Thesis Statement: The similarities in geography and natural resources of Vietnam and the Philippines have created similarities and differences in their cultures.
             The Philippine Islands and Vietnam share a number of important similarities that make their cultures similar. The Philippines is a group of islands while Vietnam is a long coastal piece of land.
             The Philippines is made up of islands and form a part of the geography of the Malay Archipelago. The islands are about 750 miles east off the coast of Vietnam. On the east is the Philippine Sea and on the south is the Celebes Sea and the on the west is the South China Sea. The Philippines has about 7100 islands, and only 460 are more than 1 sq. mile. The plain rains goes into the Agno River in the north and by the Pampanga River in the south. Luzon has a narrow, mountain range to the southeast called the Bicol Peninsula. On Mindanao, another one of the largest islands of the Philippines, the Diuata Mountains borders the pacific coast and in the west is the valley of the Agusan River. The coast lines all of the islands giving the Philippines the longest coastline.
             Vietnam is on the eastern coast of the Indochinese Peninsula. Vietnam's total area is 128,066 sq. miles.
             Vietnam has four major geographic regions. Vietnam's northern tip is a jumbled mass of rugged and solidly forested mountains that stretch out into Vietnam from China's Yunnan Plateau. In Vietnam, these mountains are 10,312 ft at Fan Si Pan, that is the highest point in Vietnam. The Truong Son Annam Highlands is in the south of the delta and forms the backbone of Vietnam. Also in this region are the Central Highlands, a big upland plateau set between the Cambodian border and the South China Sea. Vietnam's 4th and southern most region is the Mekong Delta. Vietnam and the Philippines are different yet the same in many ways. The Similarities show in the natural disasters the climate and hardships each country faces in l...