South Asia Unit Summary
South
Asia Unit Summary
South
Asia is a peninsula in the Southern part of Asia that juts (sticks out) into the
Indian Ocean. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh are the three largest countries in
South Asia, with India being far larger in both population and area. Nepal and
Bhutan are small countries located in the Himalayas. Sri Lanka is an island at
the southern tip of India. The entire area has a very high population for its
size. Many in the region suffer from poverty and the problems that come with it.
Historically, the region was the origin of two major religions. South Asia, like
much of the rest of the globe, experienced being colonized during the 1700s,
1800s, and early 1900s. While the region has avoided war recently, Pakistan and
India have big problems with each other. Because of its large population and
governments that lack power to do much, environmental problems like habitat
destruction and pollution have become widespread.
Physical
Geography
The dominant physical feature of South Asia
is the Himalaya mountains in the North. Those mountains formed 60 million years
ago when a piece of Africa broke off and rammed into Asia. This crash crumpled
the areas where the two pieces of land hit each other and created a mountain
range with some of the highest mountains in the world.
In addition to the Himalayas, most of the
rest of South Asia is dominated by highlands or several small mountains ranges
and plateaus. These highlands have helped protect the area from cultural
contact. Another important feature in South Asia is its rivers. The Brahmaputra
in Bangladesh begins in the mountains and empties into the sea. The Ganges river
in India is a major symbol of purity and rebirth for many Hindus. The Indus
river in Pakistan helped foster (which means make something happen) the ancient
cultural hearth of India.
Natural
Resources
Water from the rivers is used for drinking,
irrigation, transportation, and sources for hydroelectric power. Fishing in both
the rivers and the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal, and Arabian Sea help feed a
large population. The region has very little in the way of petroleum, but it
does have important mineral deposits of iron ore, manganese, chromite, coal, and
gypsum. The region is the major supplier of mica, which is used to make
electrical equipment. Sri Lanka has lot of precious
gems.
Climate
Much of the region depends on the rains
brought by the monsoons, or seasonal winds. During part of the year, the wind
blows from the large continent of Asia. Part of the year winds from the South
blow in the region. These winds carry a lot of water from the ocean and release
it over the land as rain. The people of South Asia need these rains so that
their crops will grow. During the monsoons, an area may receive around 90% of
the precipitation it gets throughout the year. If the monsoons rains did not
bring water to South Asia, over 1 billion people might not receive enough food
for an entire year. The monsoons are so important that its arrival is celebrated
in parties and festival. At the same time, monsoons can create dangerous
conditions for people living in the area. When an area receives a large amount
of rain in a short amount of time, the result is sometimes severe flooding.
Strong, flowing water can destroy houses, kill people and livestock, or knock
down electrical wires which can then injure people.
Most of Pakistan is desert, steppe, or
highland. Bhutan and Nepal are highland and humid subtropical (P-moderate amount
of rain, V-large plants and forests, T-cool winters, hot summers). Bangladesh is
divided between tropical rainforest and humid subtropical. India has a wide
variety of climates including, tropical rain forest, tropical savanna, humid
subtropical, highland, steppe, and desert. Sri Lanka is tropical savanna in the
northern part of the island and tropical rain forest in the Southern part.
Afghanistan is mostly highland.
Population
South
Asia contains around a quarter of the world’s population. India, with over a
billion people, has the largest population of any country except for China in
the world. Since it covers a small area but has a large number of people,
Bangladesh has the highest population density of any major country in the world.
Russia has a slightly smaller population than Bangladesh but it 120 times its
size in area. Bhutan and Nepal have very small populations, largely because they
are mountain kingdoms. Much of the region has a very high population density,
but there are places such as mountains and deserts where very few people live.
Although
South Asia is not now a highly urbanized region, many parts of it have rapidly
growing cities as people move from the country to seek work and a better future.
The cities in the region are overpopulated. There are a lot of very poor people
who struggle to survive.
History
The
Indus Valley civilization was one of the first places in the world where people
quit hunting and gathering and started farming and trading in one area. This
civilization became so advanced that its people developed a writing system, a
strong government, and a rich economy. Eventually this civilization would be
abandoned and its people moved other places.
New
immigrants to the region introduced the idea of caste. A caste system divides
people up according to job. One’s caste determines how one is treated in society
and what choices one has about life. Usually, caste is something that lasts from
generation to generation with no way to change it. This idea lasted in India for
centuries and has made a deep impact on India’s culture.
By
the 1500’s, European were trying to trade with South Asia for spices and other
goods. By the 1700’s, England took over much of South Asia and ran the area as a
colony. While England did introduce some important changes such a new system of
education, some building of infrastructure, and government jobs for some people
of the region, many in South Asia did not like being controlled by this European
country. India helped Great Britain fight World War 2 but after the war, the
people wanted to be independent of Great Britain. Their leader, Mohandas
Gandhi, decided the way to get independence for India was not by fighting the
British with violence, but by refusing to do what they said and by not buying
British goods. This idea is known as nonviolence and was very successful. In
1947, Great Britain gave up control of the area and two countries were born:
India, with a large Hindu population, and Pakistan, with a large Muslim
population. This division according to religion caused major conflict between
the two groups of people and many, many problems that still need to be fixed.
The
people of each country have a lot of hard feelings about when the countries were
separated and people were forced to move because of their religion. They
disagree about who owns a piece of land named Kashmir. They have gone to war
over this piece of land at least two times. As recently as 2008, Pakistan
supported several terrorists as they attacked the populated and wealthy Indian
city of Mumbai. At least 164 people were killed in these attacks and it is quite
clear that the Pakistani government helped them do it.
People
are very concerned that this conflict might erupt into violence because both
India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons use the power of the
atom and allow people to create weapons of incredible destructive power. One
nuclear weapon can destroy a city.
Bangladesh
was a part of Pakistan, even though it was not connected to it. By 1971,
Bangladesh became an independent country after it fought a war (with India on
its side) with Pakistan.
Afghanistan
has had a long history of war. They fought an invasion by the Soviet Union in
the 1980s (and won). In the 1990s, a very conservative religious group called
the Taliban took control of the government (like if the Amish took control
here). They try to make the laws of Afghanistan be like those people followed
hundreds of years ago. They made things very difficult for women, destroyed
non-Islamic religious symbols and punished their enemies brutally. Eventually,
the United States decided to go to war with Afghanistan because the US thought
Afghanistan was a place that supported terrorists who attacked the United
States. The United States weakened the Taliban but they are still around and
fighting. The United States has been at war with the Taliban for over 10 years.
The war is supposed to end by 2014.
Government
India,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh are all democracies. A
democracy is a type of government where the people of the country get to have
some say in how things are run. India’s democracy works well for most of its
people. All the governments deal with a lot of corruption. Pakistan is dealing
with a group of people, the Taliban, who want to turn the country into a
religious dictatorship, called a theocracy. By adding more people to the cause
and using violence, the Taliban has made it very difficult for the rest of
Pakistan to make their government work well. Sri Lanka has fought a civil war
for several decades that only recently ended. One ethnic group, the Tamils, that
lives in Sri Lanka wants to rule themselves. They lost. Bhutan and Nepal are
moving from monarchies to democracies.
Religion
India
is the origin of two of the world’s major religions: Hinduism and Buddhism.
Hinduism has many gods and goddesses. Hindus believe that each person must live
up to his or her dharma, or moral duty. If a person does something good, that is
rewarded. If a person does something bad, then that person is punished. This
idea is called karma. Each person is reincarnated, or reborn, until they master
all of their weaknesses and manage to get rid of all of their desires. When that
happens, that person is no longer reborn.
Buddhism
is based on the teachings of a prince born in 563 B.C. He eventually changed his
named to Buddha after he spent years meditating and searching for spiritual
answers. He taught people that they suffer because they are attached to material
things and that they have to follow certain rules in their lives such as being
kind and acting wisely. Buddha believed that if people gave up their attachment
to material things, they could eventually achieve nirvana or a state of calm,
happiness, and understanding.
Islam
will be introduced to the region by traders from Middle Eastern countries in the
700s. Other religions include Jainism, in which followers believe that hurting
even an insect is evil; Sikhism, in which followers follow a blend of Hindu and
Islam; and Christianity.
India
has a wide variety of religions. Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh are
almost completely Muslim. Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka are mostly Buddhist.
Special
Focus: Cultural Barriers In India
Mountains,
oceans, and deserts are not the only things that keep cultures separated from
each other. Cultural differences can lead to nearby cultures having little
impact on each other. Language is a big barrier. Being unable to communicate
limits the amount of influence one culture can have on another. India is a
country that has major cultural barriers amongst its own people. There are over
hundreds of individual languages spoken in the country. Another barrier is
religion. India’s major religion, Hinduism, has many variants (many different
types). One Hindu does not necessarily worship the same things or believe the
same things another Hindu might. Also, India has several different religions
followed by millions including Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism, and
Jainism. Religion includes a set of beliefs people consider to be very important
and true so religion can be a barrier if the beliefs are different. So if two
different religions disagree about what is true or right then the people of that
religion are less likely to influence each other. Another force limiting
cultural diffusion in India is caste. Caste is part of Hinduism. People belong
to different groups that has to do with the work they do. Some teachers will
belong to one caste while mechanics will belong to another. Over time, the
castes became permanent and hereditary, so the work one did followed the
family. Another thing that happened over time is different castes began to be
considered better than the other castes. The different castes had rules about
how they interacted with other castes. There were rules about people from
different castes being unable to marry each other. Since the different castes
limited their interaction with each other, caste became a cultural barrier.
People from different castes no longer influenced each other that much. Because
of this, India has a wide variety of distinct and separate cultures that have
changed little over time.
Economy
India’s
economy is the fourth largest in the world. India has been very successful in
improving their economy. In the 1970s, many countries gave India food so that
people would not starve. The government in India decided to look at how they
grew their crops and find better ways. They did this and now India does not need
food imports from other countries. This is called the Green Revolution. More
recently, India’s economy has grown because it has become a center of business
services for the rest of the world. American companies hire Indians to work for
them in customer service and computer services. When a company from one country
hires people from another country to do work for them, it is called outsourcing.
Most of the time, companies outsource because the people in the foreign country
have the same skills (English speakers, computer knowledge) that people in their
own country have but they will work for a lot less money. Even though India’s
economy is growing, India is one of the poorest countries in the world. Half of
the children in India are malnourished.
Most
people think that Pakistan has a good economy. Bangladesh is a developing nation
that struggles to meet the basic needs of its people. Sri Lanka has one of the
strongest economies in the region, and has the highest per capita GDP (gross
domestic product). Per capita GDP is a way to see how rich or poor a country is.
Per capita GDP takes how much money a country makes in a year and then divides
it by the population. The United States, one of the richest countries in the
world, has a per capita GDP of about $33,000. In Sri Lanka, it is around
$4,700. That is the best in the region. Sri Lanka still has problems: they have
had a civil war raging on their island for almost thirty years. Nepal and
Bhutan are countries that are mostly agricultural and isolated (which means
they are cut off from other countries).
Environment
The
huge population in South Asia creates a number of environmental challenges.
Having so many people living together, especially in the cities, makes it
difficult to have clean water and enough food. Many companies dump toxic
chemicals in rivers that are used by millions of people. One of the most
polluted places on earth, Ranipet, India, has water that stings like an insect
bite if it gets on the skin. Having so many people means that they need land to
live on. In South Asia there are a lot of animals, such as tigers, that need
land to live on. Unfortunately, there is only so much land and often people and
other animals fight over it. This is called habitat loss because the place where
an animal lives is called its habitat. People also remove the forests in order
to create more farmland and places to live.
South
Asia Unit Summary Questions
Asia Unit Summary
South
Asia is a peninsula in the Southern part of Asia that juts (sticks out) into the
Indian Ocean. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh are the three largest countries in
South Asia, with India being far larger in both population and area. Nepal and
Bhutan are small countries located in the Himalayas. Sri Lanka is an island at
the southern tip of India. The entire area has a very high population for its
size. Many in the region suffer from poverty and the problems that come with it.
Historically, the region was the origin of two major religions. South Asia, like
much of the rest of the globe, experienced being colonized during the 1700s,
1800s, and early 1900s. While the region has avoided war recently, Pakistan and
India have big problems with each other. Because of its large population and
governments that lack power to do much, environmental problems like habitat
destruction and pollution have become widespread.
