The History of Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia begins this millennium building on a monumental scale: Angkor grows into one of the largest cities of the preindustrial world, while Majapahit knits the Indonesian archipelago into a maritime empire and Ayutthaya rises on the Chao Phraya. The region sat at the hinge of world trade, and its spices drew first Asian merchants, then European fleets that came for cloves and stayed for centuries as colonial powers. This timeline follows the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, French, British and Americans through the archipelagos, the Japanese occupation that broke the colonial spell, and the independence struggles and wars, above all in Vietnam, that defined the postwar decades. Each event below links to a full page with its date and context.