The Southeast Asian island of Borneo

The Southeast Asian island of Borneo. Today’s Image of the Day from the European Space Agency features Borneo, an island in the Malay Archipelago of Southeast Asia.

The false-color image covers part of the South Kalimantan province in Indonesia. The network of white lines represent human development, including houses and roads.

The dark blue colors in the photo are freshwater swamp forests. Bright red indicates thick vegetation, while crops closer to the swamps are yellow and orange.

According to the ESA, Borneo is home to one of the world’s most diverse rainforests, and its natural resources have tremendous social and economic value at local, national and global levels. Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is the southeastern subregion of Asia, consisting of the regions that are geographically south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent and north-west of Australia.Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of 26 atolls of Maldives in South Asia, Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. The majority of the subregion is still in the Northern Hemisphere. East Timor and the southern portion of Indonesia are the only part that is south of the Equator.

Image Credit: ESA 

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer