Asia-Pacific Scout Region (World Organization of the Scout Movement)

Asia Pacific Scout Region
Jurisdiction of the Asia-Pacific Scout Region; the three countries with no Scouting organization, and those outside the Region, are in grey.
Owner	World Organization of the Scout Movement
Headquarters	Makati City, Philippines
Location	Asia Pacific
Membership	24.7 million
APRSC Chairman	Chao Shou-Po
Regional Director	Jose Rizal Pangilinan
Website http://www.scout.org/asia-pacific

The Asia-Pacific Scout Region is the divisional office of the World Scout Bureau of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, headquartered in Makati City, Philippines, with satellite offices in Australia and Japan. The Asia-Pacific Region services Scouting in the land area of Asia south of Siberia and east of Central Asia, and the bulk of the Pacific Basin, with the exception of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau, which are under the Interamerican Region by way of the Aloha Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

The Asia-Pacific Scout Region has witnessed the births and rebirths of national Scout organizations since the region was founded in 1956. Starting with ten founding members, it grew to 25 member countries by 2003, out of which 23 are full-fledged members and two are associate members, encompassing 17 million Scouts. Eight of the 15 largest Scout associations in the world are in the Region. All the formerly communist states of Central Asia and the Soviet Union have developed or are developing Scouting in the wake of the renaissance in the region. For several years, communism repressed Scouting in Afghanistan, where it has newly returned, as well as in Mongolia, which had been the first Soviet satellite state since 1924. On the other hand, the World Scout Committee accepted in 2009 the declaration of Gerakan Pramuka Indonesia of having 17 million members for the census 2008. This has directly affected and changed the membership figure in the region, resulting in an increase of 9 million members, which now stands at a total of 24.7 million.