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{{Short description|Continent}}
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{{About|the continent}}
{{Otheruses}}
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{{Infobox Continent
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|image = ]
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2022}}
|area = 44,579,000 km<sup>2</sup> (17,212,000 sq mi)
{{CS1 config|mode=cs1}}
|population = 3,879,000,000 (])<ref></ref>
{{Infobox continent
|density = 89/km<sup>2</sup> (226/sq mi)
|title = Asia
|image = File:Asia (orthographic projection) without New Guinea.svg
|image_size = 220px
|area = {{convert|44579000|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}} (])<ref name=NG264>{{Cite book |publisher=National Geographic Society (U.S.) |title=National Geographic Family Reference Atlas of the World |location=Washington, D.C. |year=2006 |page=264}}</ref>
|population = {{UN Population|Asia}} ({{UN Population|Year}}; ]){{UN Population|ref}}
|density = 100/km<sup>2</sup> (260/sq mi)
|GDP_PPP = $72.7 trillion (2022 est; ])<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPGDP@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD|title=GDP PPP, current prices|publisher=International Monetary Fund|year=2022|access-date=16 January 2022|archive-date=22 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210122001107/https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPGDP@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD|url-status=live}}</ref>
|GDP_nominal = {{nowrap|$39 trillion (2022 est; ])<ref>{{cite web|title=GDP Nominal, current prices|url=https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPD@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD|publisher=International Monetary Fund|year=2022|access-date=16 January 2022|archive-date=25 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170225211431/https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPD@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD|url-status=live}}</ref>}}
|GDP_per_capita = $8,890 (2022 est; ])<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD|title=Nominal GDP per capita|publisher=International Monetary Fund|year=2022|access-date=16 January 2022|archive-date=11 January 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200111084550/https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD|url-status=live}}</ref>
|religions = {{unbulleted list
| ] (28.0%)
| ] (22.8%)
| ] (13.9%)
| ] (11.1%)
| ] (9.7%)
| ] (8.4%)
| ]s (3.5%)
| ]s (1.3%)
| ] (1.3%)<ref name=":religions">{{Cite journal |last1=Johnson |first1=Todd M. |last2=Crossing |first2=Peter F. |date=2022-10-14 |title=Religions by Continent |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jrd/9/1-2/article-p91_2.xml |journal=Journal of Religion and Demography |volume=9 |issue=1–2 |pages=91–110 |doi=10.1163/2589742x-bja10013 |issn=2589-7411 |access-date=4 August 2023 |archive-date=1 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230801140143/https://brill.com/view/journals/jrd/9/1-2/article-p91_2.xml |url-status=live }}</ref>}}
| religions_ref =
|demonym = ] |demonym = ]
|countries = 47 |countries = 49 UN members<br />1 UN observer<br />5 other states
|list_countries = List of Asian countries |list_countries = List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Asia
|dependencies = |dependencies =
{{Collapsible list {{Collapsible list
| titlestyle = background:transparent;text-align:left;font-weight:normal;
| title = {{voidd}}
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| frame_style = border: none; padding: 0;
| 1 = {{flag|Akrotiri and Dhekelia}} | 2 = {{flag|British Indian Ocean Territory}} | 3 = {{flag|Christmas Island}} | 4 = {{flag|Cocos (Keeling) Islands}} | 5 = {{flag|Hong Kong}} | 6 = {{flag|Macau}}
| list_style = display: none;
}}
| 1 = ] | 2 = ] | 3 = ] | 4 = ]
}}
|unrecognized = |unrecognized =
{{Collapsible list {{Collapsible list
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| 1 = {{flag|Abkhazia}}
| list_style = display: none;
| 2 = {{flag|Northern Cyprus}}
| 1 = ] | 2 = ] | 3 = ] | 4 = ] | 5 = ]
| 3 = {{flag|Palestine}}
| 6 = ] | 7 = ]
| 4 = {{flag|South Ossetia}}
}}
| 5 = {{flag|Taiwan}}}}
|languages = ]
|languages = ]
|time = ] to ]
|time = ] to ]
|internet = ]
|internet = ]
|cities =
|cities = {{plainlist|
{{Collapsible list
* ]
| title = {{voidd}}
* ]
| frame_style = border: none; padding: 0;
}}
| list_style = display: none;
|m49 = <code>142</code> – Asia<br /><code>001</code> – World
| 1 = ] | 2 = ] | 3 = ] | 4 = ] | 5 = ]
|footnotes =
| 6 = ] | 7 = ] | 8 = ] | 9 = ] | 10 = ]
| 11 = ] | 12 = ] | 13 = ]
}}
}} }}


