**1. Introduction**

Urbanization is one of the most powerful and visible anthropogenic forces on Earth. Although urban areas only occupy a relatively small part of the Earth's land area, they represent 54% of the global population (and even more in the following decades) [1]. With rapid econom‐ ic globalization, urbanization is now having a huge impact on the political, socioeconomic, and environmental landscape of countries across the world. In recent years, taking advant‐ age of remote sensing, many studies have been performed by scholars from universities, academic institutions, and international organizations on different subjects related to urbanization. Funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the 100 Cities Project was implemented in 2010 by Arizona State University (ASU) to supply remote sensing images of 100 international cities as a tool for creating urban models and formulating an effective policy for policymakers and researchers from around the world. The data set generated by this project could be used to create sustainable urban planning practices in various climatic, ecological, and social regions [2]. In 2012, using the urban and rural information derived from satellite data and other sources, NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) launched the Global Rural‐Urban Mapping Project to re‐ spond to the challenges of sustainable development and environmental management presented by world urbanization. That project presented a series of spatial distribution data of human populations to study urban ecology and address critical environmental and societal issues in urban areas [3]. Recently, the World Bank (WB), in collaboration with the Univer‐ sity of Wisconsin and the WorldPop project, has developed a map of built‐up areas, urban expansion, and urban population (UP) changes across the East Asian region (stretching from Mongolia to the Pacific Islands) for the years 2000 and 2010. These data sets include data on all 869 urban areas in the region with populations of more than 100,000 and serve as a valuable reference for urban geography studies on changing patterns of urbanization [4]. Mean‐ while, many scholars also devote urban development studies using remote sensing technol‐ ogy [5, 6], and studies on sustainable urbanization are ongoing. To leave extreme poverty behind and prosper, East‐Southeast Asia is currently experiencing rapid urbanization, and cities play a transformative role in this economic growth. Sustainable urban development in the cities of East‐Southeast Asia draws an increasing amount of global attention to the region's stability and development.

Sustainable Urbanization in the China‐Indochinese Peninsula Economic Corridor http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/62554 5

**Figure 1.** Location of the Indochinese Peninsula.

and also provide a basis for further studies of sustainable urbanization in the

**Keywords:** sustainable urbanization, China‐Indochinese Peninsula Economic

Urbanization is one of the most powerful and visible anthropogenic forces on Earth. Although urban areas only occupy a relatively small part of the Earth's land area, they represent 54% of the global population (and even more in the following decades) [1]. With rapid econom‐ ic globalization, urbanization is now having a huge impact on the political, socioeconomic, and environmental landscape of countries across the world. In recent years, taking advant‐ age of remote sensing, many studies have been performed by scholars from universities, academic institutions, and international organizations on different subjects related to urbanization. Funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the 100 Cities Project was implemented in 2010 by Arizona State University (ASU) to supply remote sensing images of 100 international cities as a tool for creating urban models and formulating an effective policy for policymakers and researchers from around the world. The data set generated by this project could be used to create sustainable urban planning practices in various climatic, ecological, and social regions [2]. In 2012, using the urban and rural information derived from satellite data and other sources, NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) launched the Global Rural‐Urban Mapping Project to re‐ spond to the challenges of sustainable development and environmental management presented by world urbanization. That project presented a series of spatial distribution data of human populations to study urban ecology and address critical environmental and societal issues in urban areas [3]. Recently, the World Bank (WB), in collaboration with the Univer‐ sity of Wisconsin and the WorldPop project, has developed a map of built‐up areas, urban expansion, and urban population (UP) changes across the East Asian region (stretching from Mongolia to the Pacific Islands) for the years 2000 and 2010. These data sets include data on all 869 urban areas in the region with populations of more than 100,000 and serve as a valuable reference for urban geography studies on changing patterns of urbanization [4]. Mean‐ while, many scholars also devote urban development studies using remote sensing technol‐ ogy [5, 6], and studies on sustainable urbanization are ongoing. To leave extreme poverty behind and prosper, East‐Southeast Asia is currently experiencing rapid urbanization, and cities play a transformative role in this economic growth. Sustainable urban development in the cities of East‐Southeast Asia draws an increasing amount of global attention to the region's

China‐Indochinese Peninsula Economic Corridor.

Corridor, remote sensing, GIS, driving force analysis

**1. Introduction**

4 Sustainable Urbanization

stability and development.

The Indochinese Peninsula is located between China and the South Asian Subcontinent. It is bordered by the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman Sea and Malacca in the west and the South China Sea in the east (**Figure 1**). In the Indochinese Peninsula, a peninsula in southeastern Asia that contains Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, the rapid urbanization of recent years exerted strong influences on regional development. In 1992, with assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), those five countries and China established a program of subregional economic cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) that aimed to enhance economic relations among them. The GMS program helps the five countries imple‐ ment many high‐priority subregional projects in transportation, energy, telecommunications, the environment, human resource development, tourism, trade, private sector investment, and agriculture, all of which were strong drivers of the economy and urbanization process in the Indochinese Peninsula. **Table 1** shows the number of cites in the Indochinese Peninsula in 2015 classified by country‐size class; that information was obtained from the World Urbanization Prospects reported by the United Nations (UN) [1]. In the five countries of the Indochinese Peninsula, there are 26 cities with populations of more than 300,000 and 16 cities with popu‐ lations of more than 500,000. From the table, we conclude that Thailand and Vietnam contain many more big urban agglomerations than the other countries, thus showing their high level of urbanization. Second, despite the presence of some metropolitan cities, urbanization in countries of the Indochinese Peninsula is broad‐based. Only 1 city with a population of more than 300,000 can be found in Cambodia and Laos; Thailand and Vietnam have only 1 supercity (5 million or more inhabitants) each. Increasingly, after a process of transition and transfor‐ mation, modernization and industrialization are emerging in Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. These countries are gradually shifting from traditional farming to more diversified economies and to more open market‐based systems [7]. Parallel with this development are the growing economy links between the five countries and their neighbors, notably in terms of cross‐border trade, investment, and labor mobility [8]. Moreover, natural resources, particularly hydropower, are beginning to be developed and used in the region [9]. The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road [One Belt and One Road (B&R)], which was proposed by China in 2014, comprise a development strategy and frame‐ work that aims to enhance the economic relationship among countries in Asia and Europe [10]. The China‐Indochinese Peninsula Economic Corridor, as an important international gateway of B&R, is supposed to develop a regional economic entity with common development that uses the railways and roads as a medium. The rich human and natural resource endowments of the Indochinese Peninsula region have made it a new frontier of Asian economic growth. The Indochinese Peninsula has tremendous potential to promote both regional economic growth and urban development. Thus, following the 2014 launch of B&R, the China‐Indochi‐ nese Peninsula Economic Corridor will witness a more rapid urbanization progress in the next decade.


Sources: World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, UN.

**Table 1.** Number of agglomerations classified by country‐size class in the Indochinese Peninsula, 2015.

This chapter gives a general overview of the urbanization procession in countries in the Indochinese Peninsula region and presents the state‐of‐the‐art techniques for monitoring the spatiotemporal dynamics of the urban environment. An analysis of the forces driving urban expansion was also performed based on an integrated analysis of both natural and social economic factors.
