Category: Lai Chau Travel Handbook

Lai Chau is a province in the Northwest region of Vietnam. Lai Chau Province is the most sparsely populated in Vietnam, and it shares a border with China. It was once a semi-independent White Tai confederation known as Sip Song Chau Tai, but was absorbed by France into French Indochina in the 1880s and subsequently became part of Vietnam following Vietnamese independence in 1954. It became part of the Northwest Autonomous Area of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1955 to 1975, when Lai Chau Province was formed. Dien Bien Province was carved out of Lai Châu in 2004.