The Big Picture: Major Influences - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 4

geographic realms focus on and incorporate the world' s
major population clusters. South, East, and Southeast Asia
encompass the two largest clusters in India and China and
the fourth largest in Indonesia. Y ou will learn about the
growth and distribution of these populations in a later
chapter.
South Asia comprises India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh;
the Himalayan states of Nepal and Bhutan; and the island
nations of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. East Asia includes
China, Mongolia, North and South Korea, Taiwan, and
Japan. Southeast Asia encompasses the mainland countries
of Myanmar, Thailand, Lao (Laos), Cambodia, and Viet-
nam, in addition to the maritime states of Malaysia, Singa-
pore, Brunei, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and the Philippines.

“ASIA” AS MYTH
These countries and their respective realms are parts of a
larger entity called Asia. While we might think of Asia as a
definable geographic region, actually it is more of an idea
than a reality . More importantly , the evolution of the idea of

Asia in Europe and the West shaped the nature and tenor of
perceptions and interactions between Asian and non-Asian
cultures throughout history . T To understand this, we must
explore what sometimes is called the myth of Asia.
There is no cultural or historical entity that equals
Asia. It is more of a literary and psychological construct
imposed from the outside than a geographical reality . Des-
ignations of “the Orient” and “the Far East” are also asso-
ciated with the idea of Asia. Where do these terms come
from, and what do they mean? What is Asia, and how did
it come to be? How can it be a myth if it actually exists?
Asia, in fact, was defined by Europeans. From the time
of ancient Greece, Europeans visualized the world as being
divided into two or three continental parts: Asia, Europe,
and sometimes Africa. Religiously inspired mappae mundi
(maps of the world), portraying the Earth as flat, often de-
picted Asia as half the known world! This understood world
could also be divided into east and west: Orient meaning
east, derived from sunrise, and Occident, meaning west,
from sunset. For Europeans, Orient meant east and Asia.
However, the initially blurry concept of Asia was filled in
over time and concurrently expanded spatially .

Figure 1-3
In India, snake charming is a dying profession in light of govern-
ment strictures and perhaps better opportunities in other low-end
occupations. However , snake charmers are allowed to operate in
certain tourist areas such as here in New Delhi. Photograph cour-
tesy of B. A. Weightman.

DEFINING “ASIA”
Asia is the world' is largest continent, stretching from the
Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. As of 2010, it in-
corporates 54 countries--far too great a scope for cover-
age in one textbook. Asia' s expanse and complexity
require its division into more manageable and meaning-
ful areas of study . For the sake of convenience, we will
use the term “Asia” in this topic while recognizing that
we are not covering the entire continent. This text will
concentrate on three geographic realms of Asia: South,
East, and Southeast Asia (Figure 1-4).
According to geographer Harm de Blij (2009), geo-
graphic realms have three sets of spatial criteria. First,
physical and cultural characteristics are the largest units
into which we can divide the ecumene (i.e., the inhabited
world). Second, geographic realms are founded on simi-
larities of functional interactions between people and
their natural environments. These are expressed in farm-
scapes, transportation networks, cityscapes, environmen-
tal damage, and countless other landscape features. Third,

CONCEPTUALIZING ASIA
The term Asia came from the Greek word for sunrise and
originally referred to the Anatolian peninsula (T (Turkey)
in the seventh century BC, a region later known as
Asia Minor. By the fifth century BC, Asia had acquired