East and Southeast Asia
a. Introducing the Realm
East Asia is surrounded by a series of mountain ranges in the west, Mongolia and
Russia in the north, and Southeast Asia to the south. The Himalayas border Tibet and
Nepal; the Karakoram Ranges, Pamirs, and the Tian Shan Mountains shadow Central
Asia; and the Altay Mountains are next to Russia. The Himalayan Mountains are among
the highest mountain ranges in the world, and Mt. Everest is the planet’s tallest peak.
These high ranges create a rain shadow effect, generating the dry arid conditions of type
B climates that dominate Western China. The desert conditions of Western China give
rise to a large uninhabitable region in its center. Melting snow from the high elevations
feeds many of the streams that transition into the major rivers that flow toward the east.
Created by tectonic plate action, the many mountain ranges are also home to
earthquakes and tremors that are devastating to human livelihood. The Indian tectonic
plate is still pushing northward into the Eurasian plate, forcing the Himalayan ranges
upward. With an average elevation of 15,000 feet, the Tibetan Plateau is the largest
plateau region of the world. It has high elevations and type H climates. The plateau is
sparsely populated and the only places with human habitation are the river valleys. Lhasa
is the largest city of the sparsely populated region. Sometimes called “the Roof of the
World,” the Tibetan Plateau is a land of superlatives. The small amount of precipitation
that occurs often comes in the form of hailstorms mixed with wind. Its landscape is
generally rocky and barren.
The vast arid regions of Western China extend eastward into the Gobi Desert
between Mongolia and China. Colder type D climates dominate the Mongolian steppe
and northern China. The eastern coast of the Asian continent is home to islands and
peninsulas, which include Taiwan and the countries of Japan and North and South Korea.
North Korea’s type D climates are similar to the northern tier of the United States,
comparable to North Dakota. Taiwan is farther south, producing a warmer tropical type A
climate. The mountainous islands of Japan have been formed as a result of tectonic plates
and are prone to earthquakes. Since water moderates temperature, the coastal areas of
East Asia have more moderate temperatures than the interior areas do. A type C climate
is dominant in Japan, but the north has a colder type D climate. The densely populated
fertile river valleys of central and southeastern China are matched by contrasting
economic conditions. Rich alluvial soils and moderate temperatures create excellent
farmland that provides enormous food production to fuel an ever-growing population.
Most of China’s population lives in its eastern region, called China Proper, with
type C climates, fresh water, and good soils. China Proper has dense population clusters
that correspond to the areas of type C climate that extend south from Shanghai to Hong
Kong. Around the world, most humans have gravitated toward type C climates. These
climates have produced fertile agricultural lands that provide an abundance of food for
the enormous Chinese population. The North China Plain at the mouth of the Yellow
River (Huang He River) has rich farmland and is the most densely populated region in
China. To the south the temperatures are warmer, with hot and humid summers and dry,
warm winters. The climates of China Proper are conducive for human habitation, which
has transformed the region into a highly populated human community. The border region
next to Vietnam along with Hainan Island has a type A climate with hot and humid
summers with moderate cooling during the winter season.
Northwest of Beijing is Inner Mongolia and the Gobi Desert, a desert that extends
into the independent country of Mongolia. Arid type B climates dominate the region all
the way to the southern half of Mongolia. The northern half of Mongolia is colder with
continental type D climates. In the higher elevations of the highlands in western
Mongolia, there is a section of type H highland climates. Its climate and location identify
Mongolia as a landlocked country in the northern latitudes with a low level of
precipitation. The areas of type D climate that extend north from Beijing through
Northeast China at times receive more precipitation than northern Mongolia. Northeast
China features China’s great forests and excellent agricultural land. Many of China’s
abundant natural mineral resources are found in this area. Balancing mineral extraction
with the preservation of agricultural land and timber resources is a perennial issue.
North of the Great Wall and encompassing the autonomous region of Inner
Mongolia is the vast Mongolian steppe, which includes broad flat grasslands that extend
north into the highlands. North China includes the Yellow River basin as well as the
municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin. Areas around parts of the Yellow River (Huang
He) are superb agricultural lands, including vast areas of loess that have been terraced for
cultivation. Loess is an extremely fine silt or windblown soil that is yellow in color in this
region which give identification to the Yellow River known in China as the Huang He
River. Deciduous forests continue to exist in this region, despite aggressive clearcutting
for agricultural purposes. The Great Wall of China rests atop hills in this region.
There are two major river systems that provide fresh water to the vast agricultural
regions of the central part of China Proper. The Yellow River (Huang He River) is named
after the light-colored silt that washes into the river. It flows from the Tibetan highlands
through the North China Plain into the Yellow Sea. Dams, canals, and irrigation projects
along the river provide water for extensive agricultural operations. Crops of wheat,
sorghum, corn, and soybeans are common with vegetables, fruit, and tobacco grown in
smaller plots. The North China Plain has to grow enough food to feed its 1,000 people
per square mile average density. This plain does not usually produce a food surplus
because of the high demand from the large population of the region. Beijing borders the
North China Plain. Its nearest port, Tianjin, is an autonomous city and continues to
expand and grow, creating an economic center of industrial activity that relies on the
peripheral regions for food and raw materials. Cotton is an example of a key industrial
crop grown here.
The Yangtze River (Chang Jiang River) flows out of the Tibetan Plateau through
the Sichuan Province, through the Three Gorges region and its lower basin into the East
China Sea. Agricultural production along the river includes extensive rice and wheat
farming. Large cities are located on this river, including Wuhan and Chongqing. Nanjing
and Shanghai are situated near the delta on the coast. Shanghai is the largest city in China
and is a growing metropolis. The Three Gorges Dam of the Yangtze River is the world’s
largest dam. It produces a large percentage of the electricity for central China.
Oceangoing ships can travel up the Yangtze to Wuhan and, utilizing locks in the Three
Gorges Dam, these cargo vessels can travel all the way upriver to Chongqing. The
Yangtze River is a valuable and vital transportation corridor for the transport of goods
between periphery and core and between the different urban centers of activity. Sichuan
is among the top five provinces in China in terms of population and is dependent on the
Yangtze River system to provide for its needs and connect it with the rest of China.
