page_title: Xiangkhouang Province
section_title: Landmarks
hierarchical_section_title: Xiangkhouang Province / Landmarks
caption_attribution_description: English: Wat Piawat in Xieng Khouang Province, Laos
context_page_description: Xiangkhouang is a province of Laos on the Xiangkhoang Plateau, in the nation's northeast. The province has the distinction of being the most heavily bombed place on Earth.
  Originally known as the Principality of Muang Phuan, the present capital of the province is Phonsavan. The population of the province as of the 2015 census was 244,684.
  Xiangkhouang Province covers an area of 15,880 square kilometres and is mountainous. Apart from floodplains, the largest area of level land in the country is on the province's Xiangkhoang Plateau. This area is characterized by rolling hills and grassland whose elevation averages 1,300 metres. The country's highest peak, Phou Bia, rises at the south side of the plateau. Nam Et-Phou Louey is a National Biodiversity Conservation Area in the province covering an area of 5,959 km², and overlaps into Houaphanh and Luang Prabang Provinces.
  The province's Plain of Jars has been proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Monument.
context_section_description: The tourism department of Laos has listed 63 notable landmarks in the province. Thirty-two are natural sites, 18 are cultural sites, and are 13 historical sites. Of these some of the important sites are the following.
  The province's most distinctive landmark is the Plain of Jars. The "jars" are 2,100 tubular-shaped megalithic stone jars used for funerary purposes. The jars range from 1–3 metres (3 ft 3 in–9 ft 10 in) in height. They are found throughout the province in bunches of 300. The jars date from the Iron Age (500 BCE to 500 CE). Nearest to Phonsavan is Jar Site 1, with an area of 25 hectares (ha). The largest jar found here is 2.5 m x 2.5 m, while the rest are half this size. One jar has decorations on it. The megalithic jar sites of Xiangkhouang were inscribed on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in July 2019.
  Muang Khoun was the capital of the ancient Phuan Kingdom of the 14th century. It is southeast of Phonsavan. At the Wat Piawat Temple, destroyed during the conflicts of the First Indochina War (from 1946 until 1954) and the subsequent one that soon followed, the ruins of a stone wall with brick archways, relics of the former colonial rule of France over this part of Laos (aside from the whole country), a large-sized statue of Buddha, broken pillars and short sections of walls remain to this day and are still clearly visible as well as accessible. Once buried in the thick tropical forest, the That Foun stupa, dating back to some 450 years, can be seen near the road outside Phonsavan. In the ethnic village of the Phuan, to the south of Phonsavan, Ban Napi mounds of war scrap can be seen buried in tableware. During the 1980s, eight families came together and assembled bits and pieces of aluminium from damaged, crashed or shot-down US Air Force (USAF) and other aircraft of air forces of US-aligned countries (such as the Royal Lao Air Force) in mounds of melted metal, lack, wood and ash. Such war debris and wreckage can be found scattered between the Lang Waterfall and Jar Site 3 of the Plain of Jars.
  A secret tunnel was constructed below the hills of the Phu Kheng Jar Quarry Site during the Second Indochina War (between 1964 and 1973), or the Vietnam War. This tunnel can be approached or accessed to by climbing about 1,000 steps up the nearby high ground. Along this route lie many bomb-craters and the remains of broken or incomplete large jars. The views of the Phoukoud Valley at the end of the route are very scenic and the entry to the secret tunnel is not immediately seen when there. The tunnel is 70 metres (230 ft) in length and 1.6 metres (5 ft 3 in) in height. Reinforced-concrete bunkers with night-camps are also visible along this route. Unexploded ordnance (UXOs) can be found in very large quantities in this Laotian province and these are all in the process of getting cleared and removed away under the aegis of the UK-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG). The Visitor Information Centre established by the (MAG) in Phonsavan provides information on the history of the intense and ferocious bombing and aerial-bombardment campaigns over this part of Laos, particularly of the cluster-bombs widely employed by the USAF and the destruction they caused during the relentless fighting of the conflict are explained through numerous sketches and a documentary film shown.
caption: The ruins of Wat Piawat Temple and its large Buddha statue (which survived and remains to this day), which was almost completely destroyed during the First Indochina War and the Vietnam War.
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