Laos

🗺 Laos metro footprint, shaded by composite tier.

18 entries listed under Laos across 2 types. Click any to see its metros and footprint.

Official language

Lao

Currency

Lao kip (LAK)

Government

Communist dictatorship

Legislature

National Assembly

Constitution

1991, 3 amendment events since

Demonym

Laotians

Time zone

UTC+07:00

Driving side

Right

Calling code

+856

Internet TLD

.la

ISO 3166

LA

Established

1949

Highest point

Phou Bia (2,819 m (9,249 ft))

National anthem

Pheng Xat Lao

Facts via Wikidata.

Ranks are among sovereign countries with data; ★ marks a top-5% finish. Sources: World Bank Open Data and Our World in Data (UNDP, UN WPP, V-Dem, Global Carbon Budget, Ember, Energy Institute; CC BY 4.0). Each card credits its originating body. Renewable share is of electricity generation, not of primary energy. Each figure is the most recent year available.

Full memberDashed border = Candidate / ApplicantItalic = Dialogue / Observer

⚠️ marks a leader associated with atrocities or defiance of law, systemic subversion of democratic institutions, or a criminal conviction. Convictions arising from political persecution, and annulled convictions, are excluded. 👑 denotes a monarch. These are editorial designations, applied per entry rather than derived automatically.

The powerline is the headline share of world power, running from the state’s first ranked year (benchmark estimates with wide error bars before 1816). Latent power is material mass a state could mobilise (population, manpower, heavy industry). Recognised power is what the system actually treats it as (military spending, productive economy, reach, and status such as a Security Council seat or nuclear arsenal). When latent runs above recognised, a power is rising or under-rated; when recognised runs higher, it is punching above its weight or coasting on prestige. Material sub-indices run 1816 through 2016.

Bold = principal belligerent. Source: Wikipedia, “List of interstate wars since 1945.”

Our World in Data population (CC BY): UN WPP 2024 from 1950, Gapminder v7 1800-1949, HYDE 3.3 earlier; today's borders. Figures above are as of 2023, the last year that is estimated rather than forecast. The dashed tail to 2026 is a UN WPP medium-variant projection. It is drawn because the line should reach the present, and drawn differently because it has not happened yet: no rank, peak or share on this page uses it. Before 1950 the series is reconstruction rather than contemporaneous statistics, which is worth knowing when a country’s peak sits back there. The current population shown elsewhere on this page comes from the workbook and is unchanged by this. Note that people and share of world can move in opposite directions. A country can grow steadily and still become a smaller part of humanity, which is what happened to almost every rich country after 1960.

The UN’s probabilistic projection for Laos: the median with its 80% and 95% bands, the UN’s own high, low and zero-migration scenarios beside it. Not this site’s model; the site reads it and says what it implies.

What drives it

Births, deaths and net migration on the UN medium path, with fertility, life expectancy and median age, every decade from 1950.

Every country to 2100 →

Source: United Nations, DESA, Population Division. World Population Prospects 2024. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 IGO. Estimates to 2023; projections 2024 to 2100, medium variant and probabilistic intervals. The UN revises every two years; this is the WPP 2024 revision.

Laos on the international stage. Click a card for the full record.