The earliest Chinese dynasty dates to around 2200 BC. It was located in the rich
agricultural region of the North China Plain. Organized as a political system, Chinese
dynasties created the Chinese state, which provided for a continuous transfer of power,
ideas, and culture from one generation to another. From 206 to 220 CE, the Han Dynasty
established the Chinese identity; Chinese people became known as People of Han or Han
Chinese. The last dynasty, the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty,
Europeans colonized the Americas, Africa, and South Asia, and it was only a
matter of time before technology, larger ships, and the European invasion reached East
Asia. European colonialism arrived in China during the Qing Dynasty. China had been a
developing state for centuries; long before the empires of Rome and Greece were at their
peak. Various cities flourished with the concepts of clean drinking water, transportation,
and technology. Paper, gunpowder, and printing were used in China centuries before they
arrived in Europe. The Silk Road, which crossed the often dangerous elevations of the
high mountain passes, was the main link between China and Europe.
European colonialism in China slowed after 1911, and World War I severely
weakened European powers. The Japanese colonizers, on the other hand, continued to
make advancements. Japan did not have far to travel to resupply troops and support its
military. In China, a medical doctor by the name of Dr. Sun Yat-sen promoted an
independent Chinese Republic, free from dynastic rule, Japan, or European colonial
influence. Political parties of Nationalists and Communists vied to establish the republic.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen died in 1925. The Nationalists, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek,
defeated the Communists and established a national government. Foreigners were
evicted. The Communists were driven out of politics.
As the republic was established, Nationalists, Communists, and Japan conducted a
three-way war over the control of China. Japan’s military took control of parts of
Northeast China, known as Manchuria, and were making advancements on the eastern
coast. Nationalists defeated the Communists for power and were pushing them into the
mountains. The Chinese people were in support of the two parties working together to
defeat the Japanese. The Long March of 1934 was a 6,000-mile retreat by the
Communists through rural China, pursued by Nationalist forces. The people of the
countryside gave aid to the efforts of the Communists. A main concern in China was the
defeat of Japan, a country that was brutally killing massive numbers of China’s people in
their aggressive war.
In 1945, the defeat of Japan in World War II by the United States changed many
things. Japan’s admission of defeat prompted the end of Japanese control of territory in
China, Taiwan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. By 1948, the Communists, who
were becoming well organized, were defeating the Nationalists. Chiang Kai-shek
gathered his people and what Chinese treasures he could and fled by boat to the island of
Formosa (Taiwan), which in 1945 had just been freed from Japan. Taiwan was declared
the official Republic of China (ROC). The Communists took over the mainland
government. In 1949, Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the establishment of the
People’s Republic of China (PRC) with its capital in Peking (Beijing). In other parts of
East Asia, Japan suffered a devastating defeat in World War II. Its infrastructure was
destroyed, and its colonies were lost. Japan had to begin the long process of rebuilding its
country. Korea was finally liberated from the Chinese dynasties and Japanese colonialism
but began to experience an internal political division. Political structures in the second
half of the twentieth century in East Asia were vastly different from the political
structures that had been in place when the century began.
b. Emerging China
China is the world’s largest Communist country. Isolated from Europeans and
Central Asians by the Himalayas and other high mountain ranges, Chinese culture has
endured for thousands of years. Rich in history, a tour through China would reveal a
people with a deep, longstanding love of the land, traditions as old as recorded history,
and a spirit of commerce and hard work that sustains them to this day. China is about the
same land size as the United States in physical area. China only has an eastern coast,
whereas the United States has both an eastern and a western coast. If you recall the
climate types and the relationship between climate and population, you can deduce the
location of the heavily populated regions of China.
The form of communism promoted by Mao Zedong after 1949 was not the same
as the type of communism practiced in the Soviet Union. Various Communist
experiments were forced upon the Chinese people, with disastrous results. For example,
in 1958, the Great Leap Forward was announced. In this program, people were divided
into communes, and armies of farmers were to work the land while citizens were asked to
donate their pots and pans to produce scrap metal and increase the country’s industrial
output. The goal was to improve production and increase efficiency. The opposite
occurred, and millions of Chinese died of starvation during this era.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966 and continued
until Mao died in 1976, wreaked havoc on 4,000 years of Chinese traditional culture in a
purge of elitism and a drive toward total loyalty to the Communist Party. Armies of
indoctrinated students were released into the countryside and the cities to report anyone
opposing the party line. Schools were closed, universities were attacked, and intellectuals
were killed. Anyone suspected of subversion might be tortured into signing a confession.
Violence, anarchy, and economic disaster followed this onslaught of anti-Democratic
terror. Estimates vary, but most sources indicate that about 30 million people lost their
lives during the Mao Zedong era through purges, starvation, and conflict.
The Chinese Communist Party’s approach when it took power was to institute a
“planned economy.” A planned economy, sometimes called a command economy, stands
in marked contrast to a market economy. In a planned economy, the government controls
all aspects of the economy, including what goods and products should be produced, how
much of each should be produced, how products will be sold or distributed and for what
(if any) price, who should have jobs and what jobs they should have, how much people
will be paid, and all other decisions related to the economy. In a planned economy,
businesses are nationalized; that is, businesses are owned by the government rather than
by any private entity. By contrast, in a market economy, businesses are privately owned,
and most decisions are driven by consumer and investor behavior.
China can be divided into regions utilizing various criteria: political regions,
economic regions, natural regions, and climatic regions to name a few. The Communist
government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is made up of a number of types of
political units. The main region of China Proper includes twenty-two provinces,
including the island province of Hainan in the south. The island formerly known as
Formosa, now called Taiwan, is considered by China to be its twentythird province but in
actuality remains under its own government—the Republic of China (ROC). Mainland
China includes five autonomous regions, each with a designated minority group; four
municipalities; and two special administrative regions (SARs) that hold considerable
autonomy. All but Taiwan are included in the region called mainland China, except the
SARs Hong Kong and Macau.
The autonomous regions in the periphery have non-Han majorities and would
prefer to be independent but are under the Chinese government control. These five
autonomous regions are Tibet, Guangxi, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia. It
should be noted that “autonomous” is how China would describe these regions, but that
description is arguable. In reality, the autonomous regions have very little legal ability to
govern themselves and, in fact, have less autonomy than the provinces to pass their own
legislation and are highly controlled by the central government in Beijing.
The two SARs of China are Hong Kong and Macau. Macau was a former
Portuguese colony that became a special administrative region (SAR) of China in 1999.
