History of Laos (1945–present)
facet of the history of Laos
This article details the history of Laos from 1945 to the present.
Note: this article follows the system for transliterating Lao names used in Martin Stuart-Fox's History of Laos. It may differ from systems used in other articles.
Kingdom of Laos
On 27 August 1945 Prince Phetxarāt took charge of Viang Chan (Vientiane) from the Japanese, although as Prime Minister of Luang Phrabāng he had no authority outside the Kingdom's borders. The French were already in control of Luang Phrabāng, and with the support of the Prince of Champāsak they were also regaining control in the south. When it became clear that the King would not budge from his loyalty to France, Phetxarāt (who had no fondness for the King and the Crown Prince) unilaterally declared the unification of the country, nominally under the crown of Luang Phrabāng, and then declared Lao independence.
In September the Chinese Army arrived to find that a Lao government of sorts was in command of Viang Chan. Uncertain what to do, the Chinese commander recognised Phetxarāt, and in Luang Phrabāng the Chinese disarmed the French forces. But the Allied governments refused to recognise Phetxarāt's government, and in October de Gaulle advised the King by telegram to dismiss him as Prime Minister of Luang Phrabāng. In retaliation, Phetxarāt declared the King deposed.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “History of Laos (1945–present)” as facet of the history of Laos. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17000925. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “History of Laos (1945–present)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.