Abstract: The South Asia-Pacific region mainly includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, Australia, and Papua New Guinea. It lies at the intersection of the Eurasian-Asian plate, Indian-Australian plate and Pacific plate. It underwent complicated tectonic evolution during Meso-Cenozoic periods, which resulted in the formation of a variety of sedimentary basins. According to their tectonic locations, all the sedimentary basins are classified into three main types: active continental margin basins, including back-arc basins, forearc basins and interarc basins; intracratonic basins, including faulted-depression basins and depressed basins; passive continental margin basins. Based on the analysis of geological conditions for these basins and discoveries, back-arc basins, rift basins of interior continent and passive continental margin basins are considered to be the most prospective ones.

Key words: the South Asia-Pacific, backarc basins, continental margin basins, passive continental margin basins, intracontinental rift basins