| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Indonesian Archipelago Philippine Archipelago Peninsular Malaysia East Malaysia Singapore |
| Total islands | 25,000 |
| Major islands | Borneo, Java, Luzon, Mindanao, Sulawesi, Sumatra |
| Area | 2,870,000 km2 (1,110,000 sq mi)[1] |
| Highest elevation | 4,095 m (13435 ft) |
| Highest point | Mount Kinabalu |
| Largest settlement | Bandar Seri Begawan |
| Largest settlement | Jakarta |
| Largest settlement | Kuala Lumpur |
| Largest settlement | Quezon City |
| Largest settlement | Singapore |
| Largest settlement | Dili |
| Demographics | |
| Population | 380,000,000 [2] |
| Ethnic groups | Predominantly Austronesians, with minorities of Negritoes, Papuans, Melanesians, descendants of Chinese (including Peranakans), Arab descendants, Eurasians, Mestizos, Orang Asli and descendants of Overseas Indians and Sri Lankans |
Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the Southeast Asian countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and East Timor.[3]
The terms Island Southeast Asia and Insular Southeast Asia are sometimes given the same meaning as Maritime Southeast Asia.[a] Other definitions restrict Island Southeast Asia to just the islands between mainland Southeast Asia and the continental shelf of Australia and New Guinea. There is some variability as to whether Taiwan is included in this. Peter Bellwood includes Taiwan in his definition,[5][b] as did Robert Blust,[c] whilst there are examples that do not.[d]
The 16th-century term "East Indies" and the later 19th-century term "Malay Archipelago" are also used to refer to Maritime Southeast Asia.
In Indonesia, the Old Javanese term "Nusantara" is also used as a synonym for Maritime Southeast Asia. The term, however, is nationalistic and has shifting boundaries. It usually only encompasses Peninsular Malaysia, the Sunda Islands, Maluku, and often Western New Guinea and excludes the Philippines.[7]
Stretching for several thousand kilometres, the area features a very large number of islands and boasts some of the richest marine, flora and fauna biodiversity on Earth.
The main demographic difference that sets Maritime Southeast Asia apart from modern Mainland Southeast Asia is that its population predominantly belongs to Austronesian groups. The region contains some of the world's most highly urbanized areas—the Greater Manila Area, Greater Jakarta, Singapore, and Greater Kuala Lumpur—and yet a majority of islands in this vast region remain uninhabited by humans.
- ^ Moores, Eldridge M.; Fairbridge, Rhodes Whitmore (1997). Encyclopedia of European and Asian regional geology. Springer. p. 377. ISBN 0-412-74040-0. Retrieved 30 November 2009.
- ^ Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division (2006). "World Population Prospects, Table A.2" (PDF). 2006 revision. United Nations. pp. 37–42. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-10-31. Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ^ Tarling, Nicholas (1999). The Cambridge history of Southeast Asia, Volume 1, Part 1 (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 304. ISBN 978-0-521-66369-4.; RAND Corporation Archived 2012-10-05 at the Wayback Machine. (PDF); Ciorciar, John David (2010). The Limits of Alignment: Southeast Asia and the Great Powers Since 197. Georgetown Univeffrsity Press. p. 135. ISBN 978-1589016262.; Nichiporuk, Brian; Grammich, Clifford; Rabasa, Angel; DaVanzo, Julie (2006). "Demographics and Security in Maritime Southeast Asia". Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. 7 (1): 83–91. Archived from the original on 2020-08-15. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
- ^ Hoorgervorst, Tom (2017). "8.4". In Hodos, Tamar (ed.). The Routledge handbook of archaeology and globalization. London New York: Routledge. p. 751. ISBN 9781315449005.
- ^ Bellwood, Peter S. (2017). First islanders: prehistory and human migration in Island Southeast Asia (First ed.). Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 9781119251552.
- ^ Bulbeck, David (2014). "Island Southeast Asia: Neolithic". Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer. pp. 4090–4096. doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_866. ISBN 978-1-4419-0426-3. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
{{cite book}}:|website=ignored (help) - ^ Evers, Hans-Dieter (2016). "Nusantara: History of a Concept". Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 89 (1): 3–14. doi:10.1353/ras.2016.0004. S2CID 163375995.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).