1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Laos
Compare this sourced profile of Vientiane, Laos before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Vientiane—840,940, Asia/Vientiane, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: capital of Laos.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Vientiane is GeoNames ID 1651944. Its recorded administrative path is Vientiane Prefecture → Laos, and GeoNames classifies the place as a capital of a political entity. Vientiane occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-03-29; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Vientiane ranks 667 by recorded population. Inside the 1 selected Laos entries it ranks 1; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 385. Its 840,940 population value is 1.00 times the 840,940 median for the country cohort and 0.83 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Vientiane is rank 1 among the 1 selected Laos entries, so a percentage band would overstate this small cohort. Vientiane's recorded value stays within one quarter of the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Vientiane's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Vinh at 335.741 km with 790,000 recorded people; Thanh Hóa at 390.566 km with 850,000 recorded people; Chiang Mai at 392.331 km with 127,240 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 56.59 km. Compared with Vinh, Vientiane's recorded population is 1.06 times as large. Against Vientiane, Vinh follows Thanh Pho Vinh → Nghe An Province → Vietnam in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Vietnam cohort rather than Laos, uses Asia/Bangkok instead of Asia/Vientiane, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than capital of a political entity. Its recorded population is below Vientiane's. Against Vientiane, Thanh Hóa follows Thanh Pho Thanh Hoa → Thanh Hoa Province → Vietnam in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Vietnam cohort rather than Laos, uses Asia/Bangkok instead of Asia/Vientiane, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than capital of a political entity. Its recorded population is above Vientiane's. Against Vientiane, Chiang Mai follows Amphoe Mueang Chiang Mai → Chiang Mai → Thailand in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the selected Thailand cohort rather than Laos, uses Asia/Bangkok instead of Asia/Vientiane, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than capital of a political entity. Its recorded population is below Vientiane's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 1,135 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Vientiane's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 1651944, the coordinate pair 17.9667 / 102.6000, country rank 1 of 1, and neighbor GeoNames 1562798 at 335.741 km bind Vientiane to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Vientiane's reference point is 17.9667° north and 102.6000° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Vientiane is shared by 1 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLC is shared by 129 rows. Vientiane's row carries a first-order administrative label but no second-order label. Vientiane's point falls in the lower-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Vientiane's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Vientiane, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Vientiane's closest other entries in this atlas are Vinh (335.741 km), Thanh Hóa (390.566 km), Chiang Mai (392.331 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Vientiane, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-03-29; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.