This document provides an overview of Southeast Asia, including its landforms, climate, colonial history, population trends, economic development, key countries and cities. Some of the main points covered include the region's tropical climate and mix of islands and peninsulas, the impact of colonialism in creating a core-periphery economic system, recent economic growth led by countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, and ongoing issues related to population growth, urbanization, and balancing development across regions.

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Chapter 11 Lecture
World Regional
Geography
A Developmental Approach
11th Edition
Southeast Asia

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Chapter Learning Outcomes
• Give reasons for the degradation of Southeast Asia’s forests and coastal
environments.
• Outline the energy resource endowments and challenges confronting the region.
• Describe the economic role of Southeast Asia in the larger process of colonialism as
well as the function of ethnic Chinese in this economic system.
• Explain the economic growth characteristics of modernizer and reformer countries.
• Account for the diversity of development in Southeast Asia in relation to demographic
factors.
• Understand how Singapore’s economy is spatially embedded in the regional and
global economy.
• Specify the various ways race or ethnicity has driven the development process in
Malaysia.
• Identify the core-periphery relations between Java and outer island Indonesia as well
as recent government measures to relieve these geographic tensions.
• Describe the national and local problems associated with the geographic
concentration of economic growth in Thailand.
• Contrast experiences of Vietnam and Myanmar in their respective involvement with
the global economy.

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Map

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About the Region
• Region of large and small peninsulas and islands
• Two constituent subregions
• Mainland Southeast (SE) Asia
• Countries that are physically a part of the continent
– Vietnam
– Cambodia
– Laos
– Thailand
– Myanmar
• Insular SE Asia
– Malaysia
– Singapore
– Indonesia
– Brunei
– Timor-Leste
– The Philippines

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Landforms
• Wide expanse
– SE Asia stretches more than 3,000 miles.
– With surrounding oceans and seas included,
equal to India and neighboring states
– Situated almost entirely in tropics

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Landforms
• Mainland
– Numerous and broad interior alluvial river valleys
– Provide for substantial population concentrations and agricultural
production sustained by soil-enriching floodwaters
– Alternating east–west bands of mountain ranges and river valleys
– Most average 3,000–5,000 feet
• Insular
– Island and sea environment
– Most population clusters located along coastal plains
– Traditional economic activity focuses on agriculture, fishing, and
maritime trade.
– Sweeping volcanic arcs that have pushed to the edges of the Indian and
Pacific plates
– Many volcanic peaks reach 10,000 feet.
– At the edge of volcanic arcs are deep oceanic trenches marking tectonic
plate boundaries.

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Climate
• Monsoon climate
• Mainland
– Wet season: May–October
– Dry season: November–April
• Insular
– Much more complex monsoon season
– More copious rain during season

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Environmental Challenges
• Deforestation
• Coastal environments
• Urban air pollution

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Religions

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Colonialism
• Two time periods
1.1500 to 1800—Mercantile colonialism
2.1800 to 1945—Industrial colonialism
• Creation of core-periphery exchange
• Chinese middlemen

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Precolonial states of Southeast Asia

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Pre-European Empires
• Economic, political, and cultural cores are
the result of reemergence of Hinduism and
Buddhism.
• Monumental ruins at Angkor Thom and
Angkor Wat stand as testimony to agricultural
productivity and trade capabilities of this
pre-European economy.
• Srivijaya—A thalassocracy

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Modern Growth
• Two urgent needs
1. Diversify economic production.
2. Reduce dependence on exports of raw
materials.

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Population

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Population

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Economics

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Economics: Modernizers vs. Reformers
• Modernizers
– Members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
– Established 1967
– Manufacturing as engine of economic growth
– Foreign Direct Investment from the West
• Reformers
– Countries in 1970s and 1980s
– Previously socialist governments
– Resistant to globalization
– Laos
– Cambodia
– Vietnam
– Myanmar
– Joined ASEAN in 1990s
• ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA)—1992

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Urban vs. Rural Transformations
• Megacity regions
– Jakarta
– Manila
– Bangkok
– Known as Extended Metropolitan Regions
(EMRs)—Core inner and outer zones
comprising the larger urban area
• Fueled by FDI
• But is the outer zone truly “urban”?

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Disputed Claims

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Tourism
• In 2011, the travel and tourism industry contributed
10.9 percent or $237.4 billion to regional GDP and
directly or indirectly accounted for 8.7 percent of
total employment.
• Countries attracting the greatest regional share of
international tourists from 2000 to 2011 were Malaysia
(34.0%), Thailand (24.1%), and Singapore (13.7%).
• It is the diverse mix of touristic activities that makes
Southeast Asia an attractive traveler destination. Sun
and surf tourism is especially important in Thailand
(Phuket), the Philippines (Cebu),and along the coast of
Vietnam. Cultural heritage tourism, with destinations
including both precolonial and colonial landscapes, is
attractive in a number of countries.

