Everything you need to know about Laos
Follow the Mekong from northern mountain towns and Luang Prabang to Vientiane and the islands of Si Phan Don. Explore seventeen provinces and the separate capital prefecture, place twenty cities and sixteen sights, follow four rivers, discover ten illustrated topics and begin Lao.
Read it, then make it stick
Geography of Laos
Five neighbours, a landlocked mountain landscape and the connecting waters of the Mekong.
Know the shape of the country
Start with seventeen provinces and Vientiane Capital, then place twenty cities and towns and follow the Mekong, Nam Ou, Nam Ngum and Sekong. Zoom in to distinguish Vientiane Province from the separate capital prefecture. Boundaries: geoBoundaries, OpenStreetMap / Wambacher, ODbL 1.0, 2017 reference geometry including Xaisomboun. Rivers: Natural Earth 5.1.2, public domain, clipped to Laos with a small border margin. City coordinates are curated. The maps are generalised learning references rather than navigation charts.
Heritage and landscapes
Essential ยท Historic town
Luang Prabang historic town
UNESCO inscribed the Town of Luang Prabang in 1995. Its defined historic area combines religious, royal, vernacular and colonial-era architecture; the inscription does not cover the entire province.
Locate sixteen places from Luang Prabang and the Plain of Jars to Vientiane, Khammouaneโs karst and the southern Mekong. The selection includes places within all four World Heritage properties involving Laos, alongside other monuments and landscapes. Essential and Worth a detour indicate learning priorities. Landscape pins locate representative areas, not entrances. Follow local access rules, respect religious observances and remain on established routes in areas affected by unexploded ordnance. Select a pin to read about a place, then play the map and find them all.
Take Lao with you
Greetings and politeness
Hello, please, thank you, sorry: the ten openers everything else builds on.
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of Laos, the countries marked guide have a page like this one, and every other has maps of its own.
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