Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
foreign investment in the economies of several of them, notably Korea. Japan
has
Table 8.1
GDP and population growth figures for NICs compared with other countries.
Country
GDP growth
Population growth
(% p.a.)
Life expectancy
(years)
1
965-80
1
980-90
NICS
Korea
9.9
9.7
0.5
79
Taiwan
10.2
7.8
1.4
75
Hong Kong
8.6
7.1
1.8
78
Singapore
10.0
6.4
2.1
75
ASEAN group*
Thailand
7.3
7.6
1.8
66
Malaysia
7.4
5.2
2.6
70
Indonesia
7.0
5.5
1.8
62
Philippines
5.7
0.9
2.4
65
Developed countries
USA
2.7
3.4
0.9
76
New Zealand
2
.4
1
.9
0
.8
7
6
Source: World Bank Atlas,
various years.
*Association of South East Asian Nations.
also imposed something of a style of development, in the elements listed above,
which has been proved successful. As central evidence for their rapid economic
progress, the growth rate of GDP for some of the countries in critical periods
may be noted.
The best-known cases are the East Asian “Tigers”, the states of South Korea,
Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Hong Kong and Singapore are city states
with tiny territories; as this topic is concerned with spatial structures, we focus
on the larger states of Taiwan and South Korea. But it might first be noted that
Taiwan and Korea are also small on most scales; South Korea is 98,500 km
2
in
area, and 60 per cent is upland with very low potential for use. Its population is
large for this land area: 43 million in 1991. Taiwan is also a small country with
forested mountains and few resources; it has only 36,000 km
2
, less than a tenth
the size of California, but with a comparable population (20.4 million in 1990).
Thus all the east Asian Tigers have large concentrations of population on small
territories.
