Xiangkhouang
province of Laos
Xiangkhouang (Lao: ຊຽງຂວາງ, meaning 'Horizontal City'), also spelled Siang Khuang, is a province of Laos on the Xiangkhoang Plateau. It has the distinction of being the most heavily bombed place on Earth. Historically, the province was formerly the independent principality of Muang Phuan. Its later capital is Phonsavan. The population of the province as of the 2015 census was 244,684. The province's Plain of Jars was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.
History
The Tai Phuan or Phuan people are a Buddhist Tai-Lao ethnic group that migrated to Laos from southern China. According to the Pongsawadan Meuang Puan ("Muang Puan Chronicles"), they were the first people who migrated in the 13th century from China to settle this province, forming the independent principality of Muang Phuan on the Plain of Jars, with Xieng Khouang (contemporary Muang Khoun) as its capital. They established an overland trade in metals and forest products with India and China; the Xieng Khouang Plateau was the center of trade for an area of upland Southeast Asia, extending as far as Da Nang in Vietnam, Samrong Sen in Cambodia, the Khorat Plateau in northeast Thailand, and the North Cachar Hills of northeastern India. In the 14th century, Muang Phuan was subsumed into the Lan Xang kingdom under King Fa Ngum.
The public source identifies “Xiangkhouang” as province of Laos. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Xiangkhouang, province and Laos.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q465947. Authority coordinates are 19.417, 103.500. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Xiangkhouang” 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.