ABSTRACT
Asia is the world's largest continent, and could be considered as containing three main geographical regions: the Middle East, South Asia (including India) and Central Asia. Despite this, in terms of travel history it makes better sense to consider the Middle East separately (as has been done in Chapter 2) because of its significance as the cradle of early civilizations and in the early development of river and sea-borne travel. Moreover, for much of recorded history the countries of the Middle East (and part of North Africa) have been under unified political control. In terms of the history of travel in Asia, several further divisions of this vast continent become apparent. Most obviously, the subcontinent of India (including Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Indian Ocean Islands), whose history is basically unrelated to that of China but closely involved with the development of sea-borne trade through the Indian Ocean and with European colonization, is a distinct area. The same is true of the countries of South-East Asia (Thailand, Indonesia, Bali, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, etc.), which have elements of shared political histories. It also makes historical sense to treat China separately, and to separate off the Himalayas and the pan-Himalayan region (including Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan), whose travel history is conditioned by a different set of geographical determinants. However, this is very much a personal decision, and the reader may well feel that another scheme would have been preferable.
