Value of inscription

At the confluence of the great Mekong River and its tributary, the gentle Khan River, is the Town of Luang Prabang in the northern Lao province of Luang Prabang. Its inscription on the World Heritage List in 1995, in recognition of its outstanding universal value by the international community, represented, for both government and people, an affirmation of national identity and independence, a hallmark after nearly half a century of war.

The initial elation over the World Heritage status, celebrated with great pride by not only the inhabitants of Luang Prabang but by all citizens of Laos, has become seventeen years later a source of debate in the choice of the city's future. What exactly is the outstanding universal value of this World Heritage site, which the government, on behalf of its current and future generation of citizens, has undertaken to protect, conserve and enhance forever? In what way will the values-based urban development strategy differ from those that other cities of South-East Asia have experienced by design or by default? Moreover, how will this choice in the options of development impact the multi-ethnic population of Laos given the geopolitical dynamics of the region, in the state we now know as the Lao People's Democratic Republic?

Outstanding universal value and cultural pluralism

Options for development of Luang Prabang, both as a city with 60,000 residents and as a province with a population of 425,000, must be understood in the context of Laos, a small land-locked country, bordered by Myanmar (Burma) and China to the north-west, Viet Nam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west.