ABSTRACT
South East Asia belongs climatically to the humid tropics. Once this has been said, however, it is difficult to generalise about climatic conditions in the region. Certainly not all the region is characterised by a monsoonal rainfall regime in the sense that it has one season of scarce rainfall. Certainly Kalimantan and some other parts of Indonesia have consistently high temperatures and receive rainfall in fair amounts throughout the whole of the year. On the other hand, such areas are smaller than the latitudinal extent of the land masses might suggest. Here topography has played a part and the presence of mountainous areas as the backbone of such major islands as Java and Sumatra and of the Malay peninsula have shielded certain areas from the full force of the rain-bearing winds and given them climates similar to some degree to the true monsoonal climates which affect most of the mainland outside the high mountains of Northern Burma and Laos.