'''Asia''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|eɪ|ʒ|ə|audio=En-us-Asia.ogg}} {{respell|AY|zhə}}, {{IPAc-en|UKalso|ˈ|eɪ|ʃ|ə}} {{respell|AY|shə}}) is the largest ]{{Notetag|Asia is normally considered its own continent in the English speaking world, which uses the seven continent model.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/asia?q=Asia |title=Asia noun |dictionary=Oxford Learner's Dictionaries |access-date=16 February 2023 |archive-date=22 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220322024427/http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/asia?q=asia |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Asia |title=Asia Definition & Meaning |dictionary=Merriam Webster |access-date=16 February 2023 |archive-date=16 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230216180836/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Asia |url-status=live }}</ref> Other models consider Asia as part of a Eurasian or Afro-Eurasian continent (see ] for more information).}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Asia: The largest continent on Earth |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zmh4bdm |publisher=BBC Bitesize |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221007001521/https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zmh4bdm |archive-date= Oct 7, 2022 }}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Asia: Physical Geography |url=https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/asia/ |access-date=2023-02-04 |website=National Geographic Society |first1=Diane |last1=Boudreau |first2=Melissa |last2=McDaniel |first3=Erin |last3=Sprout |first4=Andrew |last4=Turgeon |others=Crooks, Mary; Gunther, Tim; Wynne, Nancy |editor-first1=Jeannie |editor-last1=Evers |editor-first2=Kara |editor-last2=West |archive-date=30 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220630200953/https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/asia |url-status=live }}</ref> in the world by both land area and population.<ref name=":0" /> It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres,{{Notetag|44,579,000 square kilometres (17,212,000 square miles)}} about 30% of ]'s total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the ],<ref>{{cite web |title=The World at Six Billion |url=https://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbillion.htm |publisher=UN Population Division |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305042434/http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbillion.htm |archive-date=5 March 2016 |url-status=dead |postscript=,}} {{cite web| url = http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbilpart1.pdf| title = Table 2| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160101220025/http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbilpart1.pdf| archive-date = 1 January 2016}}</ref> was the site of many of the ]. Its ]<ref>{{Cite web|title=Asia Population 2022 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs)|url=https://worldpopulationreview.com/continents/asia-population|access-date=21 February 2022|website=World Population Review |archive-date=21 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220221074627/https://worldpopulationreview.com/continents/asia-population|url-status=live}}</ref> constitute roughly 60% of the world's population.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.populationof.net/asia/|title=Population of Asia. 2019 demographics: density, ratios, growth rate, clock, rate of men to women.|website=populationof.net|access-date=2 June 2019|archive-date=14 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190714065955/https://www.populationof.net/asia/|url-status=live}}</ref>
'''Asia''' is the world's largest and most populous ]. It covers 8.6% of the ]'s total surface area (or 29.9% of its land area) and, with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current ]. It is located in the ] and ]s.


Asia shares the ] of ] with ], and of ] with both Europe and ]. In general terms, it is bounded on the east by the ], on the south by the ], and on the north by the ]. The border of Asia with Europe is a ], as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. A commonly accepted division places Asia to the east of the ] separating it from Africa; and to the east of the ], the ] and ], and to the south of the ] and the ] and ] seas, separating it from Europe.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book |title=National Geographic Atlas of the World |edition=7th |year=1999 |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-7922-7528-2}} "Europe" (pp. 68–69); "Asia" (pp. 90–91): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea with its outlets, the Bosporus and Dardanelles."</ref>
Asia is traditionally defined as part of the ] of ] with the western portion of the latter occupied by ] located to the east of the ], ] of the ] and south of the ] and the ] and ]s. It is bounded on the east by the ], on the south by the ] and on the north by the ]. Given its size and diversity, Asia — a ] dating back to ] — is more a ] incorporating a number of ]s and peoples than a ]<ref>"". '']''. 2006. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.</ref><ref name=McG-H>"". ''].'' 2006. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.</ref> (see '']'', '']'').


Since the concept of Asia derives from the term for the eastern region from a European perspective, Asia is the remaining vast area of Eurasia minus Europe. Therefore, Asia is a region where various independent cultures coexist rather than sharing a single culture, and the boundary between Europe is somewhat arbitrary and has moved since its first conception in ]. The division of Eurasia into two continents reflects ] cultural differences, some of which vary on a spectrum.
The wealth of Asia differs widely between and within each region. This is due to its vast size and huge range of different cultures, environments, historical ties and government systems. In terms of nominal GDP, ] has the largest economy on the continent and the second largest in the ]. In ] term, however, the ] has the largest economy in Asia and the second largest in the world.


] and ] traded places as the ] from 1 to 1800 CE. China was a major economic power for much of recorded history, with the highest ] until 1500.<ref>{{cite web |first=M. D. |last=Nalapat |url=http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/SRR/Volume14/nalapat.html |title=Ensuring China's 'Peaceful Rise' |access-date= 22 January 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100110045822/http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/SRR/Volume14/nalapat.html |archive-date=10 January 2010 }}</ref><ref name="Dahlman"/><ref>{{cite news |date=30 September 2004 |title=The Real Great Leap Forward |url=https://www.economist.com/special-report/2004/10/02/the-real-great-leap-forward |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161227234147/http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_PNTJQTR |archive-date=27 December 2016 |newspaper=The Economist}}</ref> The ] became the main east–west trading route in the Asian hinterlands while the ] stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited ] as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, but overall population growth has since fallen.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.economist.com/diversions/millennium/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=346605 |title=Like herrings in a barrel |newspaper=The Economist |date=23 December 1999 |issue=Millennium issue: Population |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100104100155/http://www.economist.com/diversions/millennium/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=346605 |archive-date=4 January 2010}}</ref> Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's mainstream religions including ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and many other religions.
==Etymology==
===Western===
The term of ''Asia'' is exclusively a concept of ].<ref name="reid"/> In so saying, the peoples of ancient ''Asia'' (Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Persians, Arabs etc.) never conceived the idea of ''Asia'' simply because they did not see themselves collectively. In their perpective, they were vastly varied civilizations, contrary to ancient European belief.<ref name="reid"/>


Asia varies greatly across and within ] with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, and government systems. It also has a mix of many different climates ranging from the equatorial south via the hot deserts in parts of ], ] and ], temperate areas in the east and the continental centre to vast subarctic and polar areas in ].
The word ''Asia'' originated from the ] word "Ἀσία", first attributed to ] (about 440 BC) in reference to ] or, for the purposes of describing the Persian Wars, to the ], in contrast to ] and ], in his histories. Herodotus comments that he is puzzled as to why three women's names are used to describe one enormous and substantial land mass (], ] and ], referring to Africa), stating that most Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of ] but that the Lydians say it was named after Asias, son of Cotys who passed the name on to a tribe in Sardis.