Physical
Geography
The dominant physical feature of South Asia
is the Himalaya mountains in the North. Those mountains formed 60 million years
ago when a piece of Africa broke off and rammed into Asia. This crash crumpled
the areas where the two pieces of land hit each other and created a mountain
range with some of the highest mountains in the world.
In addition to the Himalayas, most of the
rest of South Asia is dominated by highlands or several small mountains ranges
and plateaus. These highlands have helped protect the area from cultural
contact. Another important feature in South Asia is its rivers. The Brahmaputra
in Bangladesh begins in the mountains and empties into the sea. The Ganges river
in India is a major symbol of purity and rebirth for many Hindus. The Indus
river in Pakistan helped foster (which means make something happen) the ancient
cultural hearth of India.
Natural
Resources
Water from the rivers is used for drinking,
irrigation, transportation, and sources for hydroelectric power. Fishing in both
the rivers and the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal, and Arabian Sea help feed a
large population. The region has very little in the way of petroleum, but it
does have important mineral deposits of iron ore, manganese, chromite, coal, and
gypsum. The region is the major supplier of mica, which is used to make
electrical equipment. Sri Lanka has lot of precious
gems.
Climate
Much of the region depends on the rains
brought by the monsoons, or seasonal winds. During part of the year, the wind
blows from the large continent of Asia. Part of the year winds from the South
blow in the region. These winds carry a lot of water from the ocean and release
it over the land as rain. The people of South Asia need these rains so that
their crops will grow. During the monsoons, an area may receive around 90% of
the precipitation it gets throughout the year. If the monsoons rains did not
bring water to South Asia, over 1 billion people might not receive enough food
for an entire year. The monsoons are so important that its arrival is celebrated
in parties and festival. At the same time, monsoons can create dangerous
conditions for people living in the area. When an area receives a large amount
of rain in a short amount of time, the result is sometimes severe flooding.
Strong, flowing water can destroy houses, kill people and livestock, or knock
down electrical wires which can then injure people.
Most of Pakistan is desert, steppe, or
highland. Bhutan and Nepal are highland and humid subtropical (P-moderate amount
of rain, V-large plants and forests, T-cool winters, hot summers). Bangladesh is
divided between tropical rainforest and humid subtropical. India has a wide
variety of climates including, tropical rain forest, tropical savanna, humid
subtropical, highland, steppe, and desert. Sri Lanka is tropical savanna in the
northern part of the island and tropical rain forest in the Southern part.
Afghanistan is mostly highland.
Population
South
Asia contains around a quarter of the world’s population. India, with over a
billion people, has the largest population of any country except for China in
the world. Since it covers a small area but has a large number of people,
Bangladesh has the highest population density of any major country in the world.
Russia has a slightly smaller population than Bangladesh but it 120 times its
size in area. Bhutan and Nepal have very small populations, largely because they
are mountain kingdoms. Much of the region has a very high population density,
but there are places such as mountains and deserts where very few people live.
Although
South Asia is not now a highly urbanized region, many parts of it have rapidly
growing cities as people move from the country to seek work and a better future.
The cities in the region are overpopulated. There are a lot of very poor people
who struggle to survive.
History
The
Indus Valley civilization was one of the first places in the world where people
quit hunting and gathering and started farming and trading in one area. This
civilization became so advanced that its people developed a writing system, a
strong government, and a rich economy. Eventually this civilization would be
abandoned and its people moved other places.
New
immigrants to the region introduced the idea of caste. A caste system divides
people up according to job. One’s caste determines how one is treated in society
and what choices one has about life. Usually, caste is something that lasts from
generation to generation with no way to change it. This idea lasted in India for
centuries and has made a deep impact on India’s culture.
