- The Thai–Lao Border War, or known in Thai as Battle of Ban Romklao (Thai: สมรภูมิบ้านร่มเกล้า or ยุทธการบ้านร่มเกล้า; December 1987 – February 1988), was a short confrontation between Thai and Lao forces. It involved a dispute over the map made by French surveyors in 1907 to mark the borders between Siam and French Indochina in the southern Luang Prabang Range. Ownership of the village of Ban Romklao on the border of Phitsanulok Province and three small border villages on the edge of Uttaradit Province was left unclear. This is the same map underlying the Cambodian–Thai border dispute. The agreed criterion for determining ownership was the natural watershed, but the French map makers at times ignored this.[3] As the agreed-upon river Hoeng separated into two tributaries, both parties claimed different ones as the border, which, alongside logging disputes, gave rise to this conflict.
