About 160 km (100 miles) southeast of New Delhi is the most famous landmark in India - the Taj Mahal, built in the first half of the 17th Century by the Mughal Emporer as a promise to his wife, the Empress Muntaz Mahal, upon her death. Below is an IKONOS image of the Taj Mahal, just outside the city of Agra, and beneath it are two ground views:
The largest city in south-central India is Hyderabad, outside of which is the Indian space program's National Remote Sensing Agency. It appears here in an LISS-3 false color image and a higher resolution IRS-1 black and white image. The center of this city is home to India's "Arc de Triomphe", the Charminar, constructed as a monument in 1591 by Muhammed Quli Qutab Shah.
The Brahmaputra River northeast of Calcutta, noted for its huge load of sediments, begins where several feeder rivers from the mountains of Tibet and the easternmost State of India, Assam meet. The river flows through Assam (right half of image) past the Shillong Plateau and the Garo Hills (a Precambrian crystalline complex) and upper Bangladesh (left), and finally into the Lower Ganges at Dacca (below this scene). In this view, it is joined by several rivers from the foothills of Sikkim and Bhutan. The Brahmaputra during rainy season can be greater than 8 km (5 miles) wide. Here, more than a month after the end of the monsoons, most of the water has flowed on, leaving choked stream beds and numerous small channels, a condition known as a braided stream.
Images of Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo and several other parts of Asia appear elsewhere in the Tutorial. Here we show two more cities. One is now a discrete nation: Singapore. Below is an astronaut photo of part of the island on which the city of Singapore is located:
The Vietnam War remains a sensitive issue to Americans. In the Games subsection of this Section, you saw a Landsat image of southern Vietnam. During that war, operations spilled over into Cambodia. The Mekong Delta extends into that country. The Delta and part of Cambodia are depicted in this MERIS image which covers 462 km (290 miles) on a side. The map beneath it identifies locations in much of this image.
Here is a Landsat-1 image of the Mekong River (blue ribbon) and the delta lowlands. Much of that area is given to rice fields and paddies. Some of the black in the image may be clear water; perhaps some black is associated with burning of non-rice crops:
The mouths of the Mekong pass through dense mangrove forests, as seen in this satellite image.
Typical of the inland Mekong River, with its meandering course, and laden with silt, is this aerial oblique photo.
Over the centuries, much of the delta and land further inland have been deforested. The fertile soil and the flooding during the rainy season is ideal for growing rice. Vietnam is now a world supplier of this staple. Here is a view of fields given to rice and other crops. The second picture shows typical jungle in the parts of the Delta country kept untouched.
We have already visited mainland China in the Games subsection of Section 6, where Beijing was highlighted. Shown here is a full winter Landsat-1 scene in which Beijing can be located by the small square in right center. Beijing lies at the boundary between the Northeastern Plains and the extension of the Great Khingan Range that is as high as 2300 m (7600 ft);
Central China is drained by the Yellow River (or Huang Ho, in chinese). That long stream receives its name from the color of the sediments it carries. These are mostly fine silty loess (windblown dust derived from rocks carried by continental glaciers in the Pleistocene). The lowlands are covered with many meters of loess, which makes a good soil for crops. The loess is easily dissected, forming long gullies. The Luliang and Hwo Montains, also loess-covered, are made of sedimentary rocks.
In South China lies three major cities: Kuangchou (formerly called Canton), seen in this Landsat-1 image as a black area left of center; Macao (once a Portuguese colony) on the shore of the large sea inlet near the mouth of the Chu-kiang estuary; and Hong Kong, just off the image in the lower right, in a peninsula known as the New Territories (when it was a British possession until restored to China in the 1990s). The region is heavily farmed and is also become industrialized.
China, in the last 20 years, has had a very robust economy, with a high degree of modernization that is increasing both domestic output and goods for the world market. China has recognized a pressing need for a much greater supply of electric energy. It is currently engaged in a huge power plant project: The Three Rivers Gorge dam on the Yangtse River. When completed in 2009, the dam will funnel water through 20 generator stations. The dam itself will be the largest in the world (181 meters (about 600 ft) high; the lake formed behind it has displaced more than a million Chinese. Here are two views of the dam taken at different scales and resolutions by Digital Globe's Quickbird-2:
Further east lies the Korean Peninsula northwest of Japan. Here is a satellite image that shows the capital of South Korea (pinkish-red) inland from the port of Inchon (site of MacArthur's bold amphibious landing during the Korean War).
This ASTER image shows a part of Seoul on the right:
Parts of Japan have been shown elsewhere in the Tutorial, including Tokyo. At this point we will now show the entire island group making up Japan, as imaged by OrbView2.
But we want to zero in on Tokyo by presenting this huge city in full context with its surroundings by displaying this Landsat image: Some idea of the extent this now modern city has grown is given by this aerial oblique photo: One of the most famed (many say imfamous) places on Earth is Hiroshima, in western Honshu. It was almost leveled by the first atomic bomb to be dropped near the end of World War II. The city was completely rebuilt, as shown in this ASTER image: 
Hundreds of islands make up the Philippines. Here is a Landsat view of much of Luzon, with Manila being the blue area in the arcuate bay in center left. Mt Pinatubo, seen elsewhere in this Tutorial, is to its south.
Much of the remainder of the Philippines, including the large island of Mindinao, appears in this space image.
Near and north of the Equator is the large island of New Guinea. In the Landsat scene below, the mountainous central region is very heavily vegetated with forests of a tropical nature.
The confederation of thousands of islands makes up the nation of Indonesia. This Metsat view shows most of Sumatra, Java, and part of Borneo. The majority of the islands are an "island arc" - a series of uplifts in the ocean on the continental plate side of a tectonic zone undergoing subduction (here, to the south) the lower part of which remains submerged by the ocean.
Jarkata is the capital of Indonesia. It lies against the ocean near the northwest corner of the Island of Java. Here is a Landsat-2 view, obtained in 1976 when the city's population was about 6 million.:
The city is the uniformly blue area next to the sea. The prominent volcano at the left (west) edge is Merat. Jakarta is a sprawling modern city, as evident in this ground photo.
By 2004, Jakarta's population had more than doubled to 13 million. Note the changes (largely in blue) of city building density in this ASTER image taken that year.
The most extraordinary single meal ever consumed by the writer (NMS) was at the Hotel Indonesia in Jakarta during his mission for the U.S. State Department in 1974. It was a super Javanese "smorgasbord" spread over a 60 foot long line of tables with dozens of tasty entree's. A 20 piece Gamelin orchestra, and 12 dancing girls provided entertainment. The entire cost, including drinks, was $10 U.S. Unforgettable!
