Groundwater plays a key role in public water supplies around the world. A consideration of social dimension is a key issue in the sustainable groundwater management, and making sure a safe and affordable drinking water for all is one of the main targets of 17 United Nations Development Goals. Recently in Hanoi, Vietnam, the groundwater overexploitation and contamination have been reported, which are life-threatening to the sustainable development of the community. This study is an attempt to assess the sustainability of groundwater from a social perspective. An outstanding multi-criteria decision-making approach, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is utilized here because it is suitable for sustainability assessment. In the AHP application for sustainability assessment, defining appropriate aspects and their indicators in each aspect is one of the most difficult tasks. This study proposes for the first time three main aspects including quantity, quality and management and their twelve sustainability indicators from a social point of view, based on the specific consideration of groundwater current problems in Hanoi. Hence, this study defines the index-based definitions of those sustainability indicators to clarify the way of their sustainability evaluations. Results show that the aspects and indicators are appropriate to cover Hanoi groundwater situation from a social point of view. The sustainability indices of Hanoi groundwater quantity and quality are assessed as socially good and acceptable, respectively. The sustainability index of the management aspect is assessed as socially acceptable. So that generally, Hanoi groundwater is assessed as socially acceptable.