== Definition and boundaries ==
Even before Herodotus, ] knew of a Trojan soldier named ] and elsewhere he describes a marsh as ασιος (Iliad 2, 461). The ] term may be derived from ], a 14th century BC confederation of states in Western ]. Hittite ''assu-''—"good" is probably an element in that name.
{{Further|topic=Asian borders|Geography of Asia#Boundary|Boundaries between the continents|List of transcontinental countries#Asia and Europe|Copenhagen criteria}}


=== Asia–Africa boundary ===
Usage of the term soon became common in ancient Greece and subsequently by the ].<ref name="reid"/> Ancient and medieval European maps depict the Asian continent as a "huge anomorphous blob" extending eastward.<ref name="reid"/> It was presumed in antiquity to end with ], the ] king ] believing he would reach reach the "end of the world" upon his arrival in the East.<ref name="reid"/>
The boundary between Asia and Africa is the ], the ], the ], and the ].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Suez Canal: 1250 to 1920: Middle East|encyclopedia=Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, & Africa: An Encyclopedia|year=2012|publisher=Sage Publications, Inc.|doi=10.4135/9781452218458.n112|isbn=978-1-4129-8176-7|s2cid=126449508 }}</ref> This makes ] a ], with the ] in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa.


=== Asia–Europe boundary ===
T.R. Reid notes that the ancient Greek name must have derived from ''asu'', meaning "east" in ]n (''ereb'' for ''Europe'' meaning west).<ref name="reid">Reid, T.R. ''Confucius Lives Next Door: What living in the East teaches us about living in the west'' Vintage Books(1999).</ref> The terms/ideas of ''occidental'' (form ] ''Occidens'' "setting") and ''oriental'' (from Latin ''Oriens'' for "rising") are also European invention, synonymous with ''Western'' and ''Eastern''.<ref name="reid"/> He further emphasizes that it explains the Western point of view of placing all the peoples and cultures of Asia into a single classification, almost as is there were a need for setting the distinction between Western and ]s on the ]n continent.<ref name="reid"/> Ogura Kazuo and Tenshin Okakura are two Japanese outspoken figures over the subject.<ref name="reid"/>
] mostly fits with the lines "'''B'''" and "'''F'''" in this image.]]


The threefold division of the ] into Africa, Asia, and Europe has been in use since the 6th century BCE, due to ] such as ] and ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Slomp |first=Hans |title=Europe, A Political Profile: An American Companion to European Politics |date=26 September 2011 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0313391828 |edition=Illustrated, revised |publication-date=2011}}</ref> Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the ] (the modern Rioni river) in ] of Caucasus (from its mouth by ] on the ] coast, through the ] and along the ] to the Caspian Sea), a convention still followed by ] in the 5th century BCE.<ref>'']'' 4.38. C.f. James Rennell, ''The Geographical System of Herodotus Examined and Explained'', Volume 1, Rivington 1830, ].</ref> During the ],<ref>according to Strabo ('']'' 11.7.4) even at the time of ], "it was agreed by all that the Tanais river separated Asia from Europe" ({{lang|grc|ὡμολόγητο ἐκ πάντων ὅτι διείργει τὴν Ἀσίαν ἀπὸ
===Other alternatives===
τῆς Εὐρώπης ὁ Τάναϊς ποταμός}}; c.f. Duane W. Roller, ''Eratosthenes' Geography'', Princeton University Press, 2010, {{ISBN|978-0-691-14267-8}}, {{cite book| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8peKyWK_SWsC&pg=PA57| title = p. 57| isbn = 978-0-691-14267-8| author1 = Eratosthenes| date = 24 January 2010| publisher = Princeton University Press| access-date = 21 January 2020| archive-date = 26 March 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220326125152/https://books.google.com/books?id=8peKyWK_SWsC&pg=PA57| url-status = live}})</ref> this convention was revised, and the boundary between Europe and Asia was now considered to be the ] (the modern Don River). This is the convention used by Roman era authors such as ],<ref>W. Theiler, ''Posidonios. Die Fragmente'', vol. 1. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter, 1982, fragm. 47a.</ref> ]<ref>I. G. Kidd (ed.), ''Posidonius: The commentary'', Cambridge University Press, 2004, {{ISBN|978-0-521-60443-7}}, {{cite book| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_iXs1aCr1ckC&pg=PA738| title = p. 738| isbn = 978-0-521-60443-7| author1 = Posidonius| year = 1989| publisher = Cambridge University Press| access-date = 21 January 2020| archive-date = 1 August 2020| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200801115807/https://books.google.com/books?id=_iXs1aCr1ckC&pg=PA738| url-status = live}}</ref> and ].<ref>'']'' 7.5.6 (ed. Nobbe 1845, {{cite web |last1=Ptolomeo |first1=Claudio |year=1845 |title=vol. 2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vHMCAAAAQAAJ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200524011208/https://books.google.com/books?id=vHMCAAAAQAAJ |archive-date=24 May 2020 |access-date=21 January 2020}}, p. 178). {{lang|grc|Καὶ τῇ Εὐρώπῃ δὲ συνάπτει διὰ τοῦ μεταξὺ αὐχένος τῆς τε Μαιώτιδος λίμνης καὶ τοῦ Σαρματικοῦ Ὠκεανοῦ ἐπὶ τῆς διαβάσεως τοῦ Τανάϊδος ποταμοῦ.}}
Alternatively, the ] of the term may be from the ] word ''{{Unicode|(w)aṣû(m)}}'', which means "to go outside" or "to ascend", referring to the direction of the ] at sunrise in the ] and also likely connected with the Phoenician word ''asa'' meaning east. This may be contrasted to a similar etymology proposed for ''Europe'', as being from Akkadian ''erēbu(m)'' "to enter" or "set" (of the sun). However, this etymology is considered doubtful, because it does not explain how the term "Asia" first came to be associated with Anatolia, which is ''west'' of the Semitic-speaking areas, unless they refer to the viewpoint of a ]n sailor sailing through the straits between the ] and the Black Sea.
"And is connected to Europe by the land-strait between Lake Maiotis and the Sarmatian Ocean where the river Tanais crosses through."</ref>


The border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics.<ref name="NatGeo">{{cite magazine |url=http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/09/geography-in-the-news-eurasias-boundaries/ |title=Geography in the News: Eurasia's Boundaries |first=Neal |last=Lineback |magazine=National Geographic |date=9 July 2013 |access-date=9 June 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508224947/http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/09/geography-in-the-news-eurasias-boundaries/ |archive-date=8 May 2016}}</ref>
Some scholars{{Who|date=August 2009}} also believe that the word Asia is derived from the ], which ruled China in the early 2nd millennium BC This would have required ancient contact between China and Greece, which is certainly possible as attested by archaeological finds such as the ].


In Sweden, five years after Peter's death, in 1730 ] published a new atlas proposing the Ural Mountains as the border of Asia. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg. The latter had suggested the ] as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the ] prevailed in the mid-19th century. The border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects.<ref>{{harvnb|Lewis|Wigen|1997|pp=27–28}}.</ref> The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the ], although it is sometimes placed further north.<ref name="NatGeo" />
==Definition and boundaries==
===Physical geography===
:''See also: ], ], ]
] of Asia, excluding ].]]
] of Asia.]]


=== Asia–Oceania boundary ===
Medieval ]ans considered Asia as a continent a distinct landmass. The European concept of the three continents in the ] goes back to ], but during the Middle Ages was notably due to ] (see ]). The demarcation between Asia and Africa (to the southwest) is the ] of Suez and the ]. The boundary between Asia and Europe is conventionally considered to run through the ], the ], the ], the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, the ] to its source and the Ural Mountains to the ] near Kara, Russia. While this interpretation of tripartite continents (i.e., of Asia, Europe and Africa) remains common in modernity, discovery of the extent of Africa and Asia have made this definition somewhat anachronistic. This is especially true in the case of Asia, which would have several ] that would be considered distinct landmasses if these criteria were used (for example, ] and ]).
]


The border between Asia and ] is usually placed somewhere in the ], specifically in ]. The ] separates the Asian and ] biogeographical realms, a transition zone of deep water straits between the Asian and Australian continental shelves. ] split the region in two with regard to the balance of fauna between Asian origin or Australo-Papuan origin.<ref name="Simpson 1977"/> Wallacea's eastern boundary with ] is represented by the ].<ref name=Kealy2015>{{cite journal|title=Islands under the sea: a review of early modern human dispersal routes and migration hypotheses through Wallacea|journal=The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology|volume=11|issue=3|pages=364–84|year=2015|doi=10.1080/15564894.2015.1119218|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287798057|last1=Kealy|first1=Shimona|last2=Louys|first2=Julien|last3=o'Connor|first3=Sue|s2cid=129964987|issn = 1556-4894 }}</ref><ref name="New2002">{{Cite journal |last=New |first=T. R. |year=2002 |title=Neuroptera of Wallacea: a transitional fauna between major geographical regions |url=http://actazool.nhmus.hu/48Suppl2/newwallace.pdf |journal=Acta Zoologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae |volume=48 |issue=2 |pages=217–227}}</ref> The ] (except the Aru Islands) are often considered to lie on the border of southeast Asia, with the ] and ], to the east of the Lydekker's Line, being wholly part of Oceania, as both lie on the Australian continental plate.<ref name="Simpson 1977">{{cite journal | last=Simpson | first=George Gaylord | title=Too Many Lines; The Limits of the Oriental and Australian Zoogeographic Regions | journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society | publisher=American Philosophical Society | volume=121 | issue=2 | year=1977 | issn=0003-049X | jstor=986523 | pages=107–120 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/986523 | access-date=2024-06-11}}</ref> Culturally, the Wallacea region denoted the transition between ] and ], with varying degrees of intermixing between the two. In general, the further west and coastal a region is, the stronger the Austronesian influences, and the further east and inland a region is, the stronger the Melanesian influences.<ref name="ntgeid">{{cite magazine | title=Jejak Pembauran Melanesia dan Austronesia | magazine=National Geographic | date=2015-11-26 | url=https://nationalgeographic.grid.id/read/13302465/jejak-pembauran-melanesia-dan-austronesia | language=id | access-date=2024-06-11}}</ref> The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several vastly different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Indonesian Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the colonial possessions of the various empires there (not all European). Lewis and Wigen assert, "The narrowing of 'Southeast Asia' to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process."<ref name="Myth">{{harvnb|Lewis|Wigen|1997|pp=170–173}}.</ref>
In the far northeast of Asia, ] is separated from North America by the ]. Asia is bounded on the south by the ] (specifically, from west to east, the ], ] and ]), on the east by the waters of the ] (including, counterclockwise, the ], ], ], ], ] and ]) and on the north by the ]. Australia (or ]) is to the southeast.


