It is bordered by Burma and China in the north, Thailand in the west,Cambodia in the south and Vietnam in the east. Laos was a group of small states until it was united in the fourteenth century. A branch of Thai race, who had migrated from China in about the tenth century and were to be found in Burma,Siam, and North Vietnam. Other inhabitants of Laos are mountain dwellers of Chinese and Indonesian extraction. Some of them are very primitive an are generally known as Kha. There are also a number of Vietnamese , who are chiefly traders and therefore form and important element in the national life of Laos. most of the Laotians are Budhists, but the Kha peoples are primitive amd animist.
Laos had its "golden age " in the 14 th century, when, as Lang Xan, or kingdom of a Million Elephants , it extended far beyond its present borders. its first recorded historyband its origins as a unified state to the emergence of the kingoms of LanXang (literally, million elephants) in 1353. Under the rule of King fa Ngum, the wealthy and mighty kingdomcovered much of what today is thailand and Laos. His successors, especially King Setthathirat in the 16th century, helped establish Budhism as the predominant religion of the country.
by the 17th century , the kingdom of Lan Xang entered a period of decline marked by dynastic struggle and conflicts with its neighbours . In the late 18th century , the Siamese (Thai)established hegemony over much of what is now laos. The region was divided into three parts north, cenet and south following their colonisation of vietnam, the french supplanted the Siamese and beganto integrateall of Laos into the french empire. The Francho-siamese treaty of 1907 defined the present lao boundary with Thailand.
