RELIEF
Dominating the landscape of Laos are its inhospitable forest-covered mountains, which in the north rise to a maximum elevation of 2,818 metres above sea level at Mount Bia and everywhere constitue an impediment to travel.
The principal range lies along a northwest-southeast axis and forms part of the Annamese Cordillera (Chaîne Annamitique), but secondary ranges abound. On the Xiangkhoang Plateau in north-central Laos, the Plain of Jars consists of extensive rolling grasslands rather than a true plain and provides a hub of communications. The karst landscapes of the central provinces of Bolikhamxay and Khammouan contain caverns and severely eroded limestone pinnacles. In the south the Bolovens Plateau, at an elevation of about 1,100 metres, is covered by open woodland and has generally fertile soil. The only extensive lowlands lie along the eastern bank of the Mekong River.
Laos can be considered to consist of three geographical areas: north, central, and south.
CLIMATE
Laos has the typical tropical monsoon (wet-dry) climate of the region, though the mountains provide some variations in temperature.
- During the rainy season (May to October), the winds of the southwest monsoon deposit an average rainfall of 50 to 90 inches (1,300 to 2,300 mm), with totals reaching some 160 inches (4,100 mm) on the Bolovens Plateau.
- The dry season (November to April) is dominated by the northeast monsoon. Minimum temperatures average between 16 and 21 °C in the cool months of December through February, increasing to highs of more than 32 °C in March and April, just before the start of the rains. In the wet season the average temperature is 27 °C.
ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS
Laos is divided into 17 provinces (khoueng) and one prefecture (kampheng nakhon), which includes the capital city Vientiane (Nakhon Louang Viangchan). A new province, Xaisomboun Province, was established on 13 December 2013. Provinces are further divided into districts (muang) and then villages (ban). An “urban” village is essentially a town.
PEOPLE: ETHNIC GROUPS AND LANGUAGES
Laos is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country. The official language of Laos is Lao, although various foreign languages have often been used by the elite. French was once the language of the Lao upper classes and of the cities, but by the 1970s English had begun to displace it. Under the leadership of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, Vietnamese became the third language of the elite.
Specialists are largely in agreement as to the ethnolinguistic classification of the ethnic groups of Laos. For the purposes of the 1995 census, the government of Laos recognized 149 ethnic groups within 47 main ethnicities whereas the Lao Front for National Construction (LFNC) recently revised the list to include 49 ethnicities consisting of over 160 ethnic groups.
The term ethnic minorities is used by some to classify the non-Lao ethnic groups, while the term indigenous peoples is not used by the Lao PDR. These 160 ethnic groups speak a total of 82 distinct living languages.
Lao 53.2%, Khmu 11%, Hmong 9.2%, and other (over 100 minor ethnic groups) 26.6% (2015 census).
RELIGION
The predominant religion of Laos is Theravada Buddhism. Buddhism was the state religion of the prerepublic kingdom of Laos, and the organization of the community of monks and novices, the clergy (sangha), paralleled the political hierarchy.
Similarly, some of the upland peoples, especially those who have migrated from southern China, mix Confucian ideas with Buddhism and local religions. The Vietnamese, who live both in the cities and in the northeastern rural areas, practice a mixture of Mahayana Buddhism and Confucianism.
Other smaller religious communities include Christians, Muslims, and followers of the Bahāʾī faith. Although the country’s constitution provides for freedom of religion in theory, the government restricts this right in practice, particularly with respect to the minority religions.
DAILY LIFE AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS
Most families in Laos are involved in farming. Members of households work the land together, with a division of labour by gender.
In wet rice cultivation, men plough and prepare the seedbed, control water flow to the fields, and thresh the crop. Women transplant the seedlings, weed the fields, and carry the sheaves of rice to the threshing place. Wet rice cultivation begins with the onset of the rains in April or May and ends with the harvest in October and November.
In upland rice cultivation, men cut and clear the swiddens, while women do the sowing and weeding. In upland areas, fields are burned and cleared at the end of the dry season in February and March, and harvesting takes place in November.
Cultivation of secondary crops is interspersed with rice cultivation; gardening on river banks, for example, follows the drop in water level at the end of the dry season.
In addition to strictly agricultural activities, the daily lives of rural people involve a number of other tasks, such as fetching water from wells, hunting for game, and gathering various forest products. Common forest products include small game, birds and eggs, fruit, honey, spices, medicines, resins, latexes, dyes, and wood for fuel and for making charcoal, as well as structural materials such as rattan, bamboo, wooden poles, and various fibres. The important tasks of gathering and processing of forest products are associated with women.
The ethnic Lao ritual of the baci, in which strings are tied around a person’s wrist to preserve good luck, has indeed been elevated in Laos to the place of a national custom. The baci is associated with transitions, namely, giving birth, getting married, entering the monkhood, going away, returning, beginning a new year, and welcoming or bidding farewell to foreign guests. The practice has retained an important place in state ceremonies of all kinds. A prominent ritual among the upland Hmong is the sacrifice of a chicken or pig to the household spirit at the new year.
VISA POLICY OF LAOS
Except for most Southeast Asian countries and a handful of European countries, almost everyone who enters Laos needs a visa. However, it’s easy to get one online or upon arrival. Southeast Asia’s only landlocked country gets plenty of visitor traffic from its overland crossings from China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.
The only people who don’t need a visa for Laos are travelers with passports from Japan, Russia, South Korea, Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Brunei, and Myanmar. American citizens are eligible to apply for an eVisa ahead of their trip or can obtain a visa on arrival. When applying for any kind of Laotian visa you will need your passport details, two passport-sized photographs, and your application fee.
OFFICIAL CURRENCY OF LAOS
The official currency of Laos is the Lao Kip, which is denoted on banknotes as “₭ “. However, this currency has only been used in Laos since 1952, and before that, the currency used was the French Indochinese Piastre, which had been introduced by the French in the colonial period from 1893–1952.
Today, the kip comes in denominations of notes only, as the economic downturn in Laos from 1991 caused chronic inflation. Banknotes come in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, 10,000, 20,000, and 50,000 kip. In 2012, a 100,000 kip banknote was issued to encourage the use of the national currency, instead of the more popular US dollar for larger purchases.
While the official currency in Laos is the Kip, other currencies are also commonly used for spending in Laos, though not legally or with government approval. In reality, there are actually three national currencies, the Kip, the Thai Baht, and the US Dollar. It is also possible to use Chinese Yuan in some parts of Laos, though it is not as popularly accepted as the dollar.
LAOS ELECTRICITY
In Laos the power plugs and sockets are of type A, B, C, E and F. The standard voltage is 230 V and the standard frequency is 50 Hz.
LAOS TIME ZONE
Time in Laos is given by Indochina Time (ICT) (UTC+07:00). Laos does not currently observe daylight saving time. Laos shares the same time zone with Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Christmas Island and Western Indonesia.