Hong Kong was part of the British Empire and later a British protectorate until its
governance reverted to China in 1997. Known informally under Chinese law as “one
country, two systems,” Hong Kong was guaranteed a great degree of autonomy for at
least the first fifty years after the transfer from Britain to China. China is responsible for
defense and some portions of foreign affairs, while the SARs are responsible for most
other matters of state, including their legal systems, law enforcement, immigration laws,
monetary systems, customs policies, and others.
With 4,000 years of culture to build on, China continues to press forward into the
twenty-first century. In 2020, China had more people than any other country in the world,
about 1.4 billion. Most of its people live in China Proper, in the eastern regions of the
country. China Proper has the best agricultural lands in the country, the most fertile river
basins, and the most moderate climates. For perspective, China has over 1 billion more
people than the United States, with most of those people living in the southeastern
portion of China. During Mao’s time, there was little concern for population growth, but
in recent decades China has implemented measures to deal with its large population.
The government of China has took action to address its growing population and
the country’s ability to provide for the needs of its growing populace. In 1978, China
implemented the one-child-only statute, limiting family size to one child. The policy
allowed for exemptions under certain conditions. Couples living in rural areas and people
of minoritized status were two examples of exempted conditions and were permitted
more than one child, especially if the first child was a girl. Peripheral administrative
regions like Macau and Hong Kong were exempt. The one-child-only policy was
implemented in an attempt to address environmental, economic, and social issues related
to population growth. This policy helped reduce China’s potential population by
hundreds of millions of people, but the controversial policy was not easy to implement or
make effective. There were growing concerns regarding the policy’s negative impact on
society. In response to the one-child-only policy, there were widespread reports of female
infanticide and a higher number of abortions
China has about fifty-six ethnic groups with Han Chinese being the largest, at
about 90 percent of the country’s population. Some of the largest minority groups of the
remaining 10 percent include Zhuang (Tai) in the south, Manchu in the northeast,
Mongolian in the north central region, Uyghur in Western China, and Tibetan in Tibet.
The main language in China, Mandarin, is spoken in different ways in different parts of
the country, particularly in the north and the south. The number of languages in China
(over 290) roughly corresponds to the number of ethnic groups in the country
Since 1991, China has shifted its economy from a closed system with a centrally
planned, government-controlled market to one with more open trade and a flexible
production structure. These economic reforms have allowed capitalistic tendencies to
drive production, have promoted increased involvement in private enterprise, and have
increased international investment in the Chinese economy. China has phased out
collective farms and has increased agricultural production; the approach to free enterprise
and international trade and investment has become more open; and the Chinese economy
has grown at a rapid rate. Open trade and interaction with the global market have allowed
China to acquire and build its information and communication technology. Computer and
internet use in China has opened up many sectors to new opportunities and employment
possibilities. China’s policy of creating special economic zones (SEZs) has increased
urban and economic growth in coastal cities, fueling the strong rural-to-urban shift in the
population
The fast-paced growth of the Chinese economy in the past decade has brought
with it some negative consequences. The exploitation of resources and the heavy
utilization of the environment have resulted in serious soil erosion and air pollution. The
water table in many parts of China has decreased because of heavy demands on the
nation’s water supply. Arable land is being lost to erosion and inadequate land-use
practices. Rural areas have not received consideration or resources equal to the coastal
cities, so conditions remain poor for most rural people. Half of China’s population earns
low pay while a fortunate few earn high salaries. Unemployment is at an elevated level
for tens of millions of migrants who shift from location to location, looking for work.
There is also an unfortunate degree of corruption within the government and state-run
offices.
During the 1980s, following the death of Mao Zedong, China went through a
transition period. The new leader, Deng Xiaoping, realized that in order for China to
compete in the world market, its economy would have to be modernized. The challenge
was to open up to the outside without the outside placing pressure on the Communist
system inside of China. The so-called Bamboo Curtain, which referred to the restriction
of movement of goods and people across Chinese borders, diminished. To attract
business and tap into the global market economy, China established Special Economic
Zones (SEZs) along the coast at strategic port cities. SEZs attracted international
corporations who wanted to manufacture goods cheaply, while China’s billion-plus
population provided an enormous labor pool and consumer market. China’s
modernization efforts paid off in the 1990s, when world trade increased and U.S. trade
with China exploded.
By the year 2000, China had profited greatly because of its expanded
manufacturing capacity. The coastal cities and the SEZs had become core industrial
centers, attracting enormous numbers of migrants—most of them poor agricultural
workers—looking for work in the factories. Compared to other jobs, factory jobs are
prized employment opportunities. Rural-to-urban shift has rapidly increased and China’s
urban growth is occurring at unprecedented rates. Chinese people are moving to the cities
looking for work, just like people in many other areas of Asia or Africa. The SEZs
encourage multinational corporations to move their overseas operations to China and take
advantage of the lower labor and production costs. China benefits from the new business
opportunities and by the creation of jobs for its citizens. China has the opportunity to
acquire technology and expertise from its foreign partners. SEZs operate under the
objectives of providing tax incentives for foreign companies, exporting market-driven
manufactured products, and creating joint partnerships so that everyone benefits. In the
past decade, four main cities have been designated as SEZs, along with the entire
province of Hainan Island to the south. Many coastal cities were also designated as
development areas for industrial expansion.
To understand the larger political picture of China’s position in the world, one has
to understand China’s geography. In terms of its land area, China is a large country. It
includes an immense peripheral region surrounding China Proper, which consists of
minority populations and buffer states. The core of China is the Han Chinese heartland of
China Proper. This is where most of the population lives and where the best agricultural
land for food production is located. The surrounding periphery consists of autonomous
regions and minority populations, including Tibet, Western China, Inner Mongolia, and
Northwestern China. Tibet is a buffer state between China and India; high mountains
provide a buffer between India and Tibet. Nepal, Bhutan, and Kashmir are also buffer
states between China and South Asia. High mountain ranges extend all along China’s
western boundary
Western China has a majority Muslim population closely aligned with ethnic
groups in Central Asia. Inner Mongolia and the independent country of Mongolia create a
buffer between China and Russia. China’s actual border with Russia is remote and
distant. Northeast China was historically called Manchuria and is home to the Manchus,
who are not Han Chinese. Even the isolated sovereign country of North Korea acts as a
buffer between China and the world superpower of the United States through its ally
South Korea. The border with Southeast Asia is mountainous with difficult terrain and
very little access. All these buffer regions insulate the Han heartland from the outside.
China’s power base is actually a territorial island insulated and isolated from the rest of
the world. Technology and trade have opened links between the Han Chinese heartland
and the global marketplace.
