page_title: East Indies
hierarchical_section_title: East Indies
caption_attribution_description: Indies
context_page_description: The East Indies or the Indies are the lands of South and Southeast Asia. In a more restricted sense, the Indies can be used to refer to the islands of Southeast Asia, especially the Philippine Archipelago and the Indonesian Archipelago. The name "Indies" is used to connote parts of Asia that came under the Indian cultural sphere.
  Territories of the Spanish Empire in Asia were known as the Spanish East Indies for 333 years before the American conquest and later Philippine independence. Dutch-occupied colonies in the area were known for about 300 years as the Dutch East Indies before Indonesian independence. The East Indies may also include the former French Indochina, former British territories Brunei and Singapore and former Portuguese Timor. It does not, however, include the former Netherlands New Guinea, which is geographically considered to be part of Melanesia.
  The inhabitants of the East Indies are almost never called East Indians, distinguishing them both from inhabitants of the Caribbean and from the indigenous peoples of the Americas who are often called American Indians. In colonial times they were just "natives".
context_section_description: The East Indies or the Indies are the lands of South (Indian subcontinent) and Southeast Asia. In a more restricted sense, the Indies can be used to refer to the islands of Southeast Asia, especially the Philippine Archipelago and the Indonesian Archipelago. The name "Indies" is used to connote parts of Asia that came under the Indian cultural sphere.
  Territories of the Spanish Empire in Asia were known as the Spanish East Indies for 333 years before the American conquest and later Philippine independence. Dutch-occupied colonies in the area were known for about 300 years as the Dutch East Indies before Indonesian independence. The East Indies may also include the former French Indochina, former British territories Brunei and Singapore and former Portuguese Timor. It does not, however, include the former Netherlands New Guinea, which is geographically considered to be part of Melanesia.
  The inhabitants of the East Indies are almost never called East Indians, distinguishing them both from inhabitants of the Caribbean (which is also called the West Indies) and from the indigenous peoples of the Americas who are often called American Indians. In colonial times they were just "natives". However, the peoples of the East Indies comprise a wide variety of cultural diversity, and the inhabitants do not consider themselves as belonging to a single ethnic group. Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism are the most popular religions throughout the region, while Sikhism, Jainism, Chinese folk religion and various other traditional beliefs and practices are also prominent in some areas. The major languages in this area draw from a wide variety of language families, and should not be confused with the term Indic, a group of languages spoken in the Indian subcontinent.
  The extensive East Indies are subdivided into two sections (from a European perspective), archaically called Hither India and Further India. The first is the former British India, the second is Southeast Asia.
  Regions of the East Indies are sometimes known by the colonial empire they once belonged to, hence, Spanish East Indies means the Philippines, Dutch East Indies means Indonesia, and British East Indies refers to Malaysia.
  Historically, the king of Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) was identified with "Prester John of the Indies", since that part of the world was imagined to be one of "Three Indias".
caption:   East Indies   Indies (Indian subcontinent and Myanmar)   Western New Guinea   West Indies   Countries sometimes included in West Indies
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