Laos Country Info - Asia

Description and Basic Information

Laos with its capital Vientiane is located in Asia (Southeastern Asia, northeast of Thailand). It covers some 236,801 square kilometres (slightly larger than Utah) with 6,677,000 citizens. Lao, French and English are the official languages spoken in Laos (consider regional differences). China, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam are bordering countries.

Laos officially known as the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), is one of the poorest nations in South-East Asia. A mountainous and landlocked country, Laos shares borders with Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, Thailand to the west, and Myanmar and China to the north. Trekking in mountainous Northern Laos is popular, and this often includes homestays in minority tribe villages. Kayaking can be arranged in a wide number of locations. The ambitious traveler could kayak the Mekong between Luang Prabang and Vientiane.

Pictures from Capital (Vientiane)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Laos

The landscape features mostly rugged mountains and some plains and plateaus. The average density of population is about 28 per km². The climate in Laos can be described as tropical monsoon with rainy season (May to November), dry season (December to April). Potential threats by nature are floods, droughts.

To reach someone in Laos dial +856 prior to a number. There are 132,200 installed telephones. And there are 3,235,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".la". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 17 regions/states in Laos we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Lao or Laotian population grew at a rate of 2.29% (or by 160,297 citizens). With 73,574 deaths and 233,872 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 2.29%. 0 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Laos: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.