In the scope of geopolitics (the study of the geography of international relations),
the core of China is protected on all fronts except one, the eastern coast. Coastal China is
accessible to anyone with a ship. Coastal China is where Japan and the European
colonialists such as France, Great Britain, Portugal, and Germany all came to carve up
China for their imperial advancements. Also located along the coast is the island of
Taiwan with the independent government of the ROC. Taiwan has been on friendly terms
with the United States, which has posed a threat to the Chinese mainland. The coast
makes China vulnerable. The challenge for China has been to neutralize the coastal threat
and reduce its vulnerability. This is where the SEZs make a difference: the Chinese
economy has relied on the SEZs to attract foreign corporations to conduct their business
with the Chinese in these coastal cities. The economic world has forged ties with the
Chinese along China’s coastal waters. The extensive coastal development creates a
situation where it is now in everyone’s best interest to make the coastal region of China
safe and prosperous.
In a geopolitical perspective, China has historically operated under three main
premises. The first premise is that China must secure a buffer zone in the periphery,
which includes the regions along China’s borders. Second, the country needs to continue
to maintain unity within the Han Chinese majority that anchors the core region of China
Proper. The third component of China’s geopolitical strategy is to protect and secure its
vulnerable coastal region. The country needs to find a way to marginalize outside
influence and keep the heartland protected from invaders. These three geopolitical
directives were designed centuries ago before the postindustrial economy emerged with
the Information Age, but the main themes of securing and protecting China remain.
c. China’s Periphery
Hong Kong is a former British colony and includes a number of islands on the
southern coast of China. Hong Kong includes an excellent port, Victoria—one of the best
in Asia. Victoria’s deepwater port is on the interior side of Hong Kong Island and is
protected from the sea, allowing ship access to an extensive sheltered harbor area. To the
north of Hong Kong Island is a peninsula called the New Territories, which the British
agreed to lease from China in 1897 for a period of ninety-nine years. Kowloon is the port
on the opposite side of Victoria in the New Territories. Bordering the New Territories on
the mainland is the rapidly growing industrial city of Shenzhen.
Hong Kong was a major entry point into China for Britain during the colonial era.
The colony was a British outpost that created a doorway for British expansion into China.
The port allowed for an early trade relationship to become established. The trade
relationship was broken during the Korean War in the 1950s. Britain and China found
themselves on opposite sides of the war. China was a newly created Communist country
and sided with North Korea; Great Britain was a capitalist country and sided with South
Korea. The boundary between the busy port of Hong Kong and China was closed. This
left Hong Kong with a world-class port but no access to its main markets in China.
Instead of closing the port and shutting down shipping, the business community of Hong
Kong took advantage of its unique situation and first-rate port to create a world trade
center. Ships would import raw materials, which would be processed or manufactured
into finished products. The products would then be shipped back out at a profit.
Taiwan is separated from the Chinese mainland by the Taiwan Strait. In 2020, the
population of the island, which is about the size in physical area as that of Switzerland or
the U.S. state of Maryland, was just over 23 million. The island is mountainous and has
rugged national parks in its interior, while most of the people in Taiwan live in bustling
cities along the coast. Taiwan’s push for good education and technical skills for its
citizens has paid off in the form of high incomes and an industrialized economy. After
World War II, when Mainland China raised its Bamboo Curtain, the United States cut its
trade relations with the Communist government. However, the United States did trade a
great deal with the Nationalists in Taiwan. The deep tensions that exist between China
and Taiwan are easy to understand given the history that led to Taiwan’s current
existence. One of the flash points in China-Taiwan relations has been the “One China”
policy. Originally asserted by Beijing, the principle contends that there is only one
indivisible China, which encompasses all of China, including Taiwan, Hong Kong,
Macau, and Tibet.
During the Cold War, the sizeable population of mainland China was attractive to
U.S. corporations that sought trade with China. In 1972, for the benefit of the United
States and to counter the influence of the Soviet Union, U.S. president Richard Nixon
organized a visit to Beijing that opened the door to United States-China diplomatic
relations. There were conditions placed on the open door agreement that followed. One
condition that mainland China imposed was for the U.S. government to recognize the
Communist government in Beijing as the official China. To do this, the United States had
to move their U.S. embassy from Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan, to Beijing and
recognize only the Beijing government as the official China. The United States agreed to
this policy. As a result, no government official in the U.S. State Department, cabinet level
or higher, can officially visit Taiwan; at the same time, no equal-level diplomat from
Taiwan can officially visit the United States. Taiwan maintains an independent
democratic government. This policy placed Taiwan in an ambiguous position: Is Taiwan
an independent country or is it a part of mainland China? The United States, however,
continues its economic trade with Taiwan and supports its independent government.
Located in mountainous southwestern China, Tibet is classified as one of China’s
autonomous regions, a disputed political arrangement. It is debatable whether Tibet or
any of the other Chinese regions are actually autonomous. The legal structures actually
allow for very little self-governance, and most new initiatives require approval from the
Chinese central government. Tibet had been an independent entity through much of its
history and governed itself as a Buddhist theocracy. Its theocratic political system
established the Dalai Lama as both the head of state and the religious leader of the
Tibetan people.
Tibet has had a complicated history with China. This is as true of its early history
as it is today. In its early history, Tibet was an independent kingdom with its unique type
of Buddhism as its state religion. It was during this era that a system of Lamaism, a
hierarchy of monks or other religious leaders, took hold. China’s influence in Tibet
waxed and waned during the later years of the kingdom, in the tenth century. The
Mongols subsumed Tibet into their empire during the first part of their conquests in the
thirteenth century. However, in the fifteenth century, the Mongols gave considerable
local authority to the Dalai Lama, making him the spiritual leader as well a powerful
political figure.
The independent country of Mongolia ranks as the world’s nineteenth-largest in
terms of square miles. Mongolia is the second-largest landlocked country shares a similar
geography with much of Kazakhstan, which is the world’s largest landlocked nation;
Mongolia is the second-largest landlocked country. Despite Mongolia’s large land area
(slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Alaska or the country of Iran), its population is
about 3 million, and the country is the least densely populated country in the world.
Mountains, high plains, and grass-covered steppe cover much of Mongolia, a country that
receives only between four and ten inches of rain per year, precipitation that usually
comes in the form of snow. The Gobi Desert to the south, extending from southern
Mongolia into northern China, receives even less precipitation. Inner Mongolia is a
sparsely inhabited autonomous region south of Mongolia that is governed by the Chinese
government.
