The islands of Sundaland rest on Asia's shallow continental shelf. During the ice ages, sea levels were lower and all of Sundaland was an extension of the Asian continent. As a result, the islands of Sundaland are home to many Asian mammals, including monkeys, apes, tigers, tapirs, and rhinoceros. The Wallace line, which includes the Lombok Strait between Bali and Lombok, and the Makassar Strait between Borneo and Sulawesi, marks the end of the Asian continental shelf, and the islands of Wallacea are separated from Asia and from Australia and New Guinea by deep ocean.
Botanists often include Sundaland, Wallacea, and New Guinea as a single Floristic province of Malesia, based on similarities in their flora, which is predominantly of Asian origin.
The eastern boundary of Sundaland is the Wallace Line, first identified by Alfred Russel Wallace, which marks the eastern boundary of the Asia's land mammal fauna, and is the boundary of the Indomalaya and Australasia ecozones.
During the ice ages, sea levels were lower and all of Sundaland was an extension of the Asian continent.
The islands of Wallacea lie between Sundaland (the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and Bali) to the west, and Near Oceania including Australia and New Guinea to the south and east.
The boundary between Sundaland and Wallacea follows the Wallace Line, named after the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace who noted the differences in mammal and bird fauna between the islands either side of the line.
The Islands of Sundaland to the west of the line, including Java, Bali, Borneo, share a similar mammal fauna with East Asia, including tigers, rhinoceros, and apes.
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