=== Asia–North America boundary ===
Some geographers do not consider Asia and Europe to be separate continents,<ref>"." '']''. 2007.</ref> as there is no logical physical separation between them.<ref name=McG-H /> For example, Sir Barry Cunliffe, the emeritus professor of European archeology at Oxford, argues that Europe has been geographically and culturally merely “the western excrescence of the continent of Asia.”<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/editors-choice |title=Geography Is Destiny - The Atlantic (December 2008) |publisher=The Atlantic |date=2008-12-01 |accessdate=2009-04-20}}</ref> Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of ] with Europe being a northwestern ] of the landmass – or of ]: geologically, Asia, Europe and Africa comprise a single continuous landmass (save the Suez Canal) and share a common ]. Almost all of Europe and most of Asia sit atop the ], adjoined on the south by the ] and ] and with the easternmost part of Siberia (east of the ]) on the ].
{{See also|Northeast Asia}}].]]
The ] and ] separate the landmasses of Asia and ], as well as forming the international boundary between Russia and the United States. This ] and continental boundary separates the ] in the Bering Strait, with ] in ] and ] in the ]. The ] are an island chain extending westward from the ] toward Russia's ] and ]. Most of them are always associated with North America, except for the westernmost ] group, which is on Asia's continental shelf beyond the ] and on rare occasions could be associated with Asia, which could then allow the U.S. state of ] as well as the United States itself to be considered a transcontinental state. The Aleutian Islands are sometimes associated with Oceania, owing to their status as remote Pacific islands, and their proximity to the Pacific Plate.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Danver |first1=Steven L. |title=Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues |date=2015 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |pages=185 |isbn=978-1317464006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vf4TBwAAQBAJ&dq=%22aleutians%22+%22part+of+oceania%22&pg=PA185 |access-date=23 April 2022 |archive-date=4 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404181817/https://books.google.com/books?id=vf4TBwAAQBAJ&dq=%22aleutians%22+%22part+of+oceania%22&pg=PA185 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wallace |first1=Alfred Russel |title=Australasia |date=1879 |publisher=The University of Michigan |page=2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e2kcAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22oceania+is+the+word+often%22&pg=PA2 |access-date=12 March 2022 |quote=Oceania is the word often used by continental geographers to describe the great world of islands we are now entering upon This boundless watery domain, which extends northwards of Behring Straits and southward to the Antarctic barrier of ice, is studded with many island groups, which are, however, very irregularly distributed over its surface. The more northerly section, lying between Japan and California and between the Aleutian and Hawaiian Archipelagos is relived by nothing but a few solitary reefs and rocks at enormously distant intervals. |archive-date=30 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730064236/https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Australasia/e2kcAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22oceania+is+the+word+often%22&pg=PA2&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kohlhoff |first1=Dean |title=Amchitka and the Bomb: Nuclear Testing in Alaska |date=2002 |publisher=University of Washington Press |page=6 |isbn=978-0295800509 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kSWn8lbI4q4C&dq=%22aleutian+islands%22+%22oceania%22&pg=PA6 |access-date=12 March 2022 |quote=The regional name of the Pacific Islands is appropriate: Oceania, a sea of islands, including those of Alaska and Hawaii. The Pacific Basin is not insignificant or remote. It covers one third of the globe's surface. Its northern boundary is the Aleutian Islands chain. Oceania virtually touches all of the Western Hemisphere. |archive-date=17 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230517051213/https://books.google.com/books?id=kSWn8lbI4q4C&dq=%22aleutian+islands%22+%22oceania%22&pg=PA6 |url-status=live }}</ref> This is extremely rare however, due to their non-tropical biogeography, as well as their ], who have historically been related to ]s.<ref name="flick">{{cite book |last1=Flick |first1=Alexander Clarence |title=Modern World History, 1776-1926: A Survey of the Origins and Development of Contemporary Civilization |date=1926 |publisher=A.A. Knopf |page=492 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PhGHAAAAMAAJ&q=Modern%20World%20History,%201776-1926A%20Survey%20of%20the%20Origins%20and%20Development%20of%20Contemporary%20Civilization |access-date=10 July 2022 |archive-date=30 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730064936/https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Modern_World_History_1776_1926/PhGHAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Modern+World+History%2C+1776-1926A+Survey+of+the+Origins+and+Development+of+Contemporary+Civilization |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="handbook">{{cite book |last1=Henderson |first1=John William |title=Area Handbook for Oceania |date=1971 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |page=5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NuOIqt-UQowC&dq=%22oceania%22+%22aleutian+islands%22&pg=PR5 |access-date=11 March 2022 |archive-date=6 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406111120/https://books.google.com/books?id=NuOIqt-UQowC&dq=%22oceania%22+%22aleutian+islands%22&pg=PR5 |url-status=live }}</ref>


