A VEGETATION MAP OF TROPICAL CONTINENTAL ASIA AT SCALE 1 5 MILLION/

A vegetation map at scale 1 : 5 million is presented. It covers Bangl adesh, Burma (Myanmar), India, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and S ri Lanka and fills a conspicuous gap in the cartography of tropical ve getation, following the publication of vegetation maps of South Americ a, Africa and Malaysia. For conformity, it is presented as one sheet a t a scale of 1 :5 million. It uses the basic map of the American Geogr aphical Society (1942; bipolar oblique conformal projection) which for ms the base for FAO's Soil map of the world. Basic information was obt ained from many published maps, unpublished observations and satellite data. The limits of the main vegetation types have been updated with a complete set of Landsat MSS images (369 scenes) with a mosaic of Lan dsat TM data for 1991 and with recent forest maps from Asia. Nine main vegetation units, which are groups of forest formations, have been id entified and mapped, including woodlands, thickets and wooded savannas . Agricultural land has been shown in a uniform pale green colour in o rder to clearly express the extent of human impacts on woody vegetatio n. In spite of the necessary oversimplification of the ground data, th is map is probably the most explicit expression of the remaining fores t stands and of the regression of natural vegetation in the region. It can be considered as a benchmark for future monitoring of tropical ve getation.