GEOG 101 AMU Introduction to Geography American Military University Week 6 assistance is available at Domyclass.

WEEK 6: South and East Asia
Lesson Overview

From Iberia to Arabia and from Malaysia to Korea, Eurasia is a landmass fringed by peninsulas. The largest of all is the great triangle of India that divides the northern Indian Ocean into two seas: the Arabian Sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east. The peninsula of India forms the heart of South Asia, a vast, varied, volatile geographic realm.

Containing the world’s most populous country, East Asia is a realm that has undergone a radical transformation in the past few decades. On its periphery lies one of the globe’s most powerful national economies. Along its coastline, on its peninsulas, and on its islands an economic boom has transformed cities and country sides. Its interior contains the world’s highest mountains and vast deserts. It is a storehouse of raw materials. The basins of its great rivers produce food that can sustain more than a billion people.

Students will be able to:

Recognize the major geographic qualities of South Asia and East Asia. (CO-2, CO-3)
Identify the major climate types associated with each realm. (CO-3)
Describe the Chinese perspective as to the rise of civilization. (CO-1, CO-4, CO-6)
Recognize the components of population geography such as population distribution, density and rate of natural increase. (CO-2, CO-5, CO-7)
Differentiate between the impact of the Mauryan Empire, Islam, and European Intrusion to the South Asia of today. (CO-4, CO-5, CO-7
Relate the broad economic prospects of the South Asia and East Asia Realms. (CO-6, CO-7, CO-8)

In this lesson, we will discuss:

Population
South Asia Physiographic Features
Cultural Factors

The following activities and assessments need to be completed this week:

Reading:
- World Regional Geography: People, Places, Globalization – Chapter 9 and 10
Forum #6
Quiz 6

South and East Asia

In this lesson we are introduced to the states of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), North and South Korea, and Japan. We must begin by defining the realm, then move on to its historic development as well as relative historic isolation from the rest of the world. It continues with an overview of the People’s Republic in the world today. Each distinct area within this realm is then discussed independently.

Topics covered will include:

The Geographic Realm of South Asia
Physical Geography of South Asia
South Asia’s Geographic Regions
South Asia’s History
Human Geography of South Asia
The Geographic Realm of East Asia
Physical Geography of East Asia
East Asia’s Geographic Regions
East Asia’s History
Human Geography of East Asia

Introduction

This lesson combines two great realms. Included here is a discussion of these realms’ areal extent, former colonial states, cultural diversity, and the historical origins of its states and regions. Population is a very appropriate conceptual focus in this lesson, since India alone has approximately one-fifth of the world population within its borders, yet China remains the world’s most populous nation (for now). The physiographic regions are also discussed with emphasis on the climatic effect of the Himalayas.

The Geographic Realm of South Asia

South Asia is a realm of almost magical geographic names: Mount Everest, Kashmir, the Khyber Pass, and the Ganges River. There was a time when this realm was one of the most fabled places on Earth. Remember that it was “India” and its fabled wealth that the European explorers were after, from Vasco da Gama to Columbus to Magellan. Before them, the fourteenth-century North African geographer Ibn Battuta had traveled overland to South Asia, and his writings about its riches were met with astonishment and even disbelief. From the sixteenth century onward, European trading companies derived enormous profits from commerce in this realm.

However, by the late nineteenth century South Asia seemed to have become remote from the affairs of the world—hungry, weak, exploited, the epitome of the global periphery. Even after independence in 1947, India as well as the other countries of the realm long remained among the world’s poorest. For decades, population growth outstripped economic expansion.

Today, for a number of reasons, South Asia commands the world’s attention once again. It became the world’s most populous geographic realm in 2011. Two of its states, India and Pakistan, often find themselves in conflict, and both are nuclear powers. In the remote mountain hideaways of Pakistan, a terrorist organization’s leaders planned attacks that changed the skyline of New York and altered the battleground of Iraq. In the ports of India, a growing navy reflects the emergence of the Indian Ocean Basin as a new global geopolitical arena in which China, too, is asserting itself. Meanwhile, outsourcing by U.S. companies to India has become a hot topic, and India’s spectacular rise in information technology has changed that industry. Our daily lives will increasingly be affected by what happens in this crowded and restive part of the world.

