Student's Book – Dec 2009 (5.9mb) - The Curriculum Project

Southeast Asia can be divided into two parts according to its geography. The two parts aremainland Southeast Asia and island Southeast Asia.Mainland Southeast AsiaThere are six independent nations in mainlandSoutheast Asia: Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos,Cambodia and Malaysia.Mountains cover much of mainland Southeast Asia.Among these mountains are highland plateaus thatstretch from the Himalayas across Southern China.These mountains and plateaus separate Southeast Asiafrom other parts of Asia.The mountain ridges run north to south. In betweenthere are valleys. Four huge rivers – the Ayeyarwaddy,Thanlwin, Chao Phraya and Mekong – flow souththrough the valleys.The rivers take soil from the mountains, and bring itthrough the valleys. As a result, the river valleys arefertile farmland. People have lived in these valleys,and cultivated the land, for thousands of years.Island Southeast AsiaIsland Southeast Asia is made up of many islands spreadover thousands of kilometres of ocean. There are fiveindependent nations in island Southeast Asia: Singapore,Brunei, The Philippines, Indonesia and East Timor. Partof Malaysia is on the island of Borneo.These nations are of very different sizes – Brunei is atiny nation on the island of Borneo. Singapore is a smallisland off the Malay Peninsula. East Timor is on theisland of Timor, to the east of Indonesia. Indonesia andThe Philippines are made up of many islands. Indonesiahas more than 13,500 islands, and The Philippines has over 7,000.Island Southeast Asia is located on the ‘Ring of Fire’: a line of volcanoes around the PacificOcean. When volcanoes erupt, volcanic ash spreads over nearby land. Volcanic ash is rich inminerals, so the soil becomes fertile. Because of this fertile land, many people farm near theactive volcanoes.However, this can be dangerous. Mount Pinatubo,on the island of Luzon in The Philippines, erupted in1971. Hundreds of people died, and many more losttheir homes.The many islands and mountains of Southeast Asiahave formed barriers between pockets of populationsgroups, who may have lived quite close together butwho developed different languages and culture. As aresult, Southeast Asia is very culturally diverse.5