Editing History of Laos (section)

==Lan Xang (1353–1707)==
{{main|Lan Xang}}
[[File:Southeast Asian history - Around 1540.png|thumb|right|Lan Xang's zone of influence and neighbours, c. 1540]]
Lan Xang recovered and reached the apex of its political and economic power during the seventeenth century under King [[Sourigna Vongsa]], who became the longest reigning of Lan Xang's monarchs (1637–1694) after defeating 4 rival claimants to the throne. In the 1640s the first European explorers to leave a detailed account of the kingdom arrived looking to establish trade and secure Christian converts. These European visitors reported on the capital's (Vientiane) prosperity and imposing religious buildings. King Sourigna Vongsa was known to uphold the law stricty, an episode exemplified this when he did not intervene when his son (and successor) was sentenced to death when it was found that he seduced the wife of a senior court official. Upon the death of Sourigna Vongsa a succession dispute and exploitation by Ayutthaya and Dai Viet, led to the kingdom of Lan Xang being ultimately divided into constituent kingdoms in 1707.<ref name="Viravond"/><ref name="Manich"/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Church |first=Peter |title=A Short History of South-East Asia |publisher=Wiley |year=2017 |edition=6 |location=Singapore |pages=77 |language=en}}</ref>