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Luang-Prabang

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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A town of French Indo-China, capital of the Lao state of that name, on the left bank of the Me Kong river. It lies at the foot of the pagoda hill which rises about 200 ft. above the plain on the promontory of land round which the Nam Kan winds to the main river. It has a population of about 9000 and contains the "palace" of the king of the state and several pagodas. In 1887 it was taken and sacked by the Haw or Black Flags, robber bands of Chinese soldiery, many of them survivors of the Taiping rebellion. In 1893 Siam was compelled to renounce her claims to the left bank of the Me Kong, including Luang-Prabang and the magnificent highlands of Chieng Kwang. That portion of the state which was on the right bank of the Me Kong was not affected by the treaty, except in so far as a portion of it fell within the sixteen miles' zone within which Siam agreed not to keep troops. Trade is in the hands of Chinese or Shan traders; hill rice and other jungle products are imported from the surrounding districts by the Kha or hill people. The exports, which include rubber, gum benjamin, silk, wax, sticklac, cutch, cardamon, a little ebony, cinnamon, indigo, rhinoceros and deer horns, ivory and fish roe, formerly all passed by way of Paklai to the Me Nam, and so to Bangkok, but have now almost entirely ceased to follow that route, the object of the French government being to deflect the trade through French territory. Luang-Prabang is the terminus of navigation on the upper Me Kong and the centre of trade thereon.