Images of Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo and several other parts of Asia appear elsewhere in the Tutorial. Here we show several more cities. First is Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia. This IKONOS image shows a current trend in modern Asia, namely, the many skyscraper buildings that make up the central cities - belying any misimpressions that the Asian world is still backwards. When the writer (NMS) visited Kuala Lumpur in 1975, some tall buildings, including his hotel, were up but many more have since been built.
Malaysia extends north-south in a peninsula-like landmass that ends as an island at its bottom. The island hosts the famed city of Singapore; this small island is now an independent nation. Here is a natural color view made by SPOT-2:
Below is an astronaut photo of part of the island on which the city of Singapore is located:
Singapore has also become a city of skyscrapers, as evident in this recent photo:
The city was visited by the writer as a main stop during his State Dept.-sponsored trip to represent NASA at several national Remote Sensing Conferences. Flying in from Indonesia, I remember well seeing more than 300 ships anchored off-island waiting to disgorge their cargoes. A highlight of the visit was to have coffee at the same table used by the famed writer W. Somerset Maugham many times during his stays in Singapore in the internationally reknown Raffles Hotel, reputed then to be the best (in ambiance) in the Far East.
The Vietnam War remains a sensitive issue to Americans. In the Games subsection of this Section, you saw a Landsat image of southern Vietnam. Here is a mosaic that includes all of Vietnam and neighboring countries.
Older Americans remember the major Vietnamese cities that were so often in the news. Here are three of the largest:
During the Vietnam War, operations spilled over into Cambodia. The Mekong Delta extends into that country. The Delta and part of Cambodia are depicted in this MERIS image which covers 462 km (290 miles) on a side. The map beneath it identifies locations in much of this image.
Here is a Landsat-1 image of the Mekong River (blue ribbon) and the delta lowlands. Much of that area is given to rice fields and paddies. Some of the black in the image may be clear water; perhaps some black is associated with burning of non-rice crops:
The mouths of the Mekong pass through dense mangrove forests, as seen in this satellite image.
Typical of the inland Mekong River, with its meandering course, and laden with silt, is the vista seen in this aerial oblique photo.
Over the centuries, much of the delta and land further inland have been deforested. The fertile soil and the flooding during the rainy season is ideal for growing rice. Vietnam is now a world supplier of this staple. Here is a view of fields given to rice and other crops. The second picture shows typical jungle in the parts of the Delta country kept untouched.
South of Siberia, China is the largest country, in both land area and population, within Asia (its 1,200,000 citizens are the most in the world). It also has the fastest growing economy in today's (Flat Earth) world, the result owing in part to the new policies of its Communist government. China is becoming a superpower. Here is a satellite view (mosaic?) of China and many of its neighbors (look for the yellow line boundaries). Beneath it is a map of the region:
We have already visited mainland China around Beijing on page 4-4 and also in the Games subsection of Section 6. Shown here is a full winter Landsat-1 scene in which Beijing can be located by the small square in right center. Beijing lies at the boundary between the Northeastern Plains and the extension of the Great Khingan Range that is as high as 2300 m (7600 ft);
North of Beijing is the Great Wall of China, which early astronauts had trouble seeing from their spacecraft. Here is an astronaut photo (300 km; 200 miles north of Beijing) that shows the curving extensions of the Wall, built centuries ago to keep out invaders mostly from Mongolia. Beneath it is a SIR-C radar image of the wall:
A vast plains in north central China is the "bread basket" of this nation. This Landsat image of an agricultural area in Henan Province near Anhui has a remarkable similarity to parts of the U.S. Great Plains, including square farmlands where winter wheat is the principal crop:
Central China is drained by the Yellow River (or Huang Ho, in Chinese). That long stream receives its name from the color of the sediments it carries. These are mostly fine silty loess (windblown dust derived from rocks carried by continental glaciers in the Pleistocene). The lowlands are covered with many meters of loess, which makes a good soil for crops. The loess is easily dissected, forming long gullies. The Luliang and Hwo Montains, also loess-covered, are made of sedimentary rocks.
China, in the last 20 years, has had a very robust economy, with a high degree of modernization that is increasing both domestic output and goods for the world market. China has recognized a pressing need for a much greater supply of electric energy. It is currently engaged in a huge power plant project: The Three Rivers Gorge dam on the Yangtse River. When completed in 2009, the dam will funnel water through 20 generator stations. The dam itself will be the largest in the world (181 meters [about 600 ft] high and nearly 3 km [2 miles] across); the lake formed behind it has displaced more than a million Chinese. Here are two views of the dam taken by Terra's ASTER on different dates; the 2006 image shows the now completed dam.
Digital Globe's Quickbird-2 produced this high resolution of the dam when the spillways were operating:
Like the Yellow River, the Yangtse carries a huge load of sediment. In this Landsat Band 5 image the sediment appears offshore at the Yangtse mouth, north of Shanghai:
In South China lie three major cities: Kuangchou (formerly called Canton), seen in this Landsat-1 image as a black area left of center; Macao (once a Portuguese colony) on the shore of the large sea inlet near the mouth of the Chu-kiang estuary; and Hong Kong, just off the image in the lower right, in a peninsula known as the New Territories (when it was a British possession until restored to China in the 1990s). The region is heavily farmed and has also become industrialized.
