The Lao People's Democratic Republic is a landlocked country located in Southeast Asia. Since 1975, Laos has been ruled by a communist government that was installed by the Pathet Lao at the end of the Laotian Civil War, which resulted in the fall of the Kingdom of Laos. In 2014, Laos had a population of 6,803,699 people. The government corruption and its isolation as one of the last communist countries have led to the country's economy suffering, with a third of the country living under the poverty line, and it is the 29th out of 52 of the most hungry nations in the world.
History[]
The location of Laos
Laos was ruled by several kingdoms until 1893, when France colonized Laos as a part of French Indochina. On 22 October 1953, as Vietnam and Cambodia broke away from French rule, Laos declared its independence, with Sisavang Vong ruling the country until his death in 1959. From 9 November 1953 onwards, civil war broke out in the newly-independent Kingdom of Laos between the kingdom and the rebellious Pathet Lao, backed by North Vietnam, which invaded Laos in 1959. Prince Souvanna Phouma's centrists, Boun Oum's rightists, and Souphanouvong (the "Three Princes") competed for power, and the civil war continued until 2 December 1975, when the Pathet Lao finally seized power. During the war, Laos was bombed by the United States due to the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply route running through the country, which kept the communist guerrillas supplied with weapons and ammunition; Laos became a new theater of the Vietnam War. After the fall of Vientiane to the Pathet Lao, the Lao People's Democratic Republic was declared, and Laos became a communist state.
The Vietnam War and Laotian Civil War continued on in some ways, however. The North Vietnamese Army was allowed to station armed forces and advisers in Laos, with the country effectively being a North Vietnamese vassal. Laos allegedly had prisoner-of-war camps where missing-in-action American soldiers were still interned since 1973, and the government had to deal with the issues that an NVA occupation would bring. After the Sino-Vietnamese War, Laos severed diplomatic ties with China and the USA, and China supported Hmong insurgents against the NVA and Laotian military in the Insurgency in Laos, and the Lao People's Army was accused of genocide against the Hmong, and 100,000 out of 400,000 Hmong people in Laos being killed and 130,000 fleeing to Thailand as refugees. In 2014, Laos had a population of 6,803,699 people, with 54.6% being Lao, 10.9% Khmu, 8% Hmong, 3.8% Thai, 3.3% Puthai, 2.2% Lu, 2.1% Katang, 2.1% Makong, and several other minority groups. 66% were Buddhist, 30.7 Satsana Phi indigenous people, 1.5% Christian, and 1.8% other religions.