SOUTHEAST ASIA

region of Asia lying roughly between the Indian and the Pacific oceans and between the Asian landmass and Australia. It consists of two portions: mainland, or peninsular, Southeast Asia, comprising Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Singapore, and insular, or archipelagic, Southeast Asia, comprising Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines; Malaysia lies on both mainland (the southern portion of the Malay Peninsula) and insular (the northern part of Borneo) Southeast Asia. Although Indonesia and the Philippines are discussed in this article in their regional context, these two countries are treated separately in Encyclopdia Britannica. Area (land and sea) 5,000,000 square miles (13,000,000 square km), of which about 1,736,000 square miles (4,496,000 square km) is land. Pop. (1993 est.) 462,000,000. vast region of Asia situated east of the Indian subcontinent and south of China. It consists of two dissimilar portions: a continental projection (commonly called mainland Southeast Asia) and a string of archipelagoes to the south and east of the mainland (insular Southeast Asia). Extending some 700 miles (1,100 kilometres) southward from the mainland into insular Southeast Asia is the Malay Peninsula; this peninsula structurally is part of the mainland, but it also shares many ecological and cultural affinities with the surrounding islands and thus functions as a bridge between the two regions. Mainland Southeast Asia is divided into the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Vietnam, and the small city-state of Singapore at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula; Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, which occupy the eastern portion of the mainland, often are collectively called the Indochinese Peninsula. Malaysia is both mainland and insular, with a western portion on the Malay Peninsula and an eastern part on the island of Borneo. Except for the small sultanate of Brunei (also on Borneo), the remainder of insular Southeast Asia consists of the archipelagic nations of Indonesia and the Philippines. Southeast Asia stretches some 4,000 miles at its greatest extent (roughly from northwest to southeast) and encompasses some 5,000,000 square miles (13,000,000 square kilometres) of land and sea, of which about 1,736,000 square miles is land. Mount Hkakabo in northern Myanmar on the border with China, at 19,295 feet (5,881 metres), is the highest peak of mainland Southeast Asia. Although the modern nations of the region are sometimes thought of as being small, they arewith the exceptions of Singapore and Bruneicomparatively large. Indonesia, for example, is more than 3,000 miles from west to east (exceeding the west-east extent of the continental United States) and more than 1,000 miles from north to south; the area of Laos is only slightly smaller than that of the United Kingdom; and Myanmar is considerably larger than France. All of Southeast Asia falls within the tropical and subtropical climatic zones, and much of it receives considerable annual precipitation. It is subject to an extensive and regular monsoonal weather system (i.e., one in which the prevailing winds reverse direction every six months) that produces marked wet and dry periods in most of the region. Southeast Asia's landscape is characterized by three intermingled physical elements: mountain ranges, plains and plateaus, and water in the form of both shallow seas and extensive drainage systems. Of these, the rivers probably have been of the greatest historical and cultural significance, for waterways have decisively shaped forms of settlement and agriculture, determined fundamental political and economic patterns, and helped define the nature of Southeast Asians' worldview and distinctive cultural syncretism. It also has been of great importance that Southeast Asia, which is the most easily accessible tropical region in the world, lies strategically astride the sea passage between East Asia and the Middle EasternMediterranean world. Within this broad outline, Southeast Asia is perhaps the most diverse region on Earth. The number of large and small ecological niches is more than matched by a staggering variety of economic, social, and cultural niches Southeast Asians have developed for themselves; hundreds of ethnic groups and languages have been identified. Under these circumstances, it often is difficult to keep in mind the region's underlying unity, and it is understandable that Southeast Asia should so often be treated as a miscellaneous collection of cultures that simply do not quite fit anywhere else. Yet from ancient times Southeast Asia has been considered by its neighbours to be a region in its own right and not merely an