Asian Studies

Welcome to Asian Studies! The intent of this Research Guide is to provide collective resources and primary, secondary, and tertiary sources of information pertaining to East and Southeast Asian History. Knowledge of Asian languages and cultures is useful for a career in many fields: 1) In the private sector, all regions of Asia (South, Southeast, and East) have assumed a central role in manufacturing, technology, and investment; 2) In the public sector, the US Government has marked Chinese, Korean, and Urdu as critical languages for national security and economic competitiveness.

East Asia is the eastern sub-region of the continent of Eurasia. The states and territories of East Asia are China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. The countries that colonized East Asia in 1521 were Portugal and Spain. Later on, the Dutch, British, and French also colonized the region. East Asia covers an area of about 4,600,000 square miles. It occupies about 25 percent of the continent of Asia. The area of East Asia is about 15 percent bigger than Europe. It has large cities and is highly urbanized (Salem Press Encyclopedia).

The name “Southeast Asia” came into popular use after World War II and has replaced such phrases as “Further India,” “the East Indies,” “Indo-China,” and “the Malay Peninsula,” which formerly designated all or part of the region. Southeast Asia includes the Indochina Peninsula, which juts into the South China Sea, the Malay Peninsula, and the Indonesian and Philippine Archipelagos. The region has 10 independent countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (Credo Reference).