Southeast Asia composed of the eleven countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore. Indigenous cultural vibration of Southeast Asia has been influenced by the contact, trade, migration, and cultural exchange from India, China, and Europe. Though there are some vibrations in the countries, Buddhism is the major religion of mainland Southeast Asia. Islam is the major religion in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Christianity is the major religion of the Philippines. Most of the countries have remoter highland and mountainous regions which are often inhabited by ethnic minorities. The lowlands of both mainland and insular Southeast Asia tend to be densely settled. The major cities of the region such as Ho Chi Min, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Singapore, and Yangon are port cities. In many of these cities Chinese play an important role in commerce. 

The contemporary political divisions of Southeast Asia are a legacy of European imperialism, especially in the nineteenth century. Before imperialism, there were great regional civilizations in Southeast Asia. These early polities were found in intensive rice cultivation with irrigation system. Indian culture transformed into distinctive local cultural forms in different Southeast Asian context. European expansion started in the sixteenth century and the colonies constructed authoritarian dependencies in the tropics based on export economies and racial ideologies.

After the Second World War most of the Southeast Asian country got the independence by the popular nationalist movements which demand the end of colonization. The interplay of nationalist struggles, class conflicts, and East-West Cold War rivalry had influenced on political situations of Southeast Asia. Evolutionary social changed continued throughout much of Southeast Asia in the 1980s and 1990s. 

Extract from Charles Hirschman and Jennifer Edwards. 2007. “Social Change in Southeast Asian.” In George Ritzer (ed). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Vol. 9: 437-4380. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.