Much of Indo-Burma is characterized by distinct seasonal weather patterns. The transition to the Sundaland Hotspot in the south occurs on the Thai-Malay Peninsula, the boundary between the two hotspots is represented by the Kangar-Pattani Line, which cuts across the Thailand-Malaysia border, though some analyses indicate that the phytogeographical and zoogeographical transition between the Sundaland and Indo-Burma biotas may lie just to the north of the Isthmus of Kra, associated with a gradual change from wet seasonal evergreen dipterocarp rainforest to mixed moist deciduous forest. The hotspot encompasses 33 terrestrial ecoregions, which include tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests, tropical and subtropical coniferous forests, temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, and mangroves. The hotspot contains the Lower Mekong catchment. In addition, the hotspot covers the coastal lowlands of southern China (in southern Guangxi and Guangdong), as well as several offshore islands, such as Hainan Island (of China) in the South China Sea and the Andaman Islands (of India) in the Andaman Sea. It begins in eastern Bangladesh and then extends across north-eastern India, south of the Brahmaputra River, to encompass nearly all of Myanmar, part of southern and western Yunnan Province in China, all of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Cambodia and Vietnam, the vast majority of Thailand and a small part of Peninsular Malaysia. The area contains the Lower Mekong catchment. Formerly including the Himalaya chain and the associated foothills in Nepal, Bhutan, and India, Indo-Burma has now been more narrowly redefined as the Indo-Chinese subregion. Indo-Burma encompasses 2,373,000 square kilometres (916,000 sq mi) of tropical Asia, east of the Ganges-Brahmaputra lowlands. Indo-Burma is a biodiversity hotspot designated by Conservation International.

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