General characteristics of the region under study

The region under study consists of 7 countries: Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines (Fig. 1). These countries have an estimated population of 385 million inhabitants on a surface area of 2,382,000 km², giving a population density of 162 inhabitants per square kilometre. Between 1960 and 1994, with the exception of Cambodia, all the countries showed high population growth rates (greater than 2% per year). The group of countries considered are far from being homogeneous and a number of differences have been observed especially in terms of surface area, population sizes and densities (Fig. 2). Despite its relatively small size (144,000 km²), Bangladesh has one of the highest population sizes estimated to be about 30% of the sample area and therefore has a very high population density (836 inhab./km²). On the contrary, countries like Cambodia and Laos have relatively low population sizes and low to very low population densities (21 inhab./km² for Laos).

As shown by the urban growth rates, the societies considered are essentially from rural areas. With the exception of the Philippines where more than half of the population is from the urban areas, the urban growth rates are observed to fall in the range of 20-25%. On the other hand, as it will be noted in the analysis of the vulnerability criteria, the urban growth rates are on the whole very high.

Fig. 1 - The seven target countries

Fig. 2 - Principal characteristics of the seven target countries.

Countries	Population *	Area (km2)	Density *	Urban pop. rate **
Bangladesh	120,433,000	143,998	836	18.3
Cambodia	10,251,000	181,035	57	20.7
Laos	4,882,000	236,800	21	21.7
Myanmar	46,527,000	676,552	69	26.2
Philippines	68,420,000	300,000	228	54.2
Thailand	60,210,000	514,000	117	20.1
Vietnam	74,545,000	329,566	226	20.8
Region	385,268,00	2,381,951	162	26.5

Source: Etat du Monde, (Edition La Duverte, 1997)
* Last census data of each country (different years).
** Estimation for 1995.