Map East Asia

In recent years, some East Asian countries have felt economic booms. The large work force created by a rapidly growing urban population has made the country a desirable place for companies to build factories. These countries are getting richer as a whole, but average people are still very poor.

China is one example of this kind of economic development. Right now, China is the fastest growing economy in the world. The country has become a major global center for many industries, especially manufacturing and technology.

Hundreds of thousands of urban Chinese people are working on assembly lines in factories that stretch more than a kilometer in length. Some economists have even taken to calling China “The World’s Largest Factory.”

Some economists have even taken to calling China “The World’s Largest Factory.”

But the economy in rural East Asia is a much different story. Here, the rural poor survive mainly through subsistence farming, where families grow just enough food to feed themselves.

In the countryside, you’ll see field after field, each one with farmers’ ankle-deep in water planting tiny green shoots of rice. It’s strange to go from the rural countryside, with rice fields and simple abodes and a lot of poverty, to the bustling city centers with parking lots, modern houses and factories as long as the eye can see.