] in the northern Bering Sea belongs to Alaska and may be associated with either continent but is almost always considered part of North America, as with the ] in the Aleutian chain. At their nearest points, Alaska and Russia are separated by only {{convert|2.5|mi|0|order=flip|abbr=off}}.
In geography, there are two schools of thought. One school follows historical convention and treats Europe and Asia as different continents, categorizing ]s within them for more detailed analysis. The other school equates the word "continent" with a geographical region when referring to Europe, and use the term "region" to describe Asia in terms of physiography. Since, in linguistic terms, "continent" implies a distinct landmass, it is becoming increasingly common to substitute the term "region" for "continent" to avoid the problem of disambiguation altogether.


=== Ongoing definition ===
Given the scope and diversity of the landmass, it is sometimes not even clear exactly what "Asia" consists of. Some definitions exclude ], the Middle East, ] and Russia while only considering the Far East, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent to compose Asia,<ref>Welty, Paul Thomas. ''The Asians Their Evolving Heritage,'' 6th ed., p. 21. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1984. ISBN 0-06-047001-1.</ref><ref>World University Service of Canada. Asia-WUSC WorldWide. 2006. October 7, 2006. <http://www.wusc.ca/expertise/worldwide/asia/>.</ref> especially in the ] after ].<ref>Menon, Sridevi. Duke University. "Where is West Asia in Asian America?Asia and the Politics of Space in Asian America." 2004. April 26, 2007. page 71 </ref> The term is sometimes used more strictly in reference to the ] region, which does not include the Middle East or Russia,<ref>BBC News 2006. September 9, 2006. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/>.</ref> but does include islands in the Pacific Ocean—a number of which may also be considered part of ] or ], although Pacific Islanders are not considered Asian.<ref>American Heritage Book of English Usage. Asian. 1996. September 29, 2006. <http://www.bartleby.com/64/C006/007.html>.</ref>
] shown in green]]


Geographical Asia is a cultural artifact of European conceptions of the world, beginning with the ], being imposed onto other cultures, an imprecise concept causing endemic contention about what it means. Asia does not exactly correspond to the cultural borders of its various types of constituents.<ref>{{harvnb|Lewis|Wigen|1997|pp=7–9}}.</ref>
===Political geography===
{{Asia.png|8000px|float=left}}
{{-}}


From the time of Herodotus, a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system (Europe, Africa, Asia) on the grounds that there is no substantial physical separation between them.<ref name=McG-H>{{cite web |title=Asia |url=http://accessscience.com/abstract.aspx?id=054800&referURL=http%3a%2f%2faccessscience.com%2fcontent.aspx%3fid%3d054800 |work=AccessScience |publisher=McGraw-Hill |access-date=26 July 2011 |archive-date=27 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111127141127/http://accessscience.com/abstract.aspx?id=054800&referURL=http%3A%2F%2Faccessscience.com%2Fcontent.aspx%3Fid%3D054800 |url-status=dead }}</ref> For example, Sir ], the emeritus professor of European archeology at Oxford, argues that Europe has been geographically and culturally merely "the western excrescence of the continent of Asia".<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/editors-choice |title=Geography Is Destiny |first=Benjamin |last=Schwartz |journal=The Atlantic |date=December 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090930211221/http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/editors-choice |archive-date=30 September 2009}}</ref>
==Territories and regions==
{{See also|List of Asian countries by population}}
<!--{{editnote | NOTE: The countries in this table are categorized according to the scheme for geographic subregions used by the United Nations etc., and data included are per sources in cross-referenced articles. Where they differ, provisos are clearly indicated. If you have arguments or evidence to the contrary, please provide them on the talk page and await until the consensus supports making proposed edits. Thank you!}}-->


Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of ] with Europe being a northwestern ] of the landmass. Asia, Europe and Africa make up a single continuous landmass—]—and share a common ]. Almost all of Europe and a major part of Asia sit atop the ], adjoined on the south by the ] and ] and with the easternmost part of Siberia (east of the ]) on the ].
]s of Asia:
{{Clear}}
{{legend|#0000E0|]}}

{{legend|#E000E0|]}}
== Etymology ==
{{legend|#00E000|]}}
]
{{legend|#E00000|]}}

{{legend|#FFFF20|]}}
The term "Asia" is believed to originate in the ] toponym '']'' ({{langx|hit|𒀸𒋗𒉿|translit=aš-šu-wa|link=yes}}) which originally referred only to a portion of northwestern ]. The term appears in ] recounting how a confederation of Assuwan states including ] unsuccessfully rebelled against the Hittite king ] around 1400 BCE.<ref name="Jablonka-Bryce">{{cite encyclopedia |last=McMahon |first=Gregory |year=2011 |editor-last1=Steadman |editor-first1=Sharon | editor-last2=McMahon | editor-first2=Gregory |encyclopedia=The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia |title=The Land and Peoples of Anatolia through Ancient Eyes |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195376142.013.0002
{{legend|#FFC000|]}}]]
|page=21}}</ref><ref>Bossert, Helmut T., ''Asia'', Istanbul, 1946.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Rose |first=Charles Brian|year=2013|title=The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Troy|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-76207-6|pages=108–109}}</ref> Roughly contemporary ] documents contain the term ''aswia'' ({{langx|gmy|𐀀𐀯𐀹𐀊|translit=a-si-wi-ja|link=yes}}), seemingly in reference to captives from the same area.<ref>{{harvnb|Ventris|Chadwick|1973|pp=410,536}}.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Collins |first1=Billie Jean |last2=Bachvarova |first2=Mary R. |last3=Rutherford |first3=Ian |title=Anatolian Interfaces: Hittites, Greeks and their Neighbours |date=28 March 2010 |publisher=Oxbow Books |isbn=978-1-78297-475-8 |page=120 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7KemAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT146 |language=en |quote=assuwa pylos "aswia" = Linear B A-si-wi-ja |access-date=7 March 2023 |archive-date=4 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221204010301/https://books.google.com/books?id=7KemAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT146 |url-status=live }}</ref>
<div style="clear:both"/>