Also in South China is the rapidly growing city of Guilin, seen in this SPOT-4 image:
Guilin, on the Li River west of Hong Kong, is one of the top tourist destinations in China. It is in the heart of the karst topography (steep peaks eroded from limestone) in southern China (see page 17-5). Here is a view of this landscape near the city:
Like the United States, China has mostly mountains, some plains, and several desert areas. In western China, the Himalaya Mountain group (south) and Tianshan mountains (north) block rain storms so that the vast Takla Makan Desert in Sinkiang Province has developed, shown here in this SPOT-5 image:
This AVHRR shows the northern edge of the Takla Makan Desert and the Tian Shan ranges:
China became "The Peoples Republic" 12 years after the 1937 Long March of Mao-Zedong and his armies and his victory in late 1949 over Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Army. Chiang left the mainland and settled his forces in Taiwan (earlier called Formosa). This beautiful island remains in Nationalist control today. Here is a space image of the island:
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Taiwan is a picturesque island - popular with artists - with prominent mountains in its interior:
Taiwan's capital is Taipei, in the northern tip, as seen in this Landsat image and in a ground photo:
Off southeast China lies the Korean Peninsula northwest of Japan. This AVHRR image shows both North and South Korea:
Here is a satellite image that shows the capital of South Korea (pinkish-red) inland from the port of Inchon (site of MacArthur's bold amphibious landing during the Korean War).
This ASTER image shows some of Seoul on the right:
Parts of Japan have been shown elsewhere in the Tutorial, including Tokyo. At this point we will now show the entire island group making up Japan, as imaged by OrbView2.
But we want to zero in on Tokyo by presenting this huge city in full context with its surroundings by displaying this Landsat image: Some idea of the extent to which this now modern city has grown is given by this aerial oblique photo: One of the most famed (many say imfamous) places on Earth is Hiroshima, in western Honshu. It was almost leveled by the first atomic bomb to be dropped near the end of World War II. The city was completely rebuilt, as shown in this ASTER image: 
Once again a part of Japan, Iwo Jima is also famous now for two reasons: First, it was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. Attacked in March of 1945 by U.S. Marines, its Japanese defenders held out for several weeks. The most famous photo of the Pacific Campaign was the raising of the flag on Mt. Suribachi:
Second, Clint Eastwood has directed two great movies, released in 2006, that re-enact the battle - one movie from the American perspective; the other even more remarkable from the Japanese soldier's experience. Here is a Digital Globe image of Iwo Jima and an aerial view that shows the volcanic peak that is Suribachi and the black volcanic sands that cover the island. The airport on this small island reveals why more than 7000 U.S. and 20000 Japanese were killed in the conflict; this was to be a forward base for bombing Japan.
Hundreds of islands make up the Philippines. Here is a Landsat view of much of Luzon, with Manila being the blue area in the arcuate bay in center left. Mt Pinatubo, seen elsewhere in this Tutorial, is to its north.
Other Philippine islands, including Mindinao, appear in this space image.
Near and north of the Equator are various islands differing in size. The largest island in the group is New Guinea. The western half is New Idrian, now a part of Indonesia. Here it is in a mosaic:
In the Landsat scene below, the mountainous central region of New Guinea is very heavily vegetated with forests of a tropical nature.
A confederation of thousands of islands makes up the nation of Indonesia. The country has the largest Muslim population in the world - well over 100 million. This nation extends for thousands of miles E-W and includes Sumatra, Java, Bali, western New Guinea and Borneo. The map below shows the main islands:
The majority of the Indonesian islands comprise an "island arc" - a series of uplifts in the ocean on the continental plate side of a tectonic zone undergoing subduction (here, to the south) the lower part of which remains submerged by the ocean.
Indonesia is the most populous (more than one hundred million) Muslim nation in the world The next image is another mosaic that includes all of the most populated island of Java:
Jarkata is the capital of Indonesia. It lies against the ocean near the northwest corner of the Island of Java. Here is a Landsat-2 view, obtained in 1976 when the city's population was about 6 million.:
The city is the uniformly blue-green area next to the sea. Jakarta is a sprawling modern city, as evident in this ground photo.
By 2004, Jakarta's population had more than doubled to 13 million. Note the changes (largely in blue) of city building density in this ASTER image taken that year.
Part of this scene is captured in this high resolution GoogleEarth image of central Jakarta:
The most extraordinary single meal ever consumed by the writer (NMS) was at the Hotel Indonesia in Jakarta during his mission for the U.S. State Department in 1974. It was a super Javanese "smorgasbord" spread over a 60 foot long line of tables with dozens of tasty entrees. A 20 piece Gamelin orchestra, and 12 dancing girls provided entertainment. The entire cost, including cocktails, was $10 U.S. Unforgettable!
