The country is characterized by mountainous terrain, Buddhist temples including the UNESCO World Heritage site of Luang Prabang, and French colonial architecture.

The war ended with the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic in 1975, a one-party socialist state aligned with the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991.

[17][18] The country participates in the Greater Mekong Subregion economic cooperation program, focusing on cross-border infrastructure and energy projects.

[19] The World Bank has recognized Laos as one of Southeast Asia and Pacific's fastest growing economies, with annual GDP growth averaging 7.4% since 2009, driven by expanding tourism, energy exports, and foreign investment.

According to linguistic and other historical evidence, Tai-speaking tribes migrated southwestward to the territories of Laos and Thailand from Guangxi sometime between the 8th and 10th centuries.

Fa Ngum, with 10,000 Khmer troops, conquered some Lao principalities in the Mekong river basin, culminating in the capture of Vientiane.

Settathirath disappeared in the mountains on his way back from a military expedition into Cambodia, and Lan Xang fell into more than 70 years of "instability", involving Burmese invasion and civil war.

Between 1763 and 1769, Burmese armies overran northern Laos and annexed Luang Prabang, while Champasak eventually came under Siamese suzerainty.

[37] In a time period where the acquisition of humans was a priority over the ownership of land, the warfare of pre-modern Southeast Asia revolved around the seizing of people and resources from its enemies.

A Siamese military campaign in Laos in 1876 was described by a British observer as having been "transformed into slave-hunting raids on a large scale".

[43] As late as 1945, the French drew up a plan to move a number of Vietnamese to three areas, i.e., the Vientiane Plain, Savannakhet region, and the Bolaven Plateau, which was derailed by the Japanese invasion of Indochina.

[44] On 9 March 1945, a nationalist group declared Laos once more independent, with Luang Prabang as its capital; on 7 April 1945, two battalions of Japanese troops occupied the city.

The Pathet Lao began a war against the French colonial forces with the aid of the Vietnamese independence organisation, the Viet Minh.

The revised constitution of 11 May 1957 omitted reference to the French Union, while educational, health and technical ties with the former colonial power persisted.

[69] Laos's emergence from international isolation has been marked through expanded relations with other countries including Russia, China, Thailand, Australia, Germany, Italy, Japan and Switzerland.

[71] Laos was admitted into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in July 1997 and acceded to the World Trade Organization in 2016.

[79] Following the Vue Mai incident, debate over the Hmong's planned repatriation to Laos intensified, including in the United States, where it drew opposition from American conservatives and some human rights advocates.

[80] In their opposition of the repatriation plans, Democratic and Republican Members of Congress challenged the Clinton administration's position that the government of Laos was not systematically violating Hmong human rights.

[89][90][91][92] The Thai foreign ministry has said that it will halt deportation of Hmong refugees held in Detention Centres in Nong Khai, while talks are underway to resettle them in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States.

[93] Plans to resettle additional Hmong refugees in the United States were stalled by provisions of President George W. Bush's Patriot Act and Real ID Act, under which Hmong veterans of the Secret War, who fought on the side of the United States, are classified as terrorists because of their historical involvement in armed conflict.

[94] In The Economist's Democracy Index 2016, Laos was classified as an "authoritarian regime", ranking lowest of the 9 ASEAN nations included in the study.

[95][96] Civil society advocates, human rights defenders, political and religious dissidents, and Hmong refugees have disappeared at the hands of Lao military and security forces.

The stated policy objectives of the Lao government and international donors remain focused upon achieving sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction.

In 2009, the Obama administration in the US declared Laos was no longer a Marxist–Leninist state and lifted bans on Laotian companies receiving financing from the US Export-Import Bank.

Metallurgy is an industry, and the government hopes to attract foreign investment to develop the deposits of coal, gold, bauxite, tin, copper, and other metals.

This includes decreasing the environmental and cultural impact of tourism; increasing awareness in the importance of ethnic groups and biological diversity; providing a source of income to conserve, sustain and manage the Lao protected area network and cultural heritage sites; and emphasizing the need for tourism zoning and management plans for sites that will be developed as ecotourism destinations.

[128]: 8 According to the World Bank data conducted in 2014, Laos has met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets on water and sanitation regarding the UNICEF/WHO Joint Monitoring Programme.

[131] The people of Laos are categorised by their distribution by elevation (lowlands, midlands and upper high lands), as this somewhat correlates with ethnic groupings.

Some Vietnamese, Laotian Chinese[135] and Thai minorities remain, particularly in the towns, and some left after independence in the 1940s, some of whom relocated either to Vietnam, Hong Kong, or to France.

[143] The first feature-length film made after the monarchy was abolished is Gun Voice from the Plain of Jars directed by Somchith Pholsena in 1983 and its release was prevented by a censorship board.