Laos

Laos is a country in Asia.

It has no sea. It has many green mountains and rice fields. The capital city is called Vientiane.

Laos is in the middle of mainland Southeast Asia, and it has no coast at all. In the north it is roughly round, and in the south it narrows into a long strip, about 1,050 kilometers from end to end.

Forest-covered mountains fill most of the country, so travel is often hard. The Mekong River runs along the west, and the capital, Vientiane, stands on its bank. Most people live in villages and farm, especially rice. About 7.9 million people lived in Laos in 2025.

Laos is a landlocked country of northeast-central mainland Southeast Asia: an irregularly round northern part that narrows into a peninsula-like region to the southeast, about 1,050 km from northwest to southeast. Britannica describes a geologically diverse landscape of forested mountains, upland plateaus and lowland plains, with a population united largely through agriculture, especially rice.

The World Bank put the population at 7,873,046 in 2025; Laos has the lowest population density in Southeast Asia and one of its youngest populations. Urban life is limited mainly to Vientiane, the former royal capital Luang Prabang (Louangphrabang) and a few other large towns. The ruling Lao People's Revolutionary Party has governed since 1975, and Laos joined ASEAN in 1997.

Vientiane is the capital. It is by the big river.

Luang Prabang is an old town with mountains all around. On the Plain of Jars, giant stone jars sit in the grass.

Vientiane, the capital, lies on the Mekong River across from Thailand. Luang Prabang, in the northern mountains, was once a royal capital. Its old town mixes traditional Lao buildings with ones built in European colonial times, and it became a World Heritage Site in 1995.

On a plateau in the middle of Laos is the Plain of Jars, where more than 2,100 huge stone jars stand. People made them in the Iron Age, between about 500 BCE and 500 CE, and used them for burials. In the south, Vat Phou is a temple complex more than 1,000 years old.

Vientiane (Viangchan) is the capital, on the Mekong in the northern part of the country. Luang Prabang, inscribed by UNESCO in 1995, is an outstanding example of the fusion of traditional Lao architecture and urban structures with those built by the European colonial authorities in the 19th and 20th centuries.

More than 2,100 tubular stone jars give the Plain of Jars its name; the 15 components of the Megalithic Jar Sites in Xiengkhuang (2019) hold 1,325 of them, with stone discs, secondary burials, quarries and grave goods, dating from 500 BCE to 500 CE; they are the main evidence of an Iron Age civilization that vanished around 500 CE. In the south, the Champasak cultural landscape with the Vat Phou temple complex (2001) is a planned landscape more than 1,000 years old, laid out along an axis from mountaintop to riverbank over some 10 km; it dates from the 5th to 15th centuries and is mainly associated with the Khmer Empire.

Laos has lots of mountains.

Some mountains are made of limestone and have caves. Rivers run down to the Mekong. From May to October, lots of rain falls.

Steep, forest-covered mountains cover most of Laos. The highest, Phou Bia, rises 2,818 meters in the north. In the middle of the country, limestone has worn into caves and sharp pinnacles, and in the south the Bolovens Plateau has rich soil where coffee grows.

The land slopes from east to west, so almost every big river flows into the Mekong. Laos has a monsoon climate: from May to October, winds bring 1,300 to 2,300 millimeters of rain, and from November to April it is dry. March and April are the hottest months.

Forest-covered mountains dominate Laos and hinder travel. The main range, part of the Annamese Cordillera, runs northwest to southeast, and Phou Bia (Mount Bia) reaches 2,818 m in the north. The Xiangkhoang Plateau holds the Plain of Jars, rolling grassland rather than a true plain; Bolikhamxay and Khammouan provinces have karst caverns and eroded limestone pinnacles; and the Bolovens Plateau, at about 1,100 m, has fertile basaltic soils. The only extensive lowlands lie along the Mekong's east bank.

The land slopes from east to west, and all the major rivers (the Tha, Ou, Ngum, Kading, Bangfai, Banghiang, Kong and others) are Mekong tributaries; a few eastern rivers cross the cordillera to the Gulf of Tonkin. The southwest monsoon brings 1,300 to 2,300 mm of rain from May to October, up to about 4,100 mm on the Bolovens. Cool-season minimums average 16 to 21 °C, and highs exceed 32 °C in March and April.

Elephants live in the forests of Laos.

So do bears, monkeys and tigers. Hundreds of kinds of birds live there. Some, like hornbills, are in danger.

The forests and fields of Laos hold a wealth of wildlife: nearly 200 kinds of mammals, about the same number of reptiles and amphibians, and some 700 kinds of birds. Gaurs (wild oxen), deer, bears and monkeys are common.

Elephants, tigers and gibbons are endangered, and so are several kinds of hornbills, ibises and storks. Laos also has hundreds of kinds of orchids and palms. Long ago, the first Lao kingdom was called Lan Xang, the Kingdom of the Million Elephants.

Britannica records nearly 200 species of mammals in Laos, about as many reptiles and amphibians, and some 700 bird species. Gaurs, deer, bears and monkeys are common, while elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers, several wild oxen, monkeys and gibbons are among the endangered mammals. Geckos, snakes, skinks and frogs are abundant, several turtles are threatened, and several dozen bird species, including most hornbills, ibises and storks, are threatened.

The north has tropical rainforest of broad-leaved evergreens; the south has monsoon forest of mixed evergreen and deciduous trees, often secondary growth with bamboo, scrub and wild banana over tall coarse grass called tranh. Hundreds of species of orchids and palms grow there. Fishing in the Mekong and its tributaries is particularly important for lowland people.

About 7.9 million people live in Laos.

Most people speak Lao. Many families grow rice together. They also catch fish and grow vegetables.

Laos is home to many peoples and languages. Lao is the official language. People are often grouped by where they live: Lao Loum in the lowlands along the rivers, about two-thirds of the population; Lao Theung on the mountain slopes, about one-fourth; and Lao Soung, such as the Hmong, high in the mountains.

Most families farm. In wet rice fields, rice is planted when the rains start in April or May and harvested in October and November. People also fish, raise pigs and chickens, and collect fruit, honey and bamboo from the forest. A ceremony called the baci, where strings are tied around a person's wrist, wishes them good luck.

Laos is ethnically and linguistically diverse; Lao is official. The government groups peoples by language and location: the Lao Loum, speakers of Tai languages along the Mekong and its tributaries, about two-thirds of the population; the Lao Theung, speakers of Austroasiatic (Mon-Khmer) languages such as the Khmu, probably the original inhabitants, about one-fourth; and the Lao Soung, Hmong-Mien and Tibeto-Burman speakers such as the Hmong, Mien, Akha and Lahu, about one-tenth. Britannica notes that this scheme simplifies a far more intricate picture.

About half the people, mostly lowland Lao, are Buddhists, and some two-fifths follow local religions. Lowland villages usually have a temple compound that also serves as school and meeting hall, while upland peoples often farm swiddens. Rice is the main crop, with sweet potatoes, corn and vegetables; coffee from the Bolovens Plateau is the main crop exported. The baci, a wrist-string ritual for births, weddings, journeys and guests, has become a national custom.