Map of Lai Chau province

Lai Chau is a province in the Northwest region of Vietnam. Lai Chau Province is the most sparsely populated in Vietnam. It shares a border with China. It once was a semi-independent White Tai confederation known as Sipsongchuthai, but was absorbed by France into French Indochina in the 1880s and subsequently became part of Vietnam following Vietnamese independence in 1954. It became part of the Northwest Autonomous Area of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1955 to 1975, when Lai Chau Province was formed. Dien Bien Province was carved out of Lai Chau in 2004.