Asia

: For other uses, see Asia (disambiguation).

Asia is the central and eastern part of Eurasia and world's largest Continent. Defined by subtracting Europe from Eurasia, Asia is either regarded as a landmass of its own or as part of Eurasia.

The demarcation between Asia and Africa is the Isthmus of Suez (though the Sinai Peninsula, being a part of Egypt east of the canal, is often geopolitically considered a part of Africa). The boundary between Asia and Europe runs via the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus, to the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, the Ural River to its source, and the Ural Mountains to the Kara Sea at Kara, Russia. About 60 percent of the world's human population lives in Asia.

Asia as a political division consists of the part of Eurasia and nearby islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, often excluding Russia.

The word Asia entered English via Latin from Ancient Greek Ασία (Asia; see also List of traditional Greek place names), first attested in Herodotus, where it refers to Asia Minor, or for the purposes of the Persian Wars, to the Persian Empire as opposed to Greece and Egypt. Homer knows a Trojan ally named Asios, son of Hyrtacus, a ruler over several towns, and also describes a marsh as 461).

The Greek term was likely from Assuwa, a 14th century BC confederation of states in ancient Anatolia. Hittite assu- "good" is a likely element in that name. Alternatively, the ultimate etymology of the term may be from the Akkadian word asu, which means "to go out" or "to rise", referring to the direction of the sun at sunrise in the Middle East. Compare to this the suggestion for the etymology of Europe from Semitic erebu "to set". The motives for the names of Asia and Europe would thus mirror each other, much like the terms orient and Occident (the names Anatolia and Levant likewise signify "sunrise"). This suggestion is widely quoted, but it suffers from the fact that Anatolia from an Akkadian or generally Semitic perspective does not lie in the east.

North Asia

This term is rarely used by geographers, but usually it refers to the bigger Asian part of Russia, also known as Siberia. Sometimes the northern parts of other Asian nations, such as Kazakhstan are also included in Northern Asia.

Central Asia

There is no absolute consensus in the usage of this term. Usually, Central Asia includes:

the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan (excluding its small European territory), Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Afghanistan, Mongolia, and the western regions of China are also sometimes included.
Former Soviet states in the Caucasus region.

Central Asia is currently geopolitically important because international disputes and conflicts over oil pipelines, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Chechnya, as well as the presence of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan.

East Asia (or Far East)

This area includes:

The Pacific Ocean islands of Taiwan and Japan.
North and South Korea on the Korean Peninsula.
China, but sometimes only the eastern regions

Sometimes the nations of Mongolia and Vietnam are also included in East Asia.

More informally, Southeast Asia is included in East Asia on some occasions.

Southeast Asia

This region contains the Malay Peninsula, Indochina and islands in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. The countries it contains are:

In mainland Southeast Asia, the countries Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

In Maritime Southeast Asia, the countries of Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia (some of the Indonesian islands also lie in the Melanesia region of Oceania). East Timor (also Melanesian) is sometimes included too.

The country of Malaysia is divided in two by the South China Sea, and thus has both a mainland and island part.

South Asia (or Indian Subcontinent)

South Asia is also referred to as the Indian Subcontinent. It includes:

the Himalayan states of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
the Indian Ocean nations of Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Southwest Asia (or West Asia)

This can also be called by the Western term Middle East, which is commonly used by Europeans and Americans. Middle East (to some interpretations) is often used to also refer to some countries in North Africa. Southwest Asia can be further divided into:

Anatolia (i.e. Asia Minor), constituting the Asian part of Turkey.
The Island nation of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Levant or Near East, which includes Syria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and the Asian portion of Egypt.
The Arabian Peninsula, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen and occasionally Kuwait.
The Caucasus region, including Armenia, a tiny portion of Russia and almost the whole of Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The Iranian plateau, containing Iran and parts of other nations.

Also see Gulf states, for a different grouping involving several of the above countries.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Asia

Economy of Asia
During 2003 unless otherwise stated
Population: 4.001 billion (2002)
GDP (PPP): US$18.077 trillion
GDP (Currency): $8.782 trillion
GDP/capita (PPP): $4,518
GDP/capita (Currency): $2,195
Annual growth of
per capita GDP:
Income of top 10%:
Millionaires: 2.0 million (0.05%)
Unemployment
Estimated female
Income
Most numbers are from the UNDP from 2002, some numbers exclude certain countries for lack of information.
See also: Economy of the world - Economy of Africa - Economy of Asia - Economy of Europe - Economy of North America - Economy of Oceania - Economy of South America

In terms of Gross domestic product (PPP), Asia's largest economy wholly within Asia is that of the PRC (People's Republic of China), however the economy of the E.U. (European Union), one state of which (Cyprus) lies within Asia, is the largest in the world. The E.U.'s status as a supranational union, rather than a sovereign state, makes the claim questionable, especially since, when considered alone, the economy of Cyprus is one of the smallest in both the E.U. and Asia, and not many times larger than that of East Timor, the Asian state with the smallest economy (although as of 2005 there is no reliable data for either Iraq or North Korea). Over the last decade, China's and India's economies have been growing rapidly, both with an average annual growth rate over 6%. PRC is the world's third largest economy after the E.U. and U.S.A., followed by Japan and India as the world's fourth and fifth largest economies respectively (then followed by the European nations: Germany, U.K., France and Italy). In terms of exchange rates however, Japan has the largest economy in Asia and the third largest in the world. South Korea is also one of the largest economies in Asia, while North Korea is one of the poorest.

