Telephone system: service to general public is poor but improving, with over 20,000 telephones currently in service and an additional 48,000 expected by 2001; the government relies on a radiotelephone network to communicate with remote areas domestic: radiotelephone communications international: satellite earth station - 1 Intersputnik (Indian Ocean region)
Radio broadcast stations: AM 12, FM 1, shortwave 4 (1998)
The Lao People's Democratic Republic is a landlocked country in southeast Asia, bordered by Myanmar (commonly known in the west as Burma) and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west.
Laos' early history was dominated by the wider Nan-chao kingdom, which was succeded in the 14th century by the local kingdom of Lan Xang that lasted until its decline in the 18th century, after which Thailand assumed control of the separate principalities that remained.
Laos is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia and the thickly forested landscape consists mostly of rugged mountains, the highest of which is Phou Bia at 2,817 m, with some plains and plateaus.