Languages: Lao (official), French, English, various ethnic
languages
Ethnicity/race: Lao Loum (lowland) 68%, Lao Theung (upland) 22%,
Lao Soung (highland) including the Hmong (“Meo”) and the
Yao (Mien) 9%, ethnic Vietnamese/Chinese 1%
Religions: Buddhist 60%, animist and other 40% (including
Christian 2%)
Literacy rate: 53%
(2003 est.)
Economic summary:GDP/PPP (2005 est.): $11.92 billion; per capita $1,900. Real
growth rate: 7.2%. Inflation: 9.4%. Unemployment:
5.7% (1997 est.). Arable land: 4%. Agriculture:
sweet potatoes, vegetables, corn, coffee, sugarcane, tobacco, cotton,
tea, peanuts, rice; water buffalo, pigs, cattle, poultry. Labor
force: 2.8 million (2002 est.); agriculture 80%, industry and
services 20% (1997 est.). Industries: copper, tin, and gypsum
mining; timber, electric power, agricultural processing, construction,
garments, tourism, cement. Natural resources: timber,
hydropower, gypsum, tin, gold, gemstones. Exports: $379 million
(2005 est.): garments, wood products, coffee, electricity, tin.
Imports: $541 million f.o.b. (2005 est.): machinery and
equipment, vehicles, fuel, consumer goods. Major trading partners:
Thailand, Vietnam, France, Germany, UK, China, Singapore (2004)
.
Communications: Telephones: main
lines in use: 25,000 (1997); mobile cellular: 4,915 (1997). Radio
broadcast stations: AM 12, FM 1, shortwave 4 (1998).
Radios: 730,000 (1997). Television broadcast stations: 4
(1999). Televisions: 52,000 (1997). Internet Service
Providers (ISPs): 1 (2000). Internet users: 10,000
(2002).
Transportation: Railways: 0 km.
Highways: total: 21,716 km; paved: 9,664 km; unpaved: 12,052 km
(1999 est.). Waterways: about 4,587 km, primarily Mekong and
tributaries; 2,897 additional km are sectionally navigable by craft
drawing less than 0.5 m. Ports and harbors: none.
Airports: 51 (2002).
International
disputes: demarcation of boundaries with Cambodia, Thailand, and
Vietnam is nearing completion, but with Thailand several areas
including Mekong River islets remain in dispute; ongoing disputes with
Thailand and Vietnam over squatters.
A landlocked nation in Southeast Asia occupying the northwest portion
of the Indochinese peninsula, Laos is surrounded by China, Vietnam,
Cambodia, Thailand, and Burma. It is twice the size of Pennsylvania. Laos
is a mountainous country, especially in the north, where peaks rise above
9,000 ft (2,800 m). Dense forests cover the northern and eastern areas.
The Mekong River, which forms the boundary with Burma and Thailand, flows
through the country for 932 mi (1,500 km) of its course.
Government
Communist state.
History
The Lao people migrated into Laos from southern China from the 8th
century onward. In the 14th century, the first Laotian state was founded,
the Lan Xang kingdom, which ruled Laos until it split into three separate
kingdoms in 1713. During the 18th century the three kingdoms came under
Siamese (Thai) rule and, in 1893, became a French protectorate. Its
territory was incorporated into the union of Indochina. A strong
nationalist movement developed during World War II, but France
reestablished control in 1946 and made the king of Luang Prabang
constitutional monarch of all Laos. France granted semiautonomy in 1949
and then, spurred by the Viet Minh rebellion in Vietnam, full independence
within the French Union in 1950.
In 1951, Prince Souphanouvong organized the Pathet Lao, a Communist
independence movement, in North Vietnam. Viet Minh and Pathet Lao forces
invaded central Laos, and civil war resulted. By the Geneva agreements of
1954 and an armistice of 1955, two northern provinces were given to the
Pathet Lao: the rest went to the royal regime. Full sovereignty was given
to the kingdom by the Paris agreements of Dec. 29, 1954. In 1957, Prince
Souvanna Phouma, the royal prime minister, and Pathet Lao leader Prince
Souphanouvong, the prime minister's half-brother, agreed to
reestablishment of a unified government, with Pathet Lao participation and
integration of Pathet Lao forces into the royal army. The agreement broke
down in 1959, and armed conflict began anew.
In 1960, the struggle became three-way as Gen. Phoumi Nosavan,
controlling the bulk of the royal army, set up in the south a pro-Western
revolutionary government headed by Prince Boun Oum. General Phoumi took
Vientiane in December, driving Souvanna Phouma into exile in Cambodia. The
Soviet bloc supported Souvanna Phouma. In 1961, a cease-fire was arranged
and the three princes agreed to a coalition government headed by Souvanna
Phouma.
But North Vietnam, the U.S. (in the form of CIA personnel), and China
remained active in Laos after the settlement. North Vietnam used a supply
line (Ho Chi Minh Trail) running down the mountain valleys of eastern Laos
into Cambodia and South Vietnam, particularly after the U.S.–South
Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia in 1970 stopped supplies via Cambodian
seaports.
An agreement reached in 1973 revived the coalition government. The
Communist Pathet Lao seized complete power in 1975, installing
Souphanouvong as president and Kaysone Phomvihane as prime minister. Since
then other parties and political groups have been moribund and most of
their leaders have fled the country. The monarchy was abolished on Dec. 2,
1975, when the Pathet Lao ousted a coalition government and King Sisavang
Vatthana abdicated.
The Supreme People's Assembly in Aug. 1991 adopted a new constitution
that dropped all references to socialism but retained the one-party state.
In addition to implementing market-oriented policies, the country has
passed laws governing property, inheritance, and contracts.
During the 1990s, the country began making more diplomatic overtures
toward its neighbors. In 1995, the U.S. announced a lifting of its ban on
aid to the nation. By most international estimates, Laos is one of the 10
poorest countries in the world. The subsistence farmers who make up more
than 80% of the population have been plagued with bad agricultural
conditions—alternately floods and drought—since 1993.
Since March 2000, Vientiane has been rocked by a series of unexplained
blasts. The activity has been widely attributed to a group of Hmong
tribesmen based in the north. The anti-Communist rebel group has been
protesting the government's reluctance to embrace democratic reforms.
Others attribute the bombs to rival factions in the government or
military.
In Feb. 2002 parliamentary elections, 165 out of 166 candidates were
members of the governing Lao People's Revolutionary Party. In 2006,
Choummaly Sayasone became party secretary-general and president of Laos.
First Deputy Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh became prime minister.