extension of their own lands. The Chinese called it Nanyang and the Japanese Nan'yo, both names meaning South Seas, and South Asians used such terms as Suvarnabhumi (Sanskrit: Land of Gold) to describe the area. Modern scholarship increasingly has yielded evidence of broad commonalities uniting the peoples of the region across time. Studies in historical linguistics, for example, have suggested that the vast majority of Southeast Asian languageseven many of those previously considered to have separate originseither sprang from common roots or have been long and inseparably intertwined. Despite inevitable variation among societies, common views of gender, family structure, and social hierarchy and mobility may be discerned throughout mainland and insular Southeast Asia, and a broadly common commercial and cultural inheritance has continued to affect the entire region for several millennia. These and other commonalities have yet to produce a conscious or precise Southeast Asian identity, but they have given substance to the idea of Southeast Asia as a definable world region and have provided a framework for the comparative study of its components. William H. Frederick Additional reading General works George Kurian (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Third World, 4th ed., 3 vol. (1992), and Atlas of the Third World, 2nd ed. (1992); and Richard Ulack and Gyula Pauer, Atlas of Southeast Asia (1989), contain general descriptions of a variety of aspects of the individual countries. Comprehensive annual publications include The Far East and Australasia and Asia Yearbook. Physical and human geography Two classic geography texts are E.H.G. Dobby, South East Asia, 11th ed. (1973); and Charles A. Fisher, South-East Asia, 2nd ed. (1966). Keith Buchanan, The Southeast Asian World (1967), is older but still a useful overview. Joseph E. Spencer and William L. Thomas, Asia, East by South, 2nd ed. (1971); Joseph E. Spencer, Oriental Asia (1973); and R.D. Hill (ed.) South-East Asia (1979), also are valuable. Detailed studies of specific topics include Charles S. Hutchison, Geological Evolution of South-East Asia (1988); K. Takahashi and H. Arakawa (eds.), Climates of Southern and Western Asia (1981); N. Mark Collins, Jeffrey A. Sayer, and Timothy C. Whitmore (eds.), The Conservation Atlas of Tropical Forests: Asia and the Pacific (1991); and Timothy C. Whitmore, Tropical Rain Forests of the Far East, 2nd ed. (1984).Encyclopedia of World Cultures, vol. 5, East and Southeast Asia, ed. by Paul Hockings (1993), contains good introductory essays on the region's numerous ethnic groups; and Frank M. LeBar, Gerald C. Hickey, and John K. Musgrave, Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia (1964), though dated, is still a good general work. Ronald Provencher, Mainland Southeast Asia (1975), is an anthropological treatment. Victor Purcell, The Chinese in Southeast Asia, 2nd ed. (1965, reissued 1980), is a classic work. Gehan Wijeyewardene (ed.), Ethnic Groups Across National Boundaries in Mainland Southeast Asia (1990), concentrates on the Thai border area. Also useful are Guy Hunter, South-East AsiaRace, Culture, and Nation (1966); Robbins Burling, Hill Farms and Padi Fields: Life in Mainland Southeast Asia (1965); Jonathan Rigg, Southeast Asia: A Region in Transition (1991); and Fred R. von der Mehden, Religion and Modernization in Southeast Asia (1986). Among works on urbanization are T.G. McGee, The Southeast Asian City (1967), older but still useful; and Paul Wheatley, Nagara and Commandery: Origins of the Southeast Asian Urban Traditions (1983).General surveys of the region's economy include Chris Dixon, South East Asia in the World-Economy (1991); and Brian Wawn, The Economies of the ASEAN Countries (1982). Among the studies of economic development are Donald W. Fryer, Emerging Southeast Asia, 2nd ed. (1979), a well-written, insightful book; Denis Dwyer (ed.), South East Asian Development (1990); David Drakakis-Smith, Pacific Asia (1992), a brief text; and Richard Robison, Kevin Hewison, and Richard Higgott (eds.), Southeast Asia in the 1980s: The Politics of Economic Crisis (1987). Discussions of resource utilization include George Kent and Mark J. Valencia (eds.), Marine Policy in Southeast Asia (1985); Lim Teck Ghee and Mark J. Valencia (eds.), Conflict Over Natural Resources in South-east Asia and the Pacific (1990); and Mark J. Valencia, South-east Asian Seas: Oil Under Troubled Waters (1985). International Association of Agricultural Economists, World Atlas of Agriculture, vol. 2, Asia and Oceania (1973), offers a good background treatment. Thomas R. Leinbach and Chia Lin Sien, South-East Asian Transport (1989), discusses regional transport development. Thomas R. Leinbach