Phou Bia

Where is Phou Bia?

Phou Bia is part of the Annamite Range.

You will find it in: Laos.

Summit: 18.982° N, 103.152° E

The story behind it

Phou Bia is not a sharp peak but a heavy, rounded massif on the southern edge of the Xiangkhouang plateau, with shoulders and side ridges that run out for many kilometres. Its slopes are covered in thick forest of oaks, pines and bamboo, and above about two thousand metres the trees grow short and crooked, hung with moss and orchids because cloud sits on them almost every day. Mornings begin cold and white with fog, and in the dry season the nights near the top can drop close to freezing, which is unusual for a tropical country. Streams that start here feed rivers running down to the Mekong. The height given for the mountain is not completely settled and the measurements vary by a few metres. The area around the summit is remote, and visitors are generally not allowed to go up.

Find it on the globe

Phou Bia is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.