Mongolia’s modern capital city of Ulan Bator (Ulaanbaatar) is home to about one-
third of the people of Mongolia; it has the coldest average temperature of any world
capital. Mongolia’s history includes the great Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan, which
was established in the thirteenth century. The Soviet Union used Mongolia as a buffer
state with China. Mongolia’s Communist party dominated politics until the Soviet Union
collapsed in the 1990s. The current government in Ulan Bator has to contend with
Mongolia’s position between the two large economies of Russia and China.
Tibetan Buddhism is the dominant religion in Mongolia and is practiced by about
50 percent of the population. The Communist influence is evident in that approximately
40 percent of the population considers itself nonreligious. Most of the people are of
Mongol ethnicity. Today, about 30 percent of the people are still seminomadic and
migrate seasonally to accommodate good grazing for their livestock. A round yurt, which
can be constructed at whatever location is selected for the season and disassembled for
mobility, is the traditional dwelling. Mongolian culture and heritage revolve around a
rural agrarian culture with an extensive reliance on the horse. Archery, wrestling, and
equestrian events are some of the most popular sporting activities.
Mongolia’s economy has traditionally been centered on agriculture, but mining
has grown in recent years to be a major economic sector. Mongolia has rich mineral
resources of coal, molybdenum, copper, gold, tin, and tungsten. Being landlocked cuts
Mongolia off from the global economy, but the large amounts of mineral reserves are in
demand by core industrial areas for manufacturing and should boost the poor economic
conditions that dominate Mongolia’s economy. China has increased its business presence
in Mongolia and has been drawing Mongolia’s attention away from its former Soviet ally
to become a major trading partner.
d. Japan and Korea (North and South)
Japan consists of islands that lie along the Pacific Rim east of China and across
the Sea of Japan from the Korean Peninsula. Most of the archipelago, which has more
than three thousand islands, is just north of 30 degree latitude. Four islands make up most
of the country: Shikoku, Kyushu, Hokkaido, and Honshu. The islands have tall mountains
originating from volcanic activity. Many of the volcanoes are active, including the
famous Mount Fuji. The physical area of all Japan’s islands together is equivalent to
about the size of the U.S. state of Montana or slightly larger than Germany. The
mountainous islands of Japan extend into two climate zones. All but the northern region
of Japan has a type C climate. The island of Hokkaido in northern Japan has a type D
climate and receives enough snow for downhill skiing. Japan hosted the Winter Olympics
in 1972 and in 1998. Mt. Fuji, located just west of Tokyo, is a widely photographed
mountain because of its symmetrical volcanic cone.
Cities like Mexico City, São Paulo, and Bombay, which each have vast self-
constructed outer communities, each could be the world’s largest city but lacks firm
census data to account for its population. Tokyo is considered to be the largest
metropolitan urban area in the world, with a population of 37.3 million. The Tokyo
metropolitan area is located in an extensive agricultural region called the Kanto Plain and
includes the conurbation of Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kawasaki. The second-largest urban
area in Japan is located southwest of Tokyo in the Kansai District, and includes the cities
of Kobe, Osaka, and Kyoto. Japan is a mountainous region, and most of its large cities
are located in low-lying areas along the coast. Most of the population (92 percent) lives in
urban areas such as Japan’s core area, an urbanized region from Tokyo to Nagasaki. The
2020 population of Japan was listed at about 124.6 million, which is slightly less than
Mexico. It is unfortunate that the world’s largest metropolitan area is built on one of the
worst places to build a city. Tokyo is located where three tectonic plates meet: the
Eurasian plate, the Philippine plate, and the Pacific plate. Earthquakes result when these
plates shift, leading to possibly extensive damage and destruction. In 1923, a large
earthquake struck the Tokyo area and killed an estimated 143,000 people. In 1995, an
earthquake near Kobe killed about 5,500 people and injured another 26,000.
The country of Japan is an important study in isolation geography and economic
development. For centuries, shogun lords and samurai warriors ruled Japan, and Japan’s
society was highly organized and structured. Urban centers were well planned, and
skilled artisans developed methods of creating high-grade metal products. While
agriculture was always important, Japan always existed as a semi-urban community
because the mountainous terrain forced most of the population to live along the country’s
coasts. Without a large rural population to begin with, Japan never really experienced the
rural-to-urban shift common in the rest of the world. Coastal fishing, always a prominent
economic activity, remains so today. The capital city of Tokyo was formerly called Edo
and was a major city even before the colonial era. Japan developed its own unique type of
urbanized cultural heritage.
Encounters with European colonial ships prompted Japan to industrialize. For the
most part, the Japanese kept the Europeans out and only traded with select ships that were
allowed to approach the shores. The fact that European ships were there at all was enough
to convince the Japanese to evaluate their position in the world. During the colonial era,
Britain was the most avid colonizer with the largest and best-equipped navy on the high
seas. Britain colonized parts of the Americas, the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and
Australia and was advancing in East Asia when they encountered the Japanese. Both
Japan and Great Britain are island countries. Japan reasoned that if Great Britain could
become so powerful, they should also have the potential to become powerful. Japan
encompassed a number of islands and had more land area than Britain, but Japan did not
have the coal and iron ore reserves that Britain had.
Since 1945, Japan has risen to become Asia’s economic superpower and the
economic center of one of the three core areas of the world. Japanese manufacturing has
set a standard for global production. For example, think of all the automobiles that are
Japanese products: Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Nissan, Isuzu, Mazda, and
Suzuki. How many Russian, Brazilian, Chinese, or Indonesian autos are exported to the
global market? The term “economic tiger” is used in Asia to indicate an entity with an
aggressive and fast-growing economy. Japan has surpassed this benchmark and is called
the economic dragon of Asia. The four most significant economic tigers competing with
Japan are Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea. Japan came back from total
devastation in 1945 to become a world economic superpower.
Japan’s recovery in the last half of the century was remarkable. If an island nation
like Japan could accomplish this rapid growth in its economy, why couldn’t other similar-
sized countries accomplish the same level of growth? What was it that caused the
Japanese people to not only recover so quickly but rise above the world’s standard to
excel in their economic endeavors? The answer could be related to the fact that Japan
already had an industrialized and urbanized society before the war. The United States did
help rebuild some of Japan’s infrastructure that had been destroyed during World War II
—things like ports and transportation systems to help bring aid and provide for
humanitarian support. However, the Japanese people were able to not only recover from
the devastation of World War II but rise to the level of an economic superpower to
compete with the United States. Japan used internal organization and strong centripetal
dynamics to create a highly functional and cohesive society that focused its drive and
fortitude on creating a manufacturing sector that catapulted the country’s economy from
devastation to financial success.