South Asia is a realm in transition—politically, economically, and demographically. It is a realm that seems clearly bounded by nature, with mountain ranges and rough terrain along its borders. Yet, it is vitally linked to Southwest Asia and, increasingly, the entire world.

It is also a realm that at times is difficult to read. India–Pakistan tensions continue to be a cause for concern, and the specter of terrorism haunts those who wish only to live in peace. This is not just in the hands of the governments of the two biggest nations in the realm. Religious movements (Muslim and Hindu) and the way they engage politics are crucially important, and the United States and China have major roles to play as well.

Economically, there is no question that India’s rise will increasingly demand the world’s attention. Indian transnational corporations will continue to penetrate the global economy, and the growing Indian middle class with its appetite for consumption will increasingly draw interest from producers around the world. That English is the subcontinent’s lingua franca and that IT is a leading economic sector give it an enormous advantage into the future. And the fact that India, the realm’s giant, can claim to be the world’s biggest democracy gives it tremendous credibility. When, during the next several decades, South Asia passes through the demographic transition, then this populous South Asian realm may yet turn out to be the biggest story of the twenty-first century.

Northern Mountains

The Himalaya, Karakorum, and Hindu Kush mountain ranges and their southern slopes form the northern part of the realm. The Himalayas are the highest mountains in the world, as well as the dominant physical feature of South Asia’s northern rim. They separate South Asia from East Asia along the border of China’s autonomous region of Tibet. Parts of this mountain range are found in Nepal, Bhutan, India, and Pakistan. The highest peak in the Himalayas, Mount Everest, is also the highest peak in the world, standing 29,035 feet above sea level. Farther north along the Himalayan range, the traditional region of Kashmir is divided between India, Pakistan, and China.

Two major rivers feed South Asia. The Indus River, which flows through the center of Pakistan, has been central to human development in the region for thousands of years; the first civilization to spring up in the realm is known as the Indus Valley Civilization. The Ganges River flows through northern India, creating a core region of the country.

Central Plain and Plateau

South of these mountains is the Indo-Gangetic plain. The plain is a broad strip of low, relatively flat land lying between the Himalaya Mountains to the north and the Narmada and Mahanadi Rivers to the south.To the south of the plain is the Deccan plateau, a flat highland area.

Coastal Regions and Islands

The coastal regions of southern Bangladesh, not far from the soaring Himalayas, have very low elevations. When the monsoon arrives every year, heavy flooding devastates the region’s infrastructure. South Asia’s annual monsoon continues to dominate life for hundreds of millions of subsistence and commercial farmers. Failure of the monsoon cycle spells economic crisis. But the Thar Desert in western India and parts of Pakistan does not receive these rains. Much of southwest Pakistan, a region called Baluchistan, has an arid desert climate.

Further south are two island countries off the coast of southern India. Sri Lanka is a large tropical island off the tip of India’s southeast coast. The Republic of Maldives, an archipelago off the southwest coast of India, includes nearly 1,200 islands that barely rise above sea level. Only about two hundred of these islands are inhabited.

Like most great civilizations, the first civilization to develop in South Asia grew around a river — the Indus River in modern-day Pakistan. The Indus Valley Civilization had built advanced cities and had complex systems of agriculture and trade by about 2500 BCE. However, they were constantly being invaded by less advanced peoples, and died out within a few hundred years.

The people who invaded the Indus River Valley brought religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, under which they were united to a degree. But when the first Islamic traders entered South Asia, it began a sphere of influence that would culminate in the invasion and conquest of most of the realm by the eleventh century.

The last of these tribes, the Mughals, invaded and conquered nearly all of India by the sixteenth century. The Mughals retained control over parts of India through 1858, although their influence began to decline in the early 18th century, and was remnant of its former self by the time the British seized control in 1858.