Trade blocs:

Natural resources

Asia is by a considerable margin the largest continent in the world, and is rich in natural resources, such as Petroleum and Iron.

High productivity in agriculture, especially of Rice, allows high population density of countries in the warm and humid area. Other main agricultural products include Wheat and Chicken.

Forestry is extensive throughout Asia except Southwest and Central Asia. Fishing is a major source of food in Asia, particularly in Japan.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in PRC, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. The industry varies from manufacturing cheap goods such as toys to high-tech goods such as computers and cars. Many companies from Europe, North America, and Japan have significant operations in the developing Asia to take avantage of its abundant supply of cheap labor.

One of the major employers in manufacturing in Asia is the Textile industry. Much of the world's supply of clothing and footwear now originates in Southeast Asia.

Financial and other services

Asia has three main financial centers. They are in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. Call centers are becoming major employers in India, due to the availablity of many well-educated English speakers. The rise of the business process Outsourcing industry has seen the rise of India and China as the other financial centers.

Early history

Main article: History of Asia

The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions, East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East, linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe.

The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, with each of the three regions developing early civilizations around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Yangtze shared many similarities and likely exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Other notions such as that of writing likely developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands.

The steppe region had long been inhabited by mounted nomads, and from the central steppes they could reach all areas of Asia. The earliest known such central expansion out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans, who spread their languages into the Middle East, India, and in the Tocharians to the borders of China. The northern part of Asia, covering much of Siberia, was inaccessible to the steppe nomads, due to the dense forests and the Tundra. These areas were very sparsely populated.

The centre and periphery were kept separate by mountains and deserts. The Caucasus, Himalaya, Karakum Desert and Gobi Desert formed barriers that the steppe horsemen could only cross with difficulty. While technologically and culturally, the urban city dwellers were more advanced, they could do little militarily to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However, the lowlands did not have enough open grasslands to support a large horsebound force. Thus the nomads who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East were soon forced to adapt to the local societies.

Population density

The following table lists countries and dependencies by Population density in inhabitants and km².

Unlike the figures in the country articles, the figures in this table are based on areas including inland water bodies (lakes, reservoirs, rivers) and may therefore be lower here.

The whole of Egypt, Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey are referred to in the table, although they are only partly in Asia.

Country Population Density Area Population
(/km²) (km²) (2002-07-01 est.)
Macao (PRC) 18,000 25 461,833
Hong Kong (PRC) 6,688 1,092 7,303,334
Singapore 6,430 693 4,452,732
Maldives 1,070 300 320,165
Bahrain 987 665 656,397
926 144,000 133,376,684
627 35,980 22,548,009
491 98,480 48,324,000
354 10,400 3,677,780
336 377,835 126,974,628
318 3,287,590 1,045,845,226
298 65,610 19,576,783
290 20,770 6,029,529
282 300,000 84,525,639
246 329,560 81,098,416
184 120,540 22,224,195
184 140,800 25,873,917
184 803,940 147,663,429
(Mainland) 134 9,596,960 1,284,303,705
121 514,000 62,354,402
121 1,919,440 231,328,092
118 17,820 2,111,561
112 29,800 3,330,099
93 185,180 17,155,814
90 86,600 7,798,497
86 780,580 67,308,928
83 9,250 775,927
71 69,700 4,960,951
71 181,040 12,775,324
71 1,001,450 70,712,345
69 11,437 793,341
69 329,750 22,662,365
63 15,007 952,618
62 678,500 42,238,224
61 5,770 350,898
58 92,300 5,307,470
57 447,400 25,563,441
55 437,072 24,001,816
47 143,100 6,719,567
45 47,000 2,094,176
43 647,500 27,755,775
40 1,648,000 66,622,704
35 527,970 18,701,257
30 82,880 2,445,989
24 236,800 5,777,180
24 198,500 4,822,166
13 212,460 2,713,462
12 1,960,582 23,513,330
9.6 488,100 4,688,963
8.5 17,075,200 144,978,573
6.2 2,717,300 16,741,519
1.7 1,565,000 2,694,432
Total 49,703,948 4,001,377,185

Religion

A large majority of the people in the world who practice a religious faith practice one which was founded in Asia.

Religions founded in Asia and with a majority of their contemporary adherents in Asia include:

Bah�'� Faith (slightly more than half of adherents in Asia)
Buddhism (Japan,Sri Lanka, Korea, Singapore, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, India)
Hinduism (India, Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, Bali)
Islam (Central, South, and Southwest Asia, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia)
Jainism (India)
Shinto (Japan)
Sikhism(India, Malaysia, Hong Kong)
Taoism (China, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia)
Zoroastrianism (Iran, India, Pakistan)

Religions founded in Asia that have the majority of their contemporary adherents in other regions include:

Christianity (South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, India and the Philippines)
Judaism (slightly less than half of adherents in Asia)