Demography of Race and Ethnicity in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Southeast Asia as we know it today it is a product of the region's colonial past. The borders of the present nation states largely coincide with imperial borders established in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The region was originally integrated into the world trade system during the period of European seaborne empires centered on major trading ports. These trading empires resulted in greater intra-Asian trade and facilitated new migratory and cultural connections between countries in Asia. Subsequent European political expansion and conquest after the 1870s and the greater incorporation of Southeast Asian states into the imperial world economy had major consequences for the region.