The three countries of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam represent Indochina, located in Southeast Asia to the south of China and to the east of Thailand.  Like much of this part of the world Indochina was colonized by Europeans.  The French occupied Indochina for most of the nineteenth century and for the first half of the twentieth century.  The physical environment of Indochina is mostly mountainous.  Climate, the Indochina peninsula as a whole experiences a monsoon tropical climate type of environment.  The summer rains are brought by winds from the oceans leaving the peninsula subjected to typhoons during the late summer period.  The winters are cooler and drier, and are dominated by winds blowing outward from Asia’s interior.

The religions of Indochina are numerous, but the main religions are prevalent throughout the region.  Indian traders brought Hindu and Buddhist religions across the ocean from the west.  The distinctive Indian culture and architecture, reflected in temples of Angkor, Cambodia, led to the area that includes Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam being called Indochina.  People known as Mon and Khmer occupied the Cambodian area from the North and between A.D 800s and 1200s it was the center of the Khmer empire.  The language of Cambodia is Khmer while the religion is Buddhism.  Except for about a half million people which are Vietnamese, almost all 14 million people are ethnic Cambodian.  Vietnamese and Lao arrived in the territories that now form their national centers.  There are about 68 different ethnic groups in Laos with the largest of the groups being Lao.  They are linguistically and culturally related to the Thais and their religion along with Cambodia is Buddhism.  Almost nine-tenths of Vietnam’s people are ethnic Vietnamese.  They are closely related to the Chinese in many cultural aspects, including language and shared religious elements of Confucianism, Buddhism, and ancestor veneration.  Large Chinese minorities live in major countries in each of the three countries of Indochina