maritime Southeast Asia

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the island and peninsular zone of Southeast Asia encompassing Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Timor-Leste, and Singapore, distinguished from mainland Southeast Asia by its oceanic geography, maritime trade orientation, and the dominance of Austronesian-speaking peoples whose ancestors spread across the Pacific and Indian Oceans in one of the most remarkable migrations in human prehistory; maritime Southeast Asia was the heartland of the spice trade that drove European commercial expansion from the fifteenth century, and its islands produced cloves, nutmeg, mace, and pepper that commanded extraordinary prices in European, Middle Eastern, and Chinese markets; the region's geography of archipelagos, seas, and straits — particularly the Strait of Malacca through which a third of global maritime trade passes — gives it enduring strategic importance in contemporary geopolitics