Laos Map

Landlocked, mountainous and shaped by the Mekong

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It covers 236,800 km² and has about 7.9 million people (UN World Population Prospects, 2025 estimate), making it the most thinly populated country on the mainland of the region. Its five neighbours are China to the north, Vietnam along a long eastern border, Cambodia to the south, Thailand to the west and Myanmar to the north-west, where the Mekong forms the whole of the short border up to the Golden Triangle. The same river marks much of the frontier with Thailand, and almost every major Lao town stands on its banks.

The northern highlands, the Annamites and the Bolaven Plateau

About three-quarters of Laos is hill or mountain. The north is a jumble of steep, forested ranges cut by Mekong tributaries such as the Nam Ou and Nam Khan. At its centre lies the Xieng Khouang Plateau, home to the Plain of Jars, and just south of it Phou Bia (2,819 m), the highest point in the country. The Annamite Range (Phou Luang) runs the length of the eastern border with Vietnam; its remote forests are home to the saola, a forest bovid unknown to science until 1992. Around Thakhek and in Khammouane province, limestone karst is riddled with caves, including the 7 km river cave of Kong Lor.

In the far south, the volcanic Bolaven Plateau (about 1,000-1,300 m) is cool enough for coffee and tea and is ringed by waterfalls. Below it the Mekong spreads into Si Phan Don ("Four Thousand Islands") and then drops over the Khone Phapheng Falls near the Cambodian border, the largest falls in Southeast Asia by volume and the reason the river was never navigable all the way to the sea.

When to go

Laos has a tropical monsoon climate. The rains last from about May to October, when some rural roads become impassable but the countryside is at its greenest. November to February is cool and dry, the most popular time to visit, with cold nights in the northern mountains. March and April are hot, and smoke from field burning often brings haze across the north. Lao New Year (Pi Mai) in mid-April is celebrated with water throwing, especially in Luang Prabang.

Provinces and towns

Laos is divided into 17 provinces (khoueng) and Vientiane Prefecture, which contains the capital. Towns are small by regional standards; Vientiane Prefecture as a whole has about a million people.

• Vientiane - The capital, on a bend of the Mekong opposite Nong Khai in Thailand, with the golden That Luang stupa, the national symbol. The first Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge (1994) crosses the river nearby.
• Luang Prabang - The old royal capital where the Nam Khan meets the Mekong, a UNESCO-listed town of temples and French-era houses, known for the dawn alms procession of monks.
• Savannakhet (Kaysone Phomvihane) - The main town of the centre, at the Second Friendship Bridge to Mukdahan, on the east-west road corridor from Thailand to Vietnam's coast.
• Pakse - The hub of the south at the confluence of the Xe Don and the Mekong, the base for the Bolaven Plateau and the Khmer temple of Vat Phou.
• Vang Vieng - A town among karst peaks on the Nam Song, now a stop on the railway between Vientiane and Luang Prabang.

From Lan Xang to the Lao PDR

The kingdom of Lan Xang ("a million elephants") was founded by Fa Ngum in 1353 and at its height stretched over much of today's Laos and north-east Thailand. It split into rival kingdoms in the early 18th century, which fell under Siamese control, and France took the lands east of the Mekong in 1893, leaving the Lao-speaking Khorat Plateau in Siam. That is why far more ethnic Lao live in Thailand's Isan region than in Laos itself. Laos became fully independent in 1953, then was drawn into the Indochina wars. Between 1964 and 1973 the United States dropped more than two million tonnes of bombs on the country, much of it on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the east and on Xieng Khouang, making Laos the most heavily bombed country per person in history. Unexploded cluster submunitions still kill and injure people today. In 1975 the communist Pathet Lao abolished the monarchy and founded the Lao PDR, still a one-party state led by the Lao People's Revolutionary Party.

Dams, railway and regional ties

Laos has tried to turn its mountains and rivers into exports. Dozens of hydropower dams, including Nam Theun 2 and the Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong mainstream, sell power mainly to Thailand, though downstream countries and environmental groups worry about fish and sediment on the Mekong. The 1,000 km Laos-China Railway from Kunming via Boten to Vientiane opened in December 2021 and cut travel between Vientiane and Luang Prabang to a few hours, but projects like it have left Laos heavily in debt, much of it to China, and the kip lost much of its value in 2022-23. GDP per capita was about US$2,300 in 2025 (World Bank). Laos joined ASEAN in 1997 and chaired it in 2024.

About two-thirds of people are Theravada Buddhists, and the population includes dozens of ethnic groups, broadly grouped into lowland Lao, upland Khmu and highland Hmong and others. The country has three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the town of Luang Prabang, Vat Phou and the associated ancient settlements of Champasak, and the megalithic jar sites of Xieng Khouang, where more than 2,000 stone jars, some over 2 m tall, are scattered across the plateau.