Japan is a homogeneous society. In 2010, all but 1 percent of the population was
ethnically Japanese. Japan resembles a nation-state, where people of a common heritage
and aspirations hold to a unified government. The data will change as the population ages
and the need for workers increase. The homogeneous demographics of Japan provides a
strong centripetal force that unites the people under one culture and one language.
Religious allegiances in Japan vary with half of the people indicating nonreligious
ideologies. Shintoism and Buddhism are the main religious traditions. Shintoism includes
a veneration of ancestors and the divine forces of nature. There is no one single written
text for Shintoism; the religion is a loosely knit set of concepts based on morality,
attitude, sensibility, and right practice. It is possible for a Shinto priest to conduct a
wedding for a couple, whereas the funeral (hopefully taking place much later) for either
of the spouses might be conducted by a Buddhist priest. The Eastern Buddhism that is
practiced in Japan is more meditative in nature than mystical.
Modernization has brought new opportunities and problems for the Japanese
people. With a highly urban and industrial society, personal incomes in Japan are high
and family size is quite low, at about 1.2 children. The replacement level for a given
population is about 2.1 children, which means Japan has a declining population. The
population is aging and there are not enough young people to take entry-level jobs. The
family has been at the center of Japanese tradition, and older adults have been venerated
and honored. As the country has become more economically developed, higher incomes
for young people have prompted a shift toward convenience and consumer amenities.
Consumer goods are available, but all the oil and about 60 percent of the food products
have to be imported. During the off season, fruit, for example, is expensive. Beef is at a
premium price, so fish is a staple source of protein. Income levels are high, but the cost of
living in places like Tokyo is also quite high.
The Korean Peninsula juts out into the Pacific Rim from northwestern Asia. The
peninsula is bound by the Sea of Japan (the East Sea) and the Yellow Sea. North and
South Korea share the peninsula and have been separated by a demilitarized zone (DMZ)
since 1953. To the west and north is China and to the far north along the coast is Russia.
Korea borders China by the Yellow Sea and the Yalu and Tumen rivers to the north.
Japan is located just east of the Korean Peninsula across the Korea Strait. The capital city
of North Korea is Pyongyang, and Seoul is the capital of South Korea.
North and South Korea have very different, yet related, environmental issues,
primarily related to the degree of industrialization. With a low level of industrialism,
North Korea has severe issues of water pollution as well as deforestation and related soil
erosion and degradation. Other issues in North Korea include inadequate supplies of
clean drinking water and many waterborne diseases. South Korea has water pollution
associated with sewage discharge and industrial effluent from its many industrial centers.
Air pollution is severe at times in the larger cities, which also contributes to higher levels
of acid rain. The physical size in square miles of North Korea or South Korea is similar to
the physical area of Cuba or the U.S. state of Kentucky. North Korea is slightly larger,
and South Korea is slightly smaller. For centuries, Korea was a unified kingdom that was
often invaded by outsiders. After the fall of the Chinese Qing (Manchu) Dynasty, the
Japanese took control of the Korean Peninsula (1910) and controlled it as a colony.
Japanese colonial rule ended in 1945 when the United States defeated Japan, forcing it to
give up its colonial possessions. The structure of modern Korea is a result of the ending
of World War II.
The government of North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or
DPRK) was formed with the leadership of Communist dictator Kim Il Sung, who shaped
his country with a mix of Soviet and Chinese authoritarian rule. Having few personal
freedoms, the people worked hard to rebuild a state. Using the threat of a U.S. military
invasion as a means of rallying his people, Kim Il Sung built up a military of more than 1
million soldiers, one of the largest in the world. People could not travel in or out of the
country without strict regulation. North Korea existed without much notice until the
1990s, when conditions changed.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, North Korea lost a valued source of
financial support and oil. Without fuel and funding, many of the factories closed.
Unemployment rates rose significantly. Meanwhile, China adopted a more open posture
and began to increase its level of trade with the West. The result was that China began to
lose interest in propping up North Korea politically. North Korea was facing serious
problems. Massive food shortages caused famine and starvation. Thousands of people
died. Kim Il Sung died in 1994 and the country lost their “Great Leader.” He had ruled
the country since World War II and in the end was deified as a god to be worshiped by
the people.
In 1993, South Korea became a fully fledged democracy with its first
democratically elected president. Seoul is the capital city and is home to over 10 million
people. Seoul is located just south of the Cease-Fire Line, also known as the DMZ, which
is referred to in general terms as the thirty-eighth parallel, even though it does not follow
it exactly. The United States has many military installations along the DMZ.
South Korea manufactures automobiles, electronic goods, and textiles that are
sold around the world. South Korea has a democratic government that has used state
capitalism to develop its economy. After the World War II era, South Korea was ruled by
a military government that implemented land reform and received external economic aid.
Large agricultural estates were broken up and redistributed to the people. Agricultural
production increased to meet the demands of the population. South Korea has a higher
level of agricultural production than North Korea and can provide food for its larger
population. A once-modest manufacturing sector has grown to become a major
production center for export trade. In 1987, South Korea ended its military-style
government and held its first free presidential election under a revised democratic
constitution.
The 50 million people who live in South Korea have a much higher standard of
living than the residents of North Korea. Personal income in the north is at subsistence
level, while personal income in the south is similar to that of other developed countries.
The economic growth of the south was a result of state-controlled capitalism, rather than
free-enterprise capitalism. The state has controlled or subsidized most of the industrial
operations and sold its products in the global marketplace. Giant corporations, which
forced industrialization along the coastal region, have promoted South Korea as a leading
shipbuilding nation. South Korean corporations include Daewoo, Samsung, Kia Motors,
Hyundai, and the Orion Group—all with major exports around the world. As an
economic tiger, South Korea continues to reform its economic system to adapt to global
economic conditions.
