Pakxan (''Paksan'' or ''Muang Pakxan'') ( Lao ປາກຊັນ) (french: Paksane) is a district and a town in Bolikhamsai Province, in western Laos. It is the capital of

Pakxan District Pakxan (''Paksan'' or ''Muang Pakxan'') ( Lao ປາກຊັນ) (french: Paksane) is a district and a town in Bolikhamsai Province, in western Laos. It is the capital of Pakxan District. The Nam Xan River joins the Mekong River at Pakxan on ...

. The

Nam Xan River The Nam Xan River (french: Nam Sane) is a major river of west-central Laos. It flows from the mountains of central Laos through Borikham and joins the Mekong River The Mekong or Mekong River is a trans-boundary river in East Asia and So ...

joins the

Mekong River The Mekong or Mekong River is a trans-boundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth longest river and the third longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of , discharging of water annual ...

at Pakxan on the border with

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

, opposite

Bueng Kan Bueng Kan ( th, บึงกาฬ, ) is a town (''thesaban mueang'') in Mueang Bueng Kan district, in Bueng Kan province, far northeastern Thailand. It is the district capital and is on the Mekong River, opposite the Laotian town of Pakxan of ...

. Pakxan is connected to the south of Laos by Route 13.

History

Pakxan was founded in the late-19th century. The Pakxan region had experienced insecurity since the invasion by Annam in 1834, followed by invasions by the Siamese, and Siamese sovereignty over Laos in 1836, and especially after 1865 with the invasions of Haws or "red flags", gangs from southern China. These invasions began to reduce the populations of Xieng Khouang and Bolikhamsai, but it was the Siamese who completed the depopulation by deporting most of the Phou Eun inhabiting the region.Jean-Louis Archet, ''Formes et résultat des activités du monde rural dans le Koueng Borikhane (Laos)'', mémoire de géographie du sous-développement, Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, 1973, p.16-17 In 1876,

Rama V Chulalongkorn ( th, จุฬาลงกรณ์, 20 September 1853 – 23 October 1910) was the fifth monarch of Siam under the House of Chakri, titled Rama V. He was known to the Siamese of his time as ''Phra Phuttha Chao Luang'' (พร� ...

, King of Siam, ordered the creation of Bolikhamsai with the last survivors of the Haw invasion of 1874. Bolikhamsai was placed under the authority of Kha Luang Nong Khai. From 1885, the French who took over neighboring Vietnam, challenged Siamese sovereignty over Laos, and after Auguste Pavie's mission dating the Mekong to Luang Prabang, the Siamese were forced to leave the left bank of Mekong and evacuate the position they had created at the mouth of the

. At that time, Patchoum Muong (or Paxum) was the largest town near the confluence of the Nam Xan, but it is on the Nam Xan, a half-day by boat up the Mekong. In the course of the 1890s, missionaries of the Missions étrangères de Paris, attached to the mission of Christianity to a Bangkok-based Keng-Sadok, on the Mekong River, a few miles from the mouth of the Nam Xan. Then the missionaries occupied Pakxan, abandoned by the Siamese, and there built a church. In 1911, Bolikhamsai had about 61 villages with a population of about 4,000 inhabitants. In 1937, when Vientiane Province was cut in half, Pakxan alone had a population of 1,000 people and became the capital of the new province. Bolikhamsai Paksan tango7174

References

External links

* {{Districts of Central Laos Populated places in Bolikhamsai Province Populated places on the Mekong River Laos–Thailand border crossings Provincial capitals in Laos