{| border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="border:1px solid #aaa; border-collapse:collapse;"
] highlighted (in red) within the Roman Empire]]
|- style="background:#ececec;"

! Name of ]<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;Continental regions as per ], except 12. Depending on definitions, various territories cited below (notes 6, 11-13, 15, 17-19, 21-23) may be in ] Asia and Europe, Africa, or ].<br /></ref> and<br />territory, with ]
Herodotus used the term in reference to ] and the territory of the ], in contrast to Greece and Egypt. He reports that Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of ], but that ]ns say it was named after ''Asies'', son of Cotys, who passed the name on to a tribe at ].<ref>Book IV, Article 45.</ref> In ], "Asia" ({{lang|grc|Ἀσία}} or {{lang|grc|Ἀσίη}}) was the name of a "] or ] goddess of Lydia".<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/NympheAsie.html |title=Asie |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia: Greek Gods, Spirits, Monsters |publisher=Theoi Greek Mythology, Exploring Mythology in Classical Literature and Art |date=2000–2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100604045105/http://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/NympheAsie.html |archive-date=4 June 2010}}</ref> The ] (attributed by the ancient Greeks to ]) mentions two Phrygians in the ] named ] (an adjective meaning "Asian");<ref>Μ95, Π717.</ref> and also a marsh or lowland containing a marsh in Lydia as {{lang|grc|ασιος}}.<ref>Β461.</ref>
! ]<br />(km²)

! ]<br />(1 July 2008 est.)
The term was later adopted by the ]s, who used it in reference to the ], located in western Anatolia.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2007 |title=Ἀσία |encyclopedia=A Greek-English Lexicon |publisher=Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University |location=Medford |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D*%29asi%2Fa |last1=Liddell |first1=Henry George |orig-year=1940 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110427042823/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D*%29asi%2Fa |archive-date=27 April 2011 |last2=Scott |first2=Robert |last3=Jones |first3=Henry Stuart |last4=McKenzie |first4=Roderick |url-status=live}}</ref> One of the first writers to use Asia as a name of the whole continent was ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=Asia&allowed_in_frame=0|title=Asia – Origin and meaning of Asia by Online Etymology Dictionary|website=Etymonline.com|access-date=9 November 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170525113914/http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=Asia&allowed_in_frame=0|archive-date=25 May 2017}}</ref>
! ]<br />(per km²)

! ]
== History ==
{{Main|History of Asia}}

=== Ancient era ===
{{See also|Sinosphere|Greater India|Greater Iran}}] connected civilisations across Asia<ref>{{cite web |author=Lee |first=Adela C. Y. |title=Ancient Silk Road Travellers |url=http://www.silk-road.com/artl/srtravelmain.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171108022054/http://www.silk-road.com/artl/srtravelmain.shtml |archive-date=8 November 2017 |access-date=9 November 2017 |website=Silk-road.com |publisher=Silkroad Foundation}}</ref>]]The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions: ], ], ], ], and ]. The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilisations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilisations in ], the ] and the ] shared many similarities. These civilisations may well have exchanged technologies and ideas such as ] and the ]. Other innovations, such as writing, seem to have been developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands.

The central steppe region had long been inhabited by horse-mounted nomads who could reach all areas of Asia from the ]s. The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the ], who spread their languages into West Asia, South Asia, and the borders of China, where the ] resided. The northernmost part of Asia, including much of ], was largely inaccessible to the steppe nomads, owing to the dense forests, climate and ]. These areas remained very sparsely populated.

The center and the peripheries were mostly kept separated by mountains and deserts. The ] and ] mountains and the ] and ] deserts formed barriers that the steppe horsemen could cross only with difficulty. While the urban city dwellers were more advanced technologically and socially, in many cases they could do little in a military aspect to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However, the lowlands did not have enough open grasslands to support a large equestrian force; for this and other reasons, the nomads who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East often found themselves adapting to the local, more affluent societies.