What if North Korea and South Korea would become unified again? In the field
of geography, there is a concept of regional complementarity, which exists when two
separate regions possess qualities that would work to complement each if unified into one
unit. North and South Korea are the classic illustration of regional complementarity. The
North is mountainous and has access to minerals, coal, iron ore, and nitrates (fertilizers)
that are needed in the South for industrialization and food production. The South has the
most farmland and can produce large harvests of rice and other food crops. The South has
industrial technology and capital needed for development in the North. If and when these
two countries are reunited, they could work well and compliment each other as an
economic unit.
The harder question is how and under what circumstances the two Koreas could
ever come to terms of unification. What about the 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. soldiers along
the DMZ? What type of government would the unified Korea have? There are many
young people in South Korea that would like to see the U.S. military leave Korea and the
two sides united. The generation of soldiers that survived the Korean War in the 1950s
understood the bitterness and difficulties caused by the division. This segment of the
population is highly supportive of maintaining the presence of the U.S. military on the
border with North Korea. Unification is not likely to take place until this generation
either passes away or comes to terms with unification. The brutal dictatorship of Kim
Jong-un and his predecessors, with his claimed nuclear capabilities, has been a main
barrier to unification. This is a political division of people with a similar ethnicity and
heritage. The geography of this situation is similar to that of East and West Germany
after World War II and during the Cold War. Korea may have different qualities than
Germany, but unification may be possible under certain conditions, foremost being
different leadership in the north.
e. The Mainland Countries
The elongated state of Vietnam is slightly larger than Italy and about three times
the size of the U.S. state of Kentucky. In 2020 it was estimated to have a population of
about 102 million people. Thirty-seven percent of the population is under age twenty-
five. This indicates that the population was only about half its current size at the end of
the Vietnam War. Vietnam has two main urban core areas: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in
the south and the capital, Hanoi, in the north. The middle region of Vietnam is narrow,
with higher elevation. Each core area is located along a major river delta. The Red River
delta is located east of Hanoi in the north, and the mighty Mekong River delta is located
next to Saigon in the south. These river deltas deposit silt from upstream and provide
excellent farmland for growing multiple crops of rice and food grains per year.
Vietnam has a tropical type A climate with a long coastline. Fishing provides
protein to balance out nutritional needs. More than 55 percent of the population works in
agriculture. Family size has dropped dramatically because of population growth and a
trend toward urbanization. The fertility rate is now below replacement, which was at 2.01
in 2020. Rural-to-urban shift has caused the two main urban core cities to grow rapidly.
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is the largest city in Vietnam and has a port that can
accommodate oceangoing vessels. Hanoi, the capital, is not a port city and is located
inland from the nearest port of Haiphong on the coast of the Gulf of Tonkin.
An understanding of Vietnam is not complete without understanding the changes
in political control the country of Vietnam has experienced. Different Chinese dynasties
controlled Vietnam at different times. When France colonized Vietnam, it imposed the
French language as the lingua franca and Christianity as the main religion. Both changes
met resistance, but the religious persecution of Buddhism by the French colonizers
created harsh adversarial conditions within the culture. The French domination started in
1858. The Japanese replaced it in 1940; this lasted until the end of World War II. With
the defeat of Japan in 1945, the French desired to regain control of Vietnam. The French
aggressively pushed into the country, but met serious resistance and were finally defeated
in 1954 with their loss at the battle of Dien Bien Phu.
For the past three decades, Vietnam has been recovering and integrating itself
with the global economy. Its population has doubled; most of the population was born
after the Vietnam War. Their main goal is to seek out opportunities and advantages to
provide for themselves and their families. Vietnam has been a rural agrarian society. The
two main core cities, however, became access points for the outside world, and the
outside world is discovering them. Looking for cheap labor and economic profits,
economic tigers such as Taiwan started turning to Vietnam to set up light manufacturing
operations in the 1990s. People from the rural areas started migrating to the cities looking
for employment. Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) has about 8.8 million people and has a
special economic zone (SEZ) located nearby. Rural-to-urban shift has rapidly increased.
After 1975, the city of Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City after the victorious
Communist leader, Ho Chi Minh. Many older people who live there and who live in the
United States still refer to it as Saigon.
The geography of Laos centers on the Mekong River basin and rugged mountain
terrain. Laos is landlocked. Vietnam shields Laos from the South China Sea to the east
and Cambodia to the south. It doesn’t have a port city to the outside world. The
mountains reach up to 9,242 feet. The type A climate provides a rainy season and a dry
season. The rains usually fall between May and November, followed by a dry season for
the remainder of the year. The Mekong River flows through the land and provides fresh
water, irrigation, and transportation. The country’s capital and largest city, Vientiane, is
located on the Mekong River. Laos is about the same size in area as Romania or the U.S.
state of Utah.
Cambodia is about the same size in area as Syria or the U.S. state of Missouri.
The population in 2020 was estimated at 17.3 million. The Khmers created the Angkor
Empire, which reached its peak between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. Preceding the
colonial period, the Angkor Empire entered into a long era of decline. France took control
of the region in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Japan took control of the region
before World War II and then relinquished it when they surrendered to end World War II.
France regained control of Cambodia after the Japanese army was defeated. Cambodia
finally received independence from France in 1953. Warfare over the control of the
country has been a major influence on shaping a common society.
Cambodia is working to become a democratic and open country with established
trade relationships with global markets. The people have struggled to create a stable
society that can rebound from their legacy of turmoil and conflict. The country’s
population of over 17 million is relatively young. More than half the population is under
age twenty-five; one-third is under fifteen. The rural areas and the generations who
remain there continue to lack the basic amenities of modern society. Education,
electricity, and modern infrastructure are lacking. More than half the population works in
agriculture. Since less than 25 percent of the population lives in cities, Cambodia is likely
to experience a high rural-to-urban shift in its future.
Thailand is larger than Laos and Cambodia combined but smaller than Burma.
The physical regions that make up Thailand include the mountainous north, where peaks
reach up to 8,415 feet; the large southeastern plateau bordering the Mekong River; and
the mainly flat valley that dominates the center of the country. The southern part of the
country includes the narrow isthmus that broadens out to create the Malay Peninsula. The
tropical type A climate has dry and rainy seasons similar to Cambodia. The weather
pattern in the main part of Thailand, north of the Malay Peninsula, has three seasons. The
main rainy season lasts between June and October, when the southwest monsoon arrives
with heavy rain clouds from over the Indian Ocean. After the rainy season, the land cools
off and starts to receive the northeast monsoon, which is a cool dry wind that blows from
November to February. Considered the dry season, its characteristics are lower humidity
and cooler temperatures. From March to May, the temperatures rise and the land heats
up. Then the cycle starts over again with the introduction of the rainy season. The
weather pattern in the southern part of Thailand in the Malay Peninsula receives more
rain throughout the year, with two rainy seasons that peak from April through May and
then again from October through December.
