Laos (Lāw) in other languages: exonyms, Vientiane, provinces and codes

Lāw, Laos, Lào: the name across scripts

The country calls itself ລາວ, Lāw, and the full name ສາທາລະນະລັດ​ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ​ປະຊາຊົນ​ລາວ reads Sātʰālanalât Pasātʰipatai Pasāsôn Lāw, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Thai writes the same word with its own letters, ลาว, and Vietnamese has Lào. Most other languages add a final s: Laos in English, French, German and Spanish, Лаос in Russian, Λάος in Greek, ラオス (Raosu) in Japanese. Lithuanian builds Laosas, Hungarian Laosz, Esperanto Laoso.

Chinese gives two names. 寮國 (Liáoguó) is the one shared with Cantonese, 老撾 (Lǎowō) the other. Arabic lists five variants, with and without the article: لاوس, لاووس, اللاوس, اللاووس and the short لاو. Latin is even richer, with Laosium, Laotia, Laotium, Laonia and Laosia.

For the capital the Lao name is ວຽງຈັນ, Vẏaṅčân. The French spelling Vientiane became the international one, but Estonian writes Viangchan after the Lao sound, Vietnamese Viêng Chăn, Chinese 萬象 (Wànxiàng) and Thai เวียงจันทน์.

Reading the province names

Lao puts spaces between phrases, not between words, so the long names in the tables carry an invisible word-break character. A province name has two parts: ແຂວງ, kʰwǣṅ, province, and the proper name, as in ແຂວງ​ເຊກອງ, the province of Xekong (Sēkɔ̄ṅ). The capital of a province is often a town with the same name, but not always: Champasak is governed from Pakse, ປາກເຊ, and Houaphanh from ຊຳ​ເໜືອ, Sāṃ [h]Nʉ̄a.

The first level grew from 16 provinces to 17 in 2013, when Xaisomboun returned as a province on 13 December after an earlier life as a special zone; ISO lists it as LA-XS. The capital itself is the prefecture ນະຄອນ​ຫລວງ​ວຽງຈັນ, coded LA-VT, apart from Vientiane Province, LA-VI, which is governed from Phonhong.

Pʰēṅ Sāt Lāw, the national anthem

Pheng Xat Lao is the national anthem of Laos. The Lao words sung today date from 1975, when Sisana Sisane revised the earlier text.