IN A world survey of cities with a population of one million or m made in I93 I, Mark Jefferson, could not include a single represe from Southeast Asia. Since I945 five cities in this area have atta million status-Jakarta, Manila, Saigon, Bangkok, and Singapore the major political units in this part of Asia, only Burma has failed duce a" million city." In Malaya, the most highly urbanized cou per cent of the population live in towns of 5000 or more, and t more than io, ooo increased their population by 52.6 per cent in intercensal period, I93I-I947. But the concept of Southeast Asia as of rural peoples with a rhythm of life determined by rice cultiva still largely correct. The proportion of urban dwellers is about th for the Asian continent, and, except possibly in Java, there are f cities, in relation to the level of population, than in either South or By Western standards the countries of Southeast Asia had only o apiece until very recently. Most of the other settlements of any overgrown villages, and in some degree they still retain aspects of village origin. In Southeast Asia the evolution of indigenous cities Chinese or Indian scale was not possible. Chesneaux2 suggests that the large indigenous Asian cities grew up within" the traditional fr of the great agricultural empires," but in both peninsular and arc Southeast Asia physical fragmentation, reinforced by a great dive peoples, hindered the development of large states. Though occ established, they were highly unstable and of short duration. The houses of the petty native states were insufficient stimuli to city and commerce was equally inadequate. The only effective impulse, as Credner3 points out, was a favorable combination of trade foci with administrative, military, and religious functions of the highest order. Dependence on changeable watercourses for irrigated rice culture and transportation, and the personal whim of the ruler, produced a marked arbitrariness