Southeast Asia
Laos has no coastline. Its lowest recorded point is the Mekong at one metre above sea level, and every other member here meets open water somewhere along its edge. What holds the group together is that water rather than any land frontier: a mainland peninsula, the island arcs beyond it, and one river running through five of the members.
11 countries
Common questions
Questions about Southeast Asia
Which countries are in Southeast Asia?
The catalogue files 11 under the region: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam. All of them are sovereign states, all are members of the United Nations, and since 26 October 2025 all are members of ASEAN. The UN Statistics Division files the same list under South-eastern Asia in its M49 standard.
Which Southeast Asian country is landlocked?
Laos, and it is the only one. Its neighbours are China, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, and its lowest recorded point is the Mekong at one metre above sea level. Every other member of the region holds shoreline, whether on the mainland coast or as an island.
Is Timor-Leste part of ASEAN?
Yes, since 26 October 2025, when it was admitted at the summit held in Kuala Lumpur. It had applied in 2011 and held observer status in the meantime. It is also the newest member of the United Nations among the countries filed here, admitted on 27 September 2002, and it joined the World Trade Organization on 30 August 2024.
Is Papua New Guinea in Southeast Asia?
Not in this catalogue, which files it under Melanesia, and not in the M49 standard, which files it under Melanesia as well. Papua New Guinea has held observer status with ASEAN since 1976 and shares the island of New Guinea with Indonesia, so the institutional reading and the geographical one pull in different directions. Both readings are in print and the catalogue settles neither.
Why is Myanmar half an hour out from its neighbours?
Myanmar keeps UTC+06:30, which sits between the UTC+06:00 of Bangladesh to the west and the UTC+07:00 of Thailand and Laos to the east. It is the one offset in the region that is not a whole hour. Indonesia, at the other end of the list, spans three whole-hour offsets from UTC+07:00 to UTC+09:00 in a single country.