Vietnam vs Laos

Why people mix them up

Vietnam and Laos are neighbours in mainland Southeast Asia, both former parts of French Indochina, and both are one-party states. Their long shared border follows the Annamite mountain range, and on a map Laos looks like a mirror image of Vietnam's narrow northern section. Both flags are mainly red, and people often ask which country lies on the coast or which one the Mekong runs through.

How to tell them apart

• Vietnam has a long coastline on the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin; Laos is landlocked.
• Vietnam's flag is red with a large yellow star; Laos's has red, blue and red horizontal stripes with a white disc in the centre.
• The capitals are Hanoi (Vietnam) and Vientiane (Laos). Vientiane lies on the Mekong, facing Thailand.
• Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet with many accent marks; Lao uses its own script.
• Vietnam is the larger country, about 331,000 km² against Laos's roughly 237,000 km², with many more people.
• The currencies are the dong (Vietnam) and the kip (Laos).

Memory hook

Vietnam is the long "S" running down the coast; Laos is the Locked-in country inland behind it, with the Mekong as its western edge for much of the way.

On the map

Find the eastern coast of mainland Southeast Asia, south of China. The long S-shaped country running the whole length of that coast, from China to the Mekong Delta, is Vietnam. Laos lies directly to its west, landlocked between Vietnam and Thailand, and also bordering China, Myanmar and Cambodia. If the country you are tapping has a coast, it is Vietnam.