Laos: An 1867 drawing by French expeditioner Louis Delaporte of Wat Phra Keo temple in Vientiane.

Vientiane, formerly Sri Sattanak, was razed to the ground and looted by Siamese armies in 1827. The city was left in grave disrepair and became overgrown and nearly unpopulated until the French colonists arrived and took over the region in 1893. Vientiane became the capital of the French protectorate of Laos in 1899 and was rebuilt with renovated Buddhist temples surrounded by French architecture. Vientiane remained the ‘chef-lieu’—the district capital—of French Laos until 1949.

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Pictures From History