Indochina

Indochina 1886

Indochina: Dark green: always included, Light green: usually included, Red: sometimes included.
Indochinese Region (biology): Dark and Light green.

Indochina is the former name of a region of southeast Asia, which dates from the period when it was a colony of France under the full name of French Indochina. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", referring to the location of the territory between China and India. The people in the region are neither Chinese nor Indian. The Indochinese peninsula refers to a region in Southeast Asia lying roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The term "Indochina" may also be used in biogeography for the "Indochinese Region", a major biogeographical region within the Indomalaya ecozone.

French Indochina was a federation of French colonies and protectorates, that France named Cochin China, Tonkin, Annam, Laos and Cambodia. France had an imperial presence in the region between 1884 and 1954. France withdrew from southeast Asia following the loss of the Indochina War.

Indochina had boundaries imposed by France as a result of military conquests in the region, encompassing areas that are now modern Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The subjects of the colony were not homogenous; rather, Indochina was a "separate entity, it was largely unrelated to the cultural, geographical, and racial elements which shaped the people and governments of its constituent parts".^[1]

[edit] Geography

Historically, Indochina comprises the territory of the former French Indochina:

The broader geographic and cultural region is today referred to as Mainland Southeast Asia in which sense it also includes:

Burma (also Myanmar—part of British India until 1937)
Thailand (formerly Siam)
Sometimes Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore (also considered part of Maritime Southeast Asia if the Johor-Singapore Causeway is not taken into account)^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Biogeography

Although the name "Indochina" is today a political anachronism, it is still sometimes used to refer to the "Indochinese Region" to mean a major biogeographical region in the Indomalaya ecozone, and also a phytogeographical floristic region in the Paleotropical Kingdom. It includes the native flora and fauna of all the countries above. The adjacent Malesian Region covers the Maritime Southeast Asian countries, and straddles the Indomalaya and Australasian ecozones.

[edit] See also

Asia portal

[edit] References

^ St. John, Robert Bruce (1998). Clive H. Schofield. ed. The land boundaries of Indochina: Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (Boundary and territory briefing ed.). IBRU. pp. 1. ISBN 9781897643327.