | `effect_date` | string | Date the document takes effect (`YYYY-MM-DD`), if known | | `effectless_date` | string | Date the document expires (`YYYY-MM-DD`), if known | | `effect_status` | string | Current legal status: `In effect`, `Expired`, `No longer applicable`, `Unknown`, `Undetermined` | | `signers` | string | Comma-separated `name:id` pairs of signatories | ### `content` config | Column | Type | Description | |---|---|---| | `id` | int64 | Document ID — join key with the `metadata` config | | `content` | string | Full document text converted to Markdown | --- ## Statistics ### Documents by Year  ### Top 15 Document Types  ### Top 15 Legal Sectors  ### Legal Effect Status  --- ## Use Cases - 🔍 **Legal information retrieval** — build search engines over Vietnamese law - 🤖 **LLM fine-tuning** — train or fine-tune language models on legal Vietnamese - 📊 **Legal NLP research** — NER, classification, summarization, QA - 📈 **Policy analysis** — track legislative trends over time; filter by `effect_status` for current-law corpora - ⚖️ **Compliance checking** — use `effect_status`, `effect_date`, and `effectless_date` to identify active vs expired regulations - 🌏 **Low-resource NLP** — Vietnamese legal text is underrepresented in existing datasets --- ## Data Collection This is an independent personal research project. Documents were collected from [thuvienphapluat.vn](https://thuvienphapluat.vn) — a public legal document portal — via their sitemap. This project has **no affiliation with thuvienphapluat.vn**. HTML content was converted to Markdown using BeautifulSoup. Only Vietnamese-language documents were retained; English versions and technical standards (Tiêu chuẩn) were excluded. --- ## License & Legal Basis Vietnamese legal documents (laws, decrees, circulars, decisions, and other normative acts) are **public domain by Vietnamese law**. Under the [Law on Access to Information (Luật Tiếp cận thông tin, No. 104/2016/QH13)](https://thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Bo-may-hanh-chinh/Luat-tiep-can-thong-tin-2016-280116.aspx) and the [Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents (No. 64/2025/QH15)](https://thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Bo-may-hanh-chinh/Luat-ban-hanh-van-ban-quy-pham-phap-luat-2025-so-64-2025-QH15-639239.aspx), official legal normative documents issued by state agencies must be made publicly accessible free of charge. The **compiled dataset** (collection, processing, metadata schema, and Markdown conversion) is released under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). **Intended for research purposes only.** --- ## Citation ```bibtex @dataset{ngo_thinh_2026_vietnamese_legal, title = {Vietnamese Legal Documents}, author = {Ngô, Thịnh}, year = {2026}, publisher = {Hugging Face}, url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/th1nhng0/vietnamese-legal-documents}, note = {518,255 Vietnamese legal documents compiled for research purposes} } ```