Page 97 - ICSE GEOGRAPHY

Irrawaddy–Salween–Mekong Valley
Th e rivers Irrawaddy, Salween and Mekong
fl ow through Myanmar and the other
adjoining countries, and form the Irrawaddy–
Salween–Mekong valley.

Great Plains of China

Th e land that is formed due to the Huang He,
Chang Jiang and the Si Kiang rivers is known
as the Great Plain of China.

Island Groups

Th e eastern and the south-eastern part of Asia
has several island chains. A group of islands
is known as an archipelago.
• Th e Malay Archipelago is the largest The Japanese Archipelago
group of islands in the world. It consists
of more than 17,000 islands of Indonesia Deserts
and approximately 7,000 islands of the A signifi cant portion of Asia is covered by
Philippines. Th e archipelago extends deserts that are hot and arid like the Arabian
along the Equator for more than 6,100 Desert or cold like the intercontinental
kilometres and extends for 3,500 km from deserts of Central Asia.
north to south. It is situated between the
Pacifi c Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It Arabian Desert

includes the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, Th e Arabian Desert is a vast desert of
Java, Sulawesi, Bali and Timor. wilderness stretching from Yemen to the
• Th e Lakshadweep Islands in the Arabian Persian Gulf and from Oman to Jordan
Seas, and the Andaman and Nicobar and Iraq. It is the largest desert in Asia at
Islands in the Bay of Bengal belong to 2.33 million square kilometres and occupies
India. most of the Arabian Peninsula. Th is desert is
• Th e Kuril Islands form an archipelago located in the Middle East.
of more than thirty mountainous islands
situated in a curving line that runs north Let’s Discuss
from Hokkaido (Japan) to the Kamchatka Which are the deserts found in Central Asia?
Peninsula (Russia). It encloses the Sea of
Okhotsk and occupies an area of 15,600
Gobi Desert
square kilometres.
• Th e Japanese Archipelago of Hokkaido, Th e Gobi Desert is the second largest desert

Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu form the in Asia, covering 1.295 million square
country of Japan, and extends roughly kilometres. Extending from northern China
from the north-east to the south-west into Mongolia. Th e Gobi Desert receives
along the Pacifi c Ocean. an average of 7 inches of rainfall each year

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