A land-bordered country, The Lao PDR is a country rich with diverse landscapes and ethnic populations. It is located in the heart of the Indochinese peninsula and is surrounded by China, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, providing potential for a strategic resource base and land-link to the Greater Mekong Subregion. Eighty per cent of the country is predominantly mountainous with cultivated floodplains. The country has an abundance of natural resources including mineral deposits and a wealth of forests, which cover more than 40 per cent of its total land surface.

The Lao PDR’s fauna are relatively well documented and monitored, consisting of 150 to more than 200 reported species of reptiles and amphibians, with at least 700 species of birds, over 90 known species of bats, over 100 species of large mammals, and about 500 species of fish.