The majority of  ethnic people in Phong Nha – Ke Bang lives in the isolated area because they are in backward condition, so that they plant mainly in the mountainous area with very backward cultivation. So cultivation way is poking hole and fitting seek on rock mountain, so leading to low productivity, high risks, so income from  foods (rice, manioc) only enough to support them for several months. The rest time in year they must find their livelihood as picking, hunting.
Economic features in each group has different features.
There are also special cultural features of ethnic minorities as Drum Beating festival of the Macoong people in Thuong Trach commune, Fairy’s Water Begging festival of residents in Son river’s valley, Tuong singing of the Khuong Ha villagers, Hung Trach commune, the full moon festival in Third Lunar month of the Lunar Year in Minh Hoa district and etc.

Ethnologists have researched and showed the anthropology data of Chut as below: Stature quite short  (157metres), Female is shorter than Male (about 8-10 cm), dark  (standard number 12-18 Lusohan). Straight and black hair ,short forehead,short and flat face , cheekbone has average protruding. Chink of eyes slanting quite big, bridge of nose straight majority, lips are quite thicker than other groups.
As mention of Ha Van Tan and Pham Duc Duong, the ethnic people of the Chut ethnic group (named as Chut Poong) and their languages had been separated from Vietnamese-Muong language with the first language separated in around century V-VI,   “Chut” means ‘Rem Da in Vietnamese”, means “The stone curtain in English”
The Arem people belongs to the Chut minority ethnic group who lives at Arem village of Tan Trach commue,  Bo Trach district . This community include 41 households  with about 200 heads, is one of races of the Chut ethnic minority ( Statistic 2005).
The common economic structure of the Chut in Phong Nha – Ke Bang includes forms: shifting cultivation , cultivation in the  mountainous area, in the delta area, farming, doing sideline  and exploitation(hunting, fishing, picking).

Bru – Vankieu minority ethnic group

Bru-Vankieu  is the largest population of the minority ethnic groups m in the Truong Son North range. As Nguyen Dinh Khoa (Minority Ethnics in the North of Viet Nam), the Bru -Vankieu belongs to Mon – Kho – Me language group, is local group in the Indochinese Peninsula. As author, The Bru -Vankieu includes the group of the people:  Van kieu, Khua, Mang Coong, Tri, So. Among the groups, the Vankieu people  is the largest one that distributes most of all provinces along the Truong Son mountain range. The Tri people (or called Tia Ri, Cha Ly, Trui…) and Ma Coong (hay Mang-coong, Muong-kong) with  a little distributio in Thuong Trach Commune, Tan Trach commune (Bo Trach district ) and apart in Laos. The Khua people is resident  in Dan Hoa Commune of Minh Hoa district.

Chut – minority ethnic group

The Chut group  includes Sach, May, Ruc, Arem, Ma Lieng with population of 3.500 heads who are resident mainly in 9 communes of 2 districts Tuyen Hoa and Minh Hoa. In Phong Nha – Ke Bang area, Chut people are living at 6 villages of 2 districts Minh Hoa and Bo Trach except Ma Lieng people with a population of 2.438 inhabitants. In the years 60 of Century 20, the Chut was considered as the secluded group . Until the end of 1973, the peoples of Sach, May, Ruc, Arem, Ma Lieng are in the minority ethnic group as called “ the Chut ethnic”. The Arem people belongs to the Chut minority ethnic group who lives at Arem village of Tan Trach commue,  Bo Trach district . This community include 41 households  with about 200 heads, is one of races of the Chut ethnic minority ( Statistic 2005).

Sach ethnic minority

Sach people cultivates in the delta area, beside they also cultivates in the mountainous area ( and  hunting, fishing, picking, farming).

According to the assessment of UNESCO, the karst formation of Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park has evolved since the Palaeozoic (some 400 million years ago) and so is the oldest major karst area in Asia and Phong Nha displays an impressive amount of evidence of earth’s history. It is a site of very great importance for increasing our understanding of the geologic, geomorphic and geo-chronological history of the region.
Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park is one of the world’s two largest limestone regions. In comparison with 41 other world heritage sites which have karsts, Phong Nha has dissimilar geomorphic, geologic and biotic conditions. The karsts of Phong Nha can be traced back to Palaeozoic era, 400 million years ago. This makes Phong Nha the oldest major karst in Asia. If the Hin Namno, bordering Phong Nha on the west (in Laotian territory) was to be combined with the national park in a continuous reserve, the combined reserve would be the largest surviving karst forest in South-east Asia (317,754 ha).

Phong Nha is widely explained as originating from Hán which means wind-tooth (wind flowing from the cave and stalactites and stalagmites inside the cave looking like teeth), but other theorires suggest that Phong Nha is the name of a nearby village and therefore, its name has nothing to do with wind and teeth as widely explained.
According to Lê Quý Ðôn, Phong Nha was the former name of a nearby village.[25] Other theory suggests that, Phong Nha derived its name from the imagination that mounts in this region standing in line looks similar to the scene of mandarins in front of the king in royal courts, therefore, it was named Phong Nha (Han Tu: phong means “summit” and nha means “mandarin”.
Other names of Phong Nha cave includes: Thủy Tiên cave, Thủy Mount, and Troóc cave

The oldest evidence of human occupation of the area are Neolithic axe heads and similar artefacts found in some of the caves. There are some relics of Ham Nghi King, a final King of the Nguyen dynasty before the French colonial period, at the Maria Mountain in the north of the Park. Currently the Arem, Ma Coong and Ruc ethnic groups live in two villages in the core zone of Phong Nha Ke – Bang National Park. Until 1962 these indigenous people lived in the forest in houses made of bamboo and leaves or in the caves, living from forest products and hunting. They used simple tools and their clothes were made from the bark of a toxic forest tree (Antiaris toxicaria) and lianas.

Since 1992 the Government of Vietnam has set up two new settlements for these 475 people, who are the two smallest ethnic groups in Vietnam. These people are familiar with a number of economically valuable species, especially precious timber such as Mun and Hue (Diospyros spp., Dalbergia rimosa), and oil-extraction from species such as Tau (Hopea hainanensis) and many medicinal plants. The Phong Nha Cave has long been a site of religious and touristic importance, with an old Cham Temple discovered in the cave and it was a site of worship in the ninth and tenth centuries. During the war with the USA the Phong Nha – Ke Bang forest and caves were a garrison and weapons store for the Vietnamese army.