Laos, officially the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, is a landlocked socialist republic in southeast Asia, bordered by Myanmar (Burma) and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Laos traces its history to the Kingdom of Lan Xang or Land of a Million Elephants, which existed from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. After a period as a French colony, it gained independence in 1949. A long civil war ended when the communist Pathet Lao came to power in 1975.
Private enterprise has increased since the mid-1980s, but development has been hampered by poor communications in the heavily forested and mountainous landscape Despite this, the economy of Laos grew at 7.2% in 2006 35th fastest in the world. Eighty percent of the employed practice subsistence agriculture The countrys ethnic make-up is extremely diverse, with only around 70% belonging to the largest ethnic group, the Lao
