People of Asia
Asia is a continent of the biggest diversity in the world, in view of climate, fauna and flora, geological structure, religions, cultures and finally its people, representing numerous ethnic groups and speaking thousands of languages.
Due to natural migration processes national boundaries were never coterminous with the domains of different ethnic groups. For example, in Thailand, there is a significant Vietnamese population in the northeast, hilltribe groups in the north that straddle the border with Myanmar and Laos, and Malay population in the far south. In Indonesia , where there are more than 1.000 ethnic and sub-ethnic groups, large groups such as Bataks, Miningkabau and Buginese are widely represented outside their homelands of North Sumatra, West Sumatra and South Sulawesi, respectively.
But the ethnic mix was significantly complicated in the cases of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia in particular, first by the colonial policies, and then later in Indonesia and Vietnam by resettlement programs conducted by post-colonial governments.
With 26 people living on one square kilometre Laos is almost empty land, while it is impossible to find any free space in Singapore where one square kilometre is shared by over 7 thousands residents. Asia comprises a full 30% of the world’s land area with 60% of its current population, and has the highest growth rates today.
