Laotians
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
c. 4 million (excluding Isan) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Laos c. 3,200,000 |
|
 Thailand
|
222,432 (excluding Isan people)(2010) |
 France
|
200,000 |
 United States
|
200,000(2015) |
 Cambodia
|
23,000 (excluding Steung Treng with 60,000 people and Ratanakiri with 18,400 people) |
 Canada
|
22,000(2011) |
 Burma
|
17,000 |
 Vietnam
|
14,928 (Excluding Điện Biên Province with 440,000 people, Sơn La Province with 400,000 and Lai Châu Province with 350,000)(2009) |
| Religion | |
| Theravada Buddhism, Laotian folk religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| other Tai peoples (e.g. Black Tai people, Shan people, Dai people, Ahom people) | |
The Lao are a Tai ethnic group originating from present-day southern China. They are the majority native ethnic group of Laos at 53.2%. The majority of Lao people adhere to Theravada Buddhism. They are a Tai-Kadai people. They are closely related or synonymous with Isan people, who are also speakers of Lao language, but native to Thailand.
Today, significant Laotian diaspora can be found outside Southeast Asia, primarily in the United States, France and Canada.
Western use of the terms Lao people and Laotian has a loose meaning. Both terms can sometimes be referred to the population of Laos in general, aside from or alongside ethnic Lao.
The etymology of the word Lao is uncertain, although it may be related to tribes known as the Ai Lao (Lao: ອ້າຽລາວ, Isan: อ้ายลาว, Chinese: 哀牢; pinyin: Āiláo, Vietnamese: ai lao) who appear in Han Dynasty records in China and Vietnam as a people of what is now Yunnan Province. Tribes descended from the Ai Lao included the Tai tribes that migrated to Southeast Asia.
According to Michel Ferlus (2009), ethnonym and autonym of the Lao people (ລາວ); nationality of the inhabitants of Laos is formed by the monosyllabization of the Austroasiatic etymon for 'human being' *k.raw. The peoples named Lao (lǎo 獠), supposed to be the ancestors of Lao and some other Tai-Kadai populations, settled in the upper Tonkin and in parts of Yúnnán and Guìzhōu during the Táng times.
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Wikipedia