Laos summit
Phou Bia
You can see 249 km from here, looking south-east.
Calculating the panorama…
Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.
The view
Up to 249 km away.
Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.
Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).
- 249 kmFarthest ridgelooking south-east
- 100%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 2Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 2,822 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 2 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.
The sun
The best sunsets are in February.
When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.
- Janwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset48%
- Febwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset55%
- Marwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset49%
- Aprwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset36%
- Maywestsets on an open horizon15%
- Junnorth-westsets on an open horizon7%
- Julnorth-westsets on an open horizon7%
- Augwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset8%
- Sepwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset19%
- Octwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset34%
- Novwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset49%
- Decsouth-west-2 min before the sea-level sunset48%
- Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
- Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
- %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).
The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.
The place
Phou Bia.
Mountain
Phou Bia is a summit in Laos, 2,822 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 249 km away, looking south-east.
2 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Phou Bia (2,819 m), 2 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 100% of the circle.
The skies are clearest in February.
Get there and stay
- Dorkban Guest Houseplace to stay · 9.5 km · 8 within 10 km
- Wattay International Airport (VTE)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 126 km in a straight lineCar hire at VTE airport (Vientiane)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The viewpoint and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.
Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 1named peaks within 5 kmພູເບຍ
- 1car parks within 3 km
- 8places to stay within 10 kmDorkban Guest House, Phu Bia Hotel, ເຮືອນພັກ ພັນມີໄຊ and 5 more
- other viewpoints within 5 km
- cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
- marked trails within 3 km
- shelters and huts within 5 km
- visitor centres within 5 km
- restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- campsites within 10 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
What you see from Phou Bia, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Peakyas7 mountains within 25 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Photographs
The view, as people saw it.
Other viewpoints nearby.
Phou Bia
Laos
- 71Viewyas Score
- 249 kmFarthest ridge
- 2Peaks in view
- 2,822 mAltitude
Fansipan
Vietnam · 375 km
- 70Viewyas Score
- 242 kmFarthest ridge
- 3Peaks in view
- 3,093 mAltitude
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q239485) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
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