page_title: Demographics of Laos
section_title: Ethnic groups
hierarchical_section_title: Demographics of Laos / Ethnic groups
caption_attribution_description: laos luang prabang, jeune fille lors d'une fete de rencontre hmong (Laos Luang Prabang, young girl at the time of a Hmong Festival of Meeting)}
context_page_description: Laos' population was estimated at about 7.06 million in 2018, dispersed unevenly across the country. Most people live in valleys of the Mekong River and its tributaries. Vientiane Prefecture, which includes Vientiane, the capital and largest city of the country, had about 569,000 residents in 1999. The country's population density is 23.4/km².
  In March 2005, the total population was 5.62 million in the 2005 census, an increase of 1.047 million since the previous 1995 census.
context_section_description: Specialists are largely in agreement as to the ethnolinguistic classification of the ethnic groups of Laos. For the purposes of the 1995 census, the government of Laos recognized 149 ethnic groups within 47 main ethnicities. whereas the Lao Front for National Construction (LFNC) recently revised the list to include 49 ethnicities consisting of over 160 ethnic groups.
  The term ethnic minorities is used by some to classify the non-Lao ethnic groups, while the term indigenous peoples is not used by the Lao PDR. These 160 ethnic groups speak a total of 82 distinct living languages.
  Lao 53.2%, Khmu 11%, Hmong 9.2%, and other (over 100 minor ethnic groups) 26.6% (2015 census).
caption: In Luang Prabang, a young woman at the time of a Hmong Meeting Festival.
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