The first Europeans arrived in India from Portugal in 1498, and immediately began spreading Christianity, trade, and influence. In the seventeenth century the British East India Company (BEIC), which traded spices, tea, and other goods from India, began making agreements with the Mughal leaders. This was the start of a long colonial tradition in India that culminated in 1858, when the British government overthrew the remnants of the Mughal regime, expelled the BEIC from the country, and made India the jewel of its empire.

British rule had a mixed effect on India. The British brought modern means of transportation, such as railroads, roads, airports, and postal networks, to move people and goods. These transportation methods connected and integrated the subcontinent economically and caused the different areas of India become economically interdependent. English became the national language of government, business, and higher education as government bureaucracy, universities, civil service, and military institutions made their way to India. The British also helped to provide South Asians with a shared history by studying and writing about them.

These actions provoked the South Asians to respond to British beliefs, attitudes, writings, policies, and actions concerning the realm and its people, and these responses were not always positive. Some opposed British racism and the resulting British policies that discriminated against their receiving equal treatment in the military, at the university, and within civil service. A persistent and determined movement for independence that endured for half a century, as well as continued violence between the Hindu and Muslim populations, culminated in the Partition of British India in 1947.

The region was granted its independence and divided into two countries. India, the larger of the two with a majority Hindu population, and the mostly Muslim Pakistan, which was smaller and divided into two separate sections on either side of India. The eastern section later became Bangladesh, which gained its own independence in 1971.

Violence and conflict still continues today between the people of Pakistan and India, much of which is religion-oriented. South Asia, and especially northern India, was the birthplace of major religions that include Hinduism and Buddhism.

Overall, Hinduism is the dominant religion in this realm, with over 64 percent of South Asians practicing it. The Hindu religion is polytheistic, characterized by many representations of God from which they choose to worship. The Hindu religion also recognizes many holy scriptures and prophets. There is no single path to salvation for Hindus, but instead they believe that one’s soul might be reborn several times before gaining enlightenment, at which time it is merged with the cosmic forces and eliminated.

Hinduism explains the inequalities in human society through its doctrine of karma and the caste system. The doctrine of karma states that every action brings about certain results, and that there is no escaping the consequences of one’s actions—in this life or in the next. Good behavior is rewarded when the soul is reborn into a higher-ranking living creature, with bad behavior punished with the opposite.

One consequence of bad behavior is being born into a lower caste. The government in the twentieth century outlawed India’s caste system, but it endures today. This system is characterized by deep-rooted segregation based upon class, occupation, family ties, ancestry, or even race. A person’s caste is determined by their behavior in a previous existence. The priestly class stands at the top, followed by warriors, skilled tradesmen, laborers, and finally the “untouchables.” At the bottom of the caste system, these people form 15 percent of India’s population and are culturally forbidden from associating with people of higher castes.

The second most practiced religion in South Asia is Islam, with 29 percent of its people practicing it. Islam teaches a belief in only one god, Allah. Buddhism and Sikhism, both religions arising from Hinduism, have small followings in the South Asian realm, as does Christianity. Overall, about seven percent of South Asians practice religions other than Hinduism and Islam. The religions practiced by South Asians define their beliefs, values, and behaviors, and as such the religious diversity of the realm has threatened its geographic unity and proven to be a major centrifugal force.

Another centrifugal force has been language. In India, English and Hindi are the two most commonly spoken languages, with English most widely spoken by the intellectual elite. As a compromise, the Indian government promised to retain English as a national language. Besides Hindi and English, the now designated national languages, a number of other languages have status as official languages of the different states in India.

In Pakistan, five major languages are spoken, with Punjabi as the language of 60 percent of the population. Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, is only spoken by eight percent of the population. Most languages in South Asia are closely tied to particular nations, further dividing the people from one another by making communication more difficult. This lack of communication is very centrifugal because people use their language as their principal means of expressing their cultural beliefs, values, and feelings.