Southeast Asia:
Where do people Live?
Three Favorable Environments
The entire realm of Southeast Asia has approximately 546 million people [semeasur]. Southeast Asia’s population tends to be clustered. The clusters are relatively small and lie separated from one another by areas of much sparser human settlement [sspopden] [ecumene]. These population clusters are generally found in three favorable natural environments:
(1) the valleys and deltas of Southeast Asia’s major rivers [sevalley] such as the Irrawaddy, Chao Phraya, Mekong River and the Red River; (54 % live on the mainland)
(2) volcanic soil on the islands of the pacific rim's "ring of fire" [ringfire] (55 % or 303 jillion live on the islands of the Philippines and Indonesia)
(3) regions that were once part of colonial plantations on the Malay peninsula [ecumene].
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There are also three patterns, or issues, concerning human settlement. They include:
WHY?
(1) Why haven't large numbers of people migrated into Southeast Asia from its crowded neighbors? [phys]
Large scale invasions from other regions have not occurred historically because physical obstacles hinder overland travel along routes into SE Asia. These barriers have prevented mass migrations from more densely populated neighboring areas. With no physical barrier between present-day Vietnam and China, a significant number of Chinese have migrated into Southeast Asia via this route.
(2) Why is Southeast Asia's population density lower than its
neighbors? Southeast Asia 314.2 / sqr mile South Asia 846.7 / sqr mile East Asia 334.7 / sqr mile *
[sspopden]
* although the overall population density of
East Asia is relatively low, much of the land is inhospitable.
Therefore, the population is crowded into the eastern areas and the
physiographic population density is much higher. See map:
sspopden
Rugged mountains and densely covered tropical rainforests with soils leaded of their nutrients by heavy monsoonal rains [seprec] create poor conditions for agriculture and therefore lower population densities.. Because of the poor soil conditions land intensive shifting cultivation is practiced in many areas [seagric].
(3) Why, and where, is the population clustered?
[sspopden]
As discussed earlier, agricultural activity, and therefore
population, is clustered in (1) the more fertile river valleys
[sevalley],
(2) the fertile volcanic islands and (3) the colonial plantation
areas.
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WHERE DO PEOPLE LIVE? [ecumene]
We have been using 5 physical criteria [phpeowhy.htm] to help us understand where people live in each geographic realm. By applying these criteria to each realm we not only learn where people live, but we also gain a better understanding of the realm's physical geography.
Student's must understand that each criterion may not apply to all realms. We learn just as much when we discover that a criterion does not apply as when it does.
The 5 criteria are:
Use the maps provided to apply these criteria to Southeast Asia. which help explain the location of the realm's ecumene ("the portion of the earth's land surface that is permanently settled by human beings"). Pay close attention to which criteria HELP explain where people live and to any EXCEPTIONS to the criteria.
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WHY JAWA (JAVA)? [ecumene]
The tropical climate [seclim] and high precipitation [seprec] on the island of Jawa (Java) would lead us to think that the soils would be leached of nutrients and therefore not support a dense population [sspopden], but the fertile VOLCANIC soils support a very dense agricultural population. Sixty percent of Indonesia's 214 million people live on this one island.
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