By
the 1500’s, European were trying to trade with South Asia for spices and other
goods. By the 1700’s, England took over much of South Asia and ran the area as a
colony. While England did introduce some important changes such a new system of
education, some building of infrastructure, and government jobs for some people
of the region, many in South Asia did not like being controlled by this European
country. India helped Great Britain fight World War 2 but after the war, the
people wanted to be independent of Great Britain. Their leader, Mohandas
Gandhi, decided the way to get independence for India was not by fighting the
British with violence, but by refusing to do what they said and by not buying
British goods. This idea is known as nonviolence and was very successful. In
1947, Great Britain gave up control of the area and two countries were born:
India, with a large Hindu population, and Pakistan, with a large Muslim
population. This division according to religion caused major conflict between
the two groups of people and many, many problems that still need to be fixed.
The
people of each country have a lot of hard feelings about when the countries were
separated and people were forced to move because of their religion. They
disagree about who owns a piece of land named Kashmir. They have gone to war
over this piece of land at least two times. As recently as 2008, Pakistan
supported several terrorists as they attacked the populated and wealthy Indian
city of Mumbai. At least 164 people were killed in these attacks and it is quite
clear that the Pakistani government helped them do it.
People
are very concerned that this conflict might erupt into violence because both
India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons use the power of the
atom and allow people to create weapons of incredible destructive power. One
nuclear weapon can destroy a city.
Bangladesh
was a part of Pakistan, even though it was not connected to it. By 1971,
Bangladesh became an independent country after it fought a war (with India on
its side) with Pakistan.
Afghanistan
has had a long history of war. They fought an invasion by the Soviet Union in
the 1980s (and won). In the 1990s, a very conservative religious group called
the Taliban took control of the government (like if the Amish took control
here). They try to make the laws of Afghanistan be like those people followed
hundreds of years ago. They made things very difficult for women, destroyed
non-Islamic religious symbols and punished their enemies brutally. Eventually,
the United States decided to go to war with Afghanistan because the US thought
Afghanistan was a place that supported terrorists who attacked the United
States. The United States weakened the Taliban but they are still around and
fighting. The United States has been at war with the Taliban for over 10 years.
The war is supposed to end by 2014.
Government
India,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh are all democracies. A
democracy is a type of government where the people of the country get to have
some say in how things are run. India’s democracy works well for most of its
people. All the governments deal with a lot of corruption. Pakistan is dealing
with a group of people, the Taliban, who want to turn the country into a
religious dictatorship, called a theocracy. By adding more people to the cause
and using violence, the Taliban has made it very difficult for the rest of
Pakistan to make their government work well. Sri Lanka has fought a civil war
for several decades that only recently ended. One ethnic group, the Tamils, that
lives in Sri Lanka wants to rule themselves. They lost. Bhutan and Nepal are
moving from monarchies to democracies.
Religion
India
is the origin of two of the world’s major religions: Hinduism and Buddhism.
Hinduism has many gods and goddesses. Hindus believe that each person must live
up to his or her dharma, or moral duty. If a person does something good, that is
rewarded. If a person does something bad, then that person is punished. This
idea is called karma. Each person is reincarnated, or reborn, until they master
all of their weaknesses and manage to get rid of all of their desires. When that
happens, that person is no longer reborn.
Buddhism
is based on the teachings of a prince born in 563 B.C. He eventually changed his
named to Buddha after he spent years meditating and searching for spiritual
answers. He taught people that they suffer because they are attached to material
things and that they have to follow certain rules in their lives such as being
kind and acting wisely. Buddha believed that if people gave up their attachment
to material things, they could eventually achieve nirvana or a state of calm,
happiness, and understanding.
Islam
will be introduced to the region by traders from Middle Eastern countries in the
700s. Other religions include Jainism, in which followers believe that hurting
even an insect is evil; Sikhism, in which followers follow a blend of Hindu and
Islam; and Christianity.
India
has a wide variety of religions. Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh are
almost completely Muslim. Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka are mostly Buddhist.
