Demographic characteristics of South-East Asia

Year back from now i was assigned  to read about South-east Asia and Its demographic characteristics by my course teacher. I tried to gather information through various search engines

Of all the changes that swept Southeast Asia over the three decades since the formation of ASEAN, the transformation of population processes and trends have been among the most striking. Southeast Asia in 2002 had 8.6 % of the world’s population with 536 million people compared with 7.2% in 1950 (population Reference Bureau, 2002). The post-war period has seen the population of Southeast Asia increase almost three times. The period following the formation of ASEAN has seen the population of the region double from 253 million. The regions population growth rate peaked at 2.52 % annum in the late 1960s up from 1.92 % in the early 1950s and subsequently falling to 1.4 % in 2002 (UNESCAP). However, the changes in the size and growth of the population are only part of the story, and there have been dramatic shifts in the processes of population growth (fertility, mortality and migration) as well as in the composition and spatial distribution of the population. These shifts have been caused by, and in turn been important influence upon, the economic and social changes that have transformed the region.

Population

Broadly speaking, the region has been until recently one of very thin population and large patches of it still contain populations of remarkably low density. Direct evidence of densities of densities are scanty for periods farther back than this century, yet it seems probable that the whole of Southeast Asia in 1800 contained only about ten million people, when the region was probably as thinly peopled in its most attractive areas as upper Burma and Upper Siam, the least attractive and developed areas, are today; Malay then contained about a quarter million people, Java about four million, Burma probably less than two million

Figure: Total Population of SEA

But the last 150 years brought tremendous changes in population. First, on the heels of the Industrial revolution in Europe, came a revival and an expanded volume of trade between the Indian Ocean and the Far East, a stream which threaded the seaways of Southeast Asia, diffusing new conceptions as it passed, re-establishing trading centres, drawing, drawing out huge volumes of Southeast Asia produce and stimulating development of Southeast Asia as a source of trade rather than a passage for traders. It has been a century and half of tremendous population increases, causing people to swarm upon the more fertile areas, upon deltas and volcanic cones where people had not clustered before. In these choice areas, the new deltas and the newer ejecta, the bulk of the great population increases has concentrated, so that upon them live teeming multitudes in limited zones separated by stretches of forest-covered space scarcely more populated now than they were several centuries ago. By 1920 the total populations of Southeast Asia had become 110 million; by 1940 it was 155 million and by 1960, 200 million.

Figure: population as a percent of world population

Current population status of Southeast Asia

  Table : present population status of SEA

Area	5,000,000 km2 (1,900,000 sq mi)
Total Population	593,000,000
Density	118.6 /km2 (307 /sq mi)

Table : Population of SEA by countries

Country	Area(km2)	Population(2009)	Density(/km2)
Brunei	5,765	500,000	70
Burma	676,578	50,020,000	74
Cambodia	181,035	14,805,000	82
East Timor	14,874	1,134,000	76
Indonesia	1,904,569	240,271,522	126
Laos	236,800	6,320,000	27
Malaysia	329,847	28,318,000	83
Philippines	300,000	91,983,000	307
Singapore	724	5,290,730	7,023
Thailand	613,120	64,964,000	132
Vietnam	331,210	88,069,000	259 (2011)

By the end of the twentieth century, only a few years hence, the population of Southeast Asia will be about 530 million. Less than 100 years ago, in 1900, the population of Southeast Asia was probably around 80 million people, with almost one-third of the total in Java alone. Although there were a number of very large cities in the region and densely settled rice-growing areas in Java, the Red River Delta, and a few other areas, most of mainland and insular Southeast Asia remained a sparsel settled frontier region in 1900

Population Distribution and density of Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia has an area of approximately 4,000,000 km2 (1.6 million square miles). As of 2004, more than 593 million people lived in the region, more than a fifth of them (125 million) on the Indonesian island of Java, the most densely populated large island in the world. Indonesia is the most populous country with 230 million people and also 4th most populous country in the world. The distribution of the religions and people is diverse in Southeast Asia and varies by country. Some 30 million overseas Chinese, not including the heritage, also live in Southeast Asia, most prominently in Christmas Island, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, and also, as the Hoa, in Vietnam.

Density map of Southeast Asia