ISO 3166
LA
Primary locale
lo-LA
Currency
LAK · Laotian Kip
Region
APAC · SEA

Laos

Laos has 8M people, and 5.2M of them are online. Lao is the most widely spoken language at 69%, one of 5 languages CLDR lists here. Lao is official nationally. A product shipping here defaults to lo-LA.

At a glance

Each figure is drawn against the rest of the world, so a number means something before you have any other market to compare it with.

People online

5.2M

0%world median 81%100%

66% of 8M people use the internet, per the World Bank's 2024 figure. CLDR population multiplied by that share, so read it as an estimate rather than a headcount.

Income per person

$2,325

Higher than 19% of 213 territories

GDP per capita in current US dollars, World Bank Open Data, most recent reported year. A rough guide to what people can spend, not what your product will earn.

Can pay online

38%

0%world median 71%100%

Adults aged 15 and over holding a bank or mobile-money account, World Bank Global Findex 2024. Below half means a card-only checkout excludes most of the market.

Languages

5

Lao 69% · Khmu 6% · Hmong Njua 3%

Languages CLDR records here with a share of 0.1% or more. 1 of them is official nationally.

English proficiency

461

Very lowVery high

Low proficiency on the EF EPI 2025 scale. The sample is self-selected online test takers, so treat it as colour for a discussion. It never enters any score on this site.

Adult literacy

73%

0%world median 95%100%

Share of adults who can read, as recorded in CLDR territory data. Low literacy shifts a product toward icons, audio, and video before it shifts toward another language.

What people speak

Shares count first and second languages, so they sum past 100% and one bilingual person is counted twice.

Most spoken in Laos

share of 8M people

Filled bars are nationally official languages. Every bar is drawn against the largest language rather than against 100%, so a 1% language stays visible.

One country understates a language. CLDR records diaspora too, so a language usually reaches further than any single page shows. The language profiles show each one's full footprint.

What you would ship

Configuration for day one, computed live with Intl.* against lo-LA, the dominant locale for this market.

Plural categories

1

No grammatical plural agreement. The string catalog is simpler.

Script family

Other-Brahmic

Bundle a Noto-class webfont that covers this script. OS defaults vary.

Reading direction

Left-to-right

Standard. Use dir='auto' on user-generated content fields.

Date

21 ເມສາ 2026

Short: 21/4/2026

Time

18:30

Week starts Sun

Currency

₭1.235

1,234.56 in LAK · Laotian Kip

The engineering behind the flags: Font fallback: why the OS picks the wrong glyphs for this script