Luang Nam Tha Province – Bordered by Myanmar to the north-west. China to the north. Udomxai to the south and east. and Bokeo to the south-west, Luang Nam Tha (Nam Tha for short) is a mountainous province, with a high number of Lao Sung and other minorities. The provincial population is 114,500, made up of 39 classified ethnicities (the largest number in the nation), including Hmong, Akha, Mien. Samtao, Thai Daeng, Thai Lu, Thai Neua, Thai Khao. Thai Kalom, Khamu, Lamet, Lao Loum, Shan and Yunnanese. As in Udomxai Province. the Chinese presence is increasing rapidly with the arrival of skilled laborers from Yunnan.
In the early 1960s the western half of the province became a hotbed of CIA activity; the infamous William Young, a missionary’s son raised in Lahu and Shan villages in northern Myanmar and northern Thailand, built a small CIA-financed, pan-tribal anti- communist army in Ban Thuay, Nam Yu and Vieng Phukha (Lima Sites 118A, 118 and 109). Much of the opium and heroin transported by the CIA’s Air America and other air services either originated in or came through Luang Nam Tha. Westerners still’ seem to carry a romance for Nam Tha and there is a higher than average number of World Bank, UN, NGO and commercial projects under way in the province.
South of the provincial capital, a 2224- sq-km area of monsoon forest wedged between the Nam Ha and Nam Tha rivers was declared the Nam Ha NBCA in 1993. Containing some of the most densely forested regions (96% primary forest cover) in Laos, the Nam Ha NBCA protects a number of rare mammal species. A second, larger piece of land to the west of the Nam Ha is under consideration for similar status.
The Chinese and Lao governments recently opened the border crossing at Boten (pronounced Baw Ten) to foreign travelers, making Luang Nam Tha a new gate way into Laos and ushering in a new era of overland travel between China, Laos and Thailand.
