Southeast Asia: Transition among the Nagas - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 400

Figure 14-13
Note that the majority of cities in Southeast Asia are either coastal or on major rivers.
Why is this?

(Pinang), Singapore, Batavia (Jakarta), Surakarta (Solo),
Surabaja, and Manila. These cities were primarily adminis-
trative and commercial centers without large industrial
bases. Moreover, the colonial economy did little to stimu-
late economic development beyond the export sector.
The rural sector exhibited three categories. The
largest was the peasantry tied to a subsistence economy .
Second was the commercialized peasantry who partici-

pated in the growing market economy based on urban
needs. Third was the enclave economies of plantations
and mines opened up with Western and Chinese capital
and imported wage labor.
A demographic picture of Southeast Asia at the turn
of the twentieth century reveals two primary settlement
patterns. At one extreme were the dense populations en-
gaged in irrigated rice cultivation. Java, with its population