=== Medieval era ===
] at its greatest extent. The gray area is the later ]]]The Islamic ]'s defeats of the ] and Persian empires led to West Asia and southern parts of ] and ] under its control during ] of the 7th century; Islam also ] over centuries to the southern regions of India and Southeast Asia through trade along the ].<ref>{{Cite web |title=How Islam Spread Throughout the World |url=https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/how-islam-spread-throughout-the-world |access-date=2024-08-08 |website=Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Did you know?: The Spread of Islam in Southeast Asia through the Trade Routes {{!}} Silk Roads Programme |url=https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/content/did-you-know-spread-islam-southeast-asia-through-trade-routes |access-date=2024-08-08 |website=en.unesco.org}}</ref> The ] conquered a large part of Asia in the 13th century, an area extending from China to Europe. Before the Mongol invasion, ] reportedly had approximately 120 million citizens; the 1300 census which followed the invasion reported roughly 60 million people.<ref>Ping-ti Ho. "An Estimate of the Total Population of Sung-Chin China", in ''Études Song'', Series 1, No. 1, (1970). pp. 33–53.</ref>

The ], one of the most devastating ]s in human history, is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the ].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/blackdisease_01.shtml |title=History – Black Death |publisher=BBC |date=17 February 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120605000815/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/blackdisease_01.shtml |archive-date=5 June 2012}}</ref>

=== Modern era ===
{{See also|History of Eurasia#Modern era|Afro-Asia#Modern era}}
European involvement in Asia became more significant from the ] onward, with Iberian-sponsored sailors such as ] and ] paving the way for new routes from ] to ] and the Indian Ocean respectively in the late 15th century.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Christopher Columbus Quest to Reach Asia |url=https://www.historycrunch.com/christopher-columbus-quest-to-reach-asia.html |access-date=2024-11-08 |website=HISTORY CRUNCH - History Articles, Biographies, Infographics, Resources and More |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hu-DeHart |first=Evelyn |last2=López |first2=Kathleen |date=2008 |title=Asian Diasporas in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Historical Overview |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23055220 |journal=Afro-Hispanic Review |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=9–21 |issn=0278-8969}}</ref> The ] also began to expand into northwestern Asia from the 17th century, and would eventually take control of all of Siberia and most of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century.

Among non-European empires, the ] controlled Anatolia, most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the mid 16th century onward, while in the 17th century, the ] conquered China and established the ]. The Islamic ] (preceded by the ] of the 13th to early 16th century)<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Story of India |publisher=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/thestoryofindia/timeline/5/ |access-date=2024-08-08 |website=www.pbs.org}}</ref> and the Hindu ] controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sen |first1=Sailendra Nath |title=An Advanced History of Modern India |page=11 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bXWiACEwPR8C&pg=PA1941-IA82 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200422184802/https://books.google.com/books?id=bXWiACEwPR8C&pg=PA1941-IA82 |archive-date=22 April 2020 |isbn=978-0-230-32885-3 |year=2010 |publisher=Macmillan India }}</ref>

{{Multiple image
| image1 = Robert Clive and Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, 1757 by Francis Hayman.jpg
| image2 = China, the cake of kings and emperors, Le Petit Journal 1898.jpg
| total_width = 350
| caption1 = The aftermath of the 1757 ], which eventually led to British India.
| caption2 = An 1898 depiction of Western powers ].
| image3 = Victor Gillam A Thing Well Begun Is Half Done 1899 Cornell CUL PJM 1136 01.jpg
| caption3 = A depiction of America building ] and its Filipino colony (left) after the 1898 ].
| direction = horizontal
| width2 = 120
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}}

] from the 18th to 20th centuries coincided with the ] in the West and the dethroning of India and China as the world's foremost economies.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=2023-07-28 |title=How India's Economy Will Overtake the U.S.'s |url=https://time.com/6297539/how-india-economy-will-surpass-us/ |access-date=2023-08-31 |magazine=Time |language=en |archive-date=31 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831071229/https://time.com/6297539/how-india-economy-will-surpass-us/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The ] first became dominant in South Asia, with most of the region being ] in the late 18th and early 19th centuries before falling under ] after a failed ]; the 1869 completion of the ], which increased British access to India, went on to ] over Africa and Asia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Behind the Enduring Relevance of the Suez Canal Is the Long Shadow of European Colonialism |url=https://thewire.in/history/suez-canal-relevance-europe-colonialism |access-date=2024-08-09 |website=The Wire }}</ref> Around this time, Western powers started to dominate China in what later became known as the ], with the British-supported ] and later ] resulting in China being forced into an unprecedented situation of importing more than it exported.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Milestones: 1830–1860 – Office of the Historian |url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/china-1 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831071219/https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/china-1 |archive-date=31 August 2023 |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=history.state.gov}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-09-28 |title=Opinion {{!}} For China, the history that matters is its 'century of humiliation' |url=https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3150233/china-history-matters-still-century-humiliation |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=South China Morning Post |language=en |archive-date=31 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831071219/https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3150233/china-history-matters-still-century-humiliation |url-status=live }}</ref>

Foreign domination of China was furthered by the ], which controlled some of East Asia and briefly much of Southeast Asia (which had earlier been ] by the British, Dutch and French in the late 19th century),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Southeast Asia, 1800–1900 A.D. |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/10/sse.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831071219/https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/10/sse.html |archive-date=31 August 2023 |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History}}</ref> ] and the ]; Japan's domination was enabled by its rapid rise that had taken place during the ] of the late 19th century, in which it applied industrial knowledge learned from the West and thus overtook the rest of Asia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Introduction: Race and Empire in Meiji Japan |url=https://apjjf.org/2020/20/Zohar.html |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=The Asia–Pacific Journal: Japan Focus |date=15 October 2020 |archive-date=31 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831071219/https://apjjf.org/2020/20/Zohar.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Huffman |first=James L. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvzgb64z |title=The Rise and Evolution of Meiji Japan |date=2019 |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctvzgb64z |jstor=j.ctvzgb64z |isbn=978-1-898823-94-0