ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the general pattern of urbanization for East Asia. The aggregate statistics for the entire region suggest a pattern that is very close to the average for “less developed areas.” An examination of the statistics for overall levels of urbanization shows China lagging behind the rest of East Asia. China’s low urbanization level and rapid growth rate in the 1950s present an interesting contrast with those in Japan, and they further support a political economy of the world-system argument. In 1950, only 11 percent of the total population was classified as urban. The United Nations data show a third variation on the urban theme. These countries are much more urbanized than China or countries in Southeast Asia, but they remain far behind Japan in terms of the percent of the total population living in cities. Southease Asia’s overall level of urbanization is very low.
