Basic Facts
- Nearly all Lao males serve at a Buddhist temple for at least a small section of their lives.
- Laos' official name is the Lao People's Democratic Republic.
- Laos' national anthem is called "Pheng Xat Lao." The anthem was adopted in 1947, and new lyrics were added in the year 1975.
- The Lao Flag was adopted on December 2, 1975. The horizontal blue strip in the middle of the flag represents the Mekong river, which flows through the nation. The color of blue itself represents wealth. The two parallel horizontal red stripes represent the nations joined and separated by the river. Red symbolizes courage and bravery. The white circle in the middle represents the full moon.
- The capital of Laos is Vientiane.
- The currency in Laos is called Kip.
- The population of Laos is 6,695,166 people (July 2013).
- During the Vietnam war, American planes dropped several of bombs on Lao soil; however, not all of the bombs exploded. Some of these bombs are still visible to the public and are used as minor tourist attractions to this day. However, there are a quite a few bombs that have not been located, and are still underground undetected. Every so often, a person will accidentally set a bomb off and become injured or mortally wounded. Some of the bombs have exploded from under houses, turning them to ruins. The government is currently trying to find a way to efficiently disable the bombs so that less lives will be lost in the near future.
- Laos is a communist state, just like all its neighboring countries.
- Laos is a relatively warm country with average temperatures in the summer ranging from 90º to 100º Fahrenheit. It is therefore victimized by typhoons during typhoon season there.
- The GDP is $19.16 billion (2012).
How to cite this page:
Hatam, Cyrus Parsa and Clayton Michael Steinhilber. "Basic Facts"
["Basic Facts"]. Welcome to Laos. Ed. Cyrus Parsa Hatam, Norris Chase
Johnson, and Clayton Michael Steinhilber. N.p., 2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
<http://laosmcd2014.weebly.com>.
["Basic Facts"]. Welcome to Laos. Ed. Cyrus Parsa Hatam, Norris Chase
Johnson, and Clayton Michael Steinhilber. N.p., 2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
<http://laosmcd2014.weebly.com>.