Sundaland (also called the
Sundaic region) is a
biogeographical region of
Southeastern Asia which encompasses the
Sunda shelf, the part of the
Asian continental shelf that was exposed during the
last glacial period of the
Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 12,000 years ago. It included the
Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland, as well as the large islands of
Borneo,
Java, and
Sumatra and their surrounding islands. The eastern boundary of Sundaland is the
Wallace Line, identified by
Alfred Russel Wallace as the eastern boundary of the range of Asia's land
mammal fauna, and thus the boundary of the
Indomalaya and
Australasia ecozones. The islands east of the Wallace line are known as
Wallacea, and are considered part of Australasia.