Special
Focus: Cultural Barriers In India
Mountains,
oceans, and deserts are not the only things that keep cultures separated from
each other. Cultural differences can lead to nearby cultures having little
impact on each other. Language is a big barrier. Being unable to communicate
limits the amount of influence one culture can have on another. India is a
country that has major cultural barriers amongst its own people. There are over
hundreds of individual languages spoken in the country. Another barrier is
religion. India’s major religion, Hinduism, has many variants (many different
types). One Hindu does not necessarily worship the same things or believe the
same things another Hindu might. Also, India has several different religions
followed by millions including Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism, and
Jainism. Religion includes a set of beliefs people consider to be very important
and true so religion can be a barrier if the beliefs are different. So if two
different religions disagree about what is true or right then the people of that
religion are less likely to influence each other. Another force limiting
cultural diffusion in India is caste. Caste is part of Hinduism. People belong
to different groups that has to do with the work they do. Some teachers will
belong to one caste while mechanics will belong to another. Over time, the
castes became permanent and hereditary, so the work one did followed the
family. Another thing that happened over time is different castes began to be
considered better than the other castes. The different castes had rules about
how they interacted with other castes. There were rules about people from
different castes being unable to marry each other. Since the different castes
limited their interaction with each other, caste became a cultural barrier.
People from different castes no longer influenced each other that much. Because
of this, India has a wide variety of distinct and separate cultures that have
changed little over time.
Economy
India’s
economy is the fourth largest in the world. India has been very successful in
improving their economy. In the 1970s, many countries gave India food so that
people would not starve. The government in India decided to look at how they
grew their crops and find better ways. They did this and now India does not need
food imports from other countries. This is called the Green Revolution. More
recently, India’s economy has grown because it has become a center of business
services for the rest of the world. American companies hire Indians to work for
them in customer service and computer services. When a company from one country
hires people from another country to do work for them, it is called outsourcing.
Most of the time, companies outsource because the people in the foreign country
have the same skills (English speakers, computer knowledge) that people in their
own country have but they will work for a lot less money. Even though India’s
economy is growing, India is one of the poorest countries in the world. Half of
the children in India are malnourished.
Most
people think that Pakistan has a good economy. Bangladesh is a developing nation
that struggles to meet the basic needs of its people. Sri Lanka has one of the
strongest economies in the region, and has the highest per capita GDP (gross
domestic product). Per capita GDP is a way to see how rich or poor a country is.
Per capita GDP takes how much money a country makes in a year and then divides
it by the population. The United States, one of the richest countries in the
world, has a per capita GDP of about $33,000. In Sri Lanka, it is around
$4,700. That is the best in the region. Sri Lanka still has problems: they have
had a civil war raging on their island for almost thirty years. Nepal and
Bhutan are countries that are mostly agricultural and isolated (which means
they are cut off from other countries).
Environment
The
huge population in South Asia creates a number of environmental challenges.
Having so many people living together, especially in the cities, makes it
difficult to have clean water and enough food. Many companies dump toxic
chemicals in rivers that are used by millions of people. One of the most
polluted places on earth, Ranipet, India, has water that stings like an insect
bite if it gets on the skin. Having so many people means that they need land to
live on. In South Asia there are a lot of animals, such as tigers, that need
land to live on. Unfortunately, there is only so much land and often people and
other animals fight over it. This is called habitat loss because the place where
an animal lives is called its habitat. People also remove the forests in order
to create more farmland and places to live.
South
Asia Unit Summary Questions
- What
are the Himalayas? - Draw
a three part diagram showing how the Himalayas
formed. - Why
would the Himalayas reduce contact between
cultures? - Create
a list that shows cultural barriers. - Why
are cultural hearths often located on the banks of a
river? - What
is a monsoon? - How
is a monsoon a human/environment interaction? - Complete
the following: In South Asia, monsoons are positive for humans because
_______________________________. However, monsoons also have negative
effects on humans such as __________________________.
- In
the handout, it compares Bangladesh and Russia in population and area. What,
in your own words, is the conclusion you can draw from the
conclusion? - What
is a caste system? Can you think of one advantage and one disadvantage for
having a caste system in your society? - How
did the Indians win independence? - Why
were there two countries carved out of what used to be Great Britain’s
Indian empire? - What
is a democracy? - Describe
a political (dealing with government) problem in South Asia. Can you think
of some way the problem can be fixed? - Make
a table showing the religions and countries of South
Asia. - India
has many different cultures. Why have they not blended into one giant
culture? - What
is a positive thing that is happening in the economy in a South Asian
country? A negative thing? - Give
an example of outsourcing. - Why
do people outsource? - What
environmental problem would you be most worried about if you lived in
South Asia? Why?