Lao kip Lao kip The kip (; code: LAK; sign: ₭ or ₭N; ; officially: ເງີນກີບລາວ, lit. "currency Lao kip") is the currency of Laos since 1952. Historically, one kip was divided into 100 "att" (). In 1945–1946, the Free Lao government in Vientiane issued a series of paper money in denominations of 10, 20 and 50 att and 10 kip before the French authorities took control of the region. The kip was reintroduced in 1952, replacing the French Indochinese piastre at par. The kip (also called a "piastre" in French) was sub-divided into 100 att (Lao: ອັດ) or "cents" (French: Centimes).
Leonard Kip a legal career when news of the mining bonanza at Sutter's Mill excited his curiosity and ambition. He became one of the fabled Forty-Niners, making the long voyage round Cape Horn to California. The rawness of San Francisco intrigued him without pleasing him. He saw it as “running wild after amusement” and seeking wealth in an “unnatural excitement which could not last”. After several months in mining country near Stockton, Kip left California predicting the collapse not only of gold fever but of any significant future the state due to “a climate presenting the most insufferable extremes of heat and