Greater Mekong Subregion

The Greater Mekong Subregion, or just Greater Mekong, is an international region of the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia. The region is home to more than 300 million people and was designated with the launch of a development project formed in 1992 by the Asian Development Bank, that brought together the six states of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Yunnan Province, China.

Greater Mekong holds irreplaceable natural and cultural riches and is considered one of the world's most significant biodiversity hotspot. The region is a very important food provider and the site of many large-scale construction projects with social and economic implications.

The region has a diverse geographic landscape including massifs, plateaus, and limestone karsts, lowlands, fertile floodplains and deltas, forests (evergreen and semi-evergreen, deciduous, dipterocarp, mangroves, and swamp), and grasslands. Water environments include fast-flowing rocky mountain streams and wetlands (such as Tonlé Sap in Cambodia).

The region's geographic variety and consequent variety of climatic zones supports significant biodiversity, with more than 1,068 new species discovered during the last ten years. The geographic region encapsulates 16 of the WWF Global 200 ecoregions, and habitats for an estimated 20,000 plant species, 1,300 fish species, 1,200 bird species, 800 reptile and amphibian species, and 430 mammal species. Notable species include the Javan rhino, Irrawaddy dolphins, and Mekong giant catfish (one of the largest freshwater fish).

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