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Tourism

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Singapore

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Singapore
• Thoroughly globalized economy
• Regional center of banking, transport, and service
industry
• Distinctive state
• 4.6 million population
• A city-state
• Smallest and most urbanized of all SE Asian countries
• Only developed nation in SE Asia where ethnic Chinese
constitute the majority of the population
• Regional and global shipping hub
• Global maritime center
• Producer services

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Singapore Economy
• Economy
– Diversified
– Regional headquarters for many international firms
– State-planned industrial parks have attracted FDI.
– Part of the global growth triangle
• Government
– Pervasive role of government critical to economy and
society
– Soft-authoritarian government

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Malaysia and Indonesia

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Malaysia
• Middle-income industrialized country
• Economy based on a wide variety of
electronics exports
• Spatially fragmented country
– West Malaysia—More densely populated
– East Malaysia—Sparsely populated state of
Sarawak and Sabah

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Malaysian Economy
• Since 1970s has emerged from a developing state
• New Economic Policy (NEP)
– Increase economic contributions of ethnic Malays
– This would be done at the expense of Chinese and
Western economic interests.
– Increase government funding of roads and other
infrastructural improvements to expand commercial
cultivation of rubber, oil palm, and coffee by native
smallholder farmers in frontier areas
• Movement toward postindustrial economy with
Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC)

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Indonesia
• Tied to resource exports
• Developing countries with problems of economically
integrating their respective far-flung archipelagos
• Archipelagic state is largest in SE Asia
• Most populous country in SE Asia
• Enlarged considerably when newly independent state
annexed the western half of New Guinea in 1963
– Forge national unity from a diverse array of ethnic groups
– Religious freedom respected, even though it is the most
populous Islamic country in the world.
• Population
– 231 million population
– Growth and distribution major issues

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Indonesian Initiatives
• Poverty eradication through widespread
adoption of hybrid rice seed and fertilizers
• Most of the economy is state-owned enterprises.
• Jakarta
– National capital region (primate city)
– Has attracted some export-oriented manufacturing
operations
• Electronic parts
• Footwear
• Household appliances

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Asian Financial Crisis of late 1990s
• Meltdown of Indonesian economy
• Forced resignation of Suharto in 1998
• Regional tensions associated with
economic disparities between core and
periphery

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December 26, 2004 Tsunami
• Tsunami—Seismic sea waves triggered by
energy released from deep earthquakes,
massive landslides, or volcanic eruptions
• Banda Aceh, Indonesia—Focal point
• 300,000 deaths in thirteen countries
– Indonesia—243,530
– India—18,389

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Phillipines

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The Phillipines
• 7,000 islands
• Early colonization by Spain
• Ceded to United States in 1898 after
Spanish–American War
• American culture domination has retarded
development of a national culture.
• 1946—Independence

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Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and
Vietnam

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Thailand
• Newly industrialized country
• FDI in a wide variety of industries, notably
in automobiles
• Never a Western possession
• Renamed from Siam in 1939
• Ruled by successive military governments
with constitutional monarchy
• Monarchy carries moral force.

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Thailand Economy
• Until late 1970s, economy was primarily
agriculture.
• Some benefit from association with West as
part of Vietnam War
• Has become center of SE Asia auto industry
• Economic growth has been restricted to
capital city region and EMR of Bangkok.
• Clustering has had several environmental
consequences

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Vietnam
• Major target of FDI
• Introduction of market-based economies in 1980s
• Conquered by Viets from China second century BC
• Next 2,000 dominated culturally and politically by China
• Captured by France in mid-to-late nineteenth century
• 1940s—Nationalist opposition forms under leadership of Communist
guerilla, Ho Chi Minh.
• Vietnam War (1958–1975)
– North
• Traditional core of Vietnamese culture
• Incubation for communism
• Allied with U.S.S.R.
– South
• Was capitalist
• French and U.S. influences
• 1975—Unification of North and South

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Vietnam Economy
• Positive developments
– FDI has been vehicle for economic turnaround.
– Primarily East Asian
– Specifically has targeted garments and footwear
for export
• Negative developments
– Increased sex workers
– Spread of HIV/AIDS

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Cambodia
• Slow economic rebound after Marxist-
inspired and horrifically murderous regime
• Heavily reliant on foreign aid
• Even more troubled than Vietnam
• Part of Vietnam War spilled over into
the East.
• Khmer Rouge—Genocide in the
“killing fields”

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Myanmar
• Resource-rich
• One of the last isolationist military governments in the world
• Led by authoritarian government
• Indigenous brand of socialism
• Well-endowed resource base
– Timber
– Rice
– Gems
– Gold
– Tin
– Petroleum
• A reformer country that has resisted globalization

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Summary of Chapter
• The many countries that comprise Southeast Asia and the
experience of being colonized by so many Western powers make
the region very different from South Asia and East Asia.
• In the immediate post-World War II period some countries chose to
open their economies to globalization and as modernizers
experienced rapid rates of economic growth with varying degrees of
government management. Others decided to remain economically
isolated based on socialist economic principles.
• Whether modernizer or reformer, the region’s physical environment
has suffered as a result of rapid economic growth.
• In Insular Southeast Asia, Singapore is the only rich and developed
country.
• In Mainland Southeast Asia, only Thailand has fully embraced
globalization and as a result is an upper middle-income country.