The Union of Myanmar (Union of Burma) is the official name for Burma. Since
1989, the military authorities in Burma have promoted the name Myanmar as a
conventional name for their state. The U.S. government and many other governments
have not recognized or accepted the name change. Some groups within Burma do not
accept the name because the translation of Myanmar is also the name of an ethnic
minority in Burma. The use of the name Burma or Myanmar is split around the world and
within the country.
f. The Insular Region (Islands of Southeast Asia)
The insular region of Southeast Asia includes the countries of Malaysia,
Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Of the Southeast Asian
countries, East Timor most recently gained its independence, as was mentioned in the
previous lesson. In comparing these island nations, extensive diversity in all aspects will
be found. There are major differences in cultural, economic, and political dynamics, and
in the ethnic groups that make up the dominant majorities in each. There is also a high
level of linguistic and religious diversity. The physical geography varies from island to
island; some have high mountain relief and others are low-lying and relatively flat.
Active tectonic plate action in the region causes earthquakes and volcanic activity,
resulting in destruction of infrastructure and loss of life; both acutely impact human
activities.
Malaysia is a country made up of various British colonies that came together as a
federation and then became an independent country. Britain started establishing colonies
in the region in the late 1700s. The two main areas include the western colonies on the
Malay Peninsula and the eastern colonies on the island of Borneo. The western
settlements were part of the Malay Peninsula, which included the colonies of Pinang and
Singapore. Eventually, the British took control of the eastern colonies of Brunei,
Sarawak, and Sabah on the island of Borneo. In 1957, the western colonies on the
mainland peninsula broke from their British colonizers and became an independent
country called the Federation of Malaya. In 1963, the British Borneo colonies of Sarawak
and Sabah joined the Federation of Malaya to form the current country, which is called
Malaysia. In 1965, Singapore broke off from Malaysia and became an independent
country. Brunei, which was still a British protectorate, became independent in 1984.
Malaysia’s culture is diverse in that several major religions are practiced within
its borders. Islam is considered the official religion and is supported by at least 60 percent
of the population. About 20 percent of the people are Buddhists, 10 percent Christians,
and 6 percent Hindu. The remaining percentages of the population include traditional
Chinese religions and local traditional beliefs. In this Islamic country, there are concerns
that Muslims get preferential treatment by government programs and policies. There are
even special judicial legal courts for Muslims only to work out issues regarding marriage,
custody, inheritance, or other conflicting Islamic issues regarding faith and obligation.
This court only hears Islamic issues and no other legal matters. There have been
movements by minority extremist groups that would like to see Malaysia shift toward a
true Islamic state, complete with the Sharia Criminal Code as the law of the land. The
movement, however, has been cracked down on by the government. Since the 9-11
attacks on New York City in the United States, there has been more concern about
extremist religious views
Under British colonial rule, the island of Singapore was included in the Malaysian
federation. It broke away and became independent in 1965. It is a small island measuring
about thirty miles long at its widest point. Singapore is about 242 square miles in area.
Singapore’s most valuable resource is its relative location. Singapore is similar to Hong
Kong in its development. With a good port, Singapore is a hub for ships sailing between
Europe and China. It serves Southeast Asia as an entrepôt, or break-of-bulk point, where
goods are offloaded from large ships and transported to smaller vessels for distribution to
the Southeast Asian community.
The country of Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago state, consisting of
more than 13,466 islands, of which 922 are permanently inhabited. Indonesia is the
sixteenth-largest country in the world by area. The combined area of all the islands and
regions of Indonesia would equal about the size of the country of Mexico. The country
shares land borders with the Borneo side of Malaysia, the western half of the island of
Timor, and the western portion of the island of New Guinea, which is shared with the
country of Papua New Guinea.
The country’s location on both sides of the equator provides a tropical type A
climate, complete with a monsoon season. Average rainfall can vary from seventy to 240
inches per year. The highest mountain is in West Papua and rises to about 16,024 feet.
Indonesia is located on the Pacific Rim, where tectonic plate activity produces
earthquakes and volcanic activity. The country is home to over 150 active volcanoes,
including two of the most famous ones, Krakatoa and Tambora. Both had devastating
eruptions in the past two centuries. One of the most violent volcanic explosions ever
recorded in human history came from Krakatoa, which is located between the islands of
Java and Sumatra. A series of eruptions in 1883 were heard as far away as the coast of
Africa. Shockwaves reverberated around the globe seven times. Ash erupted into the
atmosphere to a height of about fifty miles. The official death toll was 36,417, but
estimates from local sources place it as high as 120,000. Global temperatures fell by
about 2°F, and weather patterns were disrupted for the next five years. Krakatoa remains
active. Over the past few decades, the volcanic peak has been growing at the average rate
of about five inches per week.
There are noticeable similarities between the oil-rich sheikdoms of the Persian
Gulf region in the Middle East and the small sultanate of Brunei on the northern coast of
Borneo. Bordered by Sarawak, the sultanate is actually two small separate regions along
the coast of the South China Sea. The former British protectorate of Brunei is today a
major oil and natural gas exporter. It provides a high standard of living for its small
population. The compact country is only half the size in area as Lebanon or about the size
of the U.S. state of Delaware. The country’s population estimate for 2020 was listed at
about 471,103. Brunei is attracting immigrants seeking opportunities and advantages. It is
called a sultanate because the kingdom has been ruled by sultans (Islamic rulers) from the
same family for the past six centuries.
Located on the eastern side of the Southeast Asian community is the archipelago
state of the Philippines. With more than 7,641 islands, many volcanic peaks, and an
expanse of coastal waterways, the Philippines is home to more than 110 million people in
a combined land area about the size of Italy or the U.S. state of Arizona. The Spanish
colonized the Philippines. The name is taken from Spain’s sixteen-century King Philip II.
Spain relinquished its claim on the Philippines to the United States in 1898 after its defeat
in the Spanish-American War. The people of the Philippines wanted independence at that
time and fought a bitter war with the United States in which more than a million people
died. The United States allowed the Philippines to become a commonwealth in 1935. The
independence movement was placed on hold while the Japanese invaded and controlled
the Philippines during World War II. After the war was over, the United States granted
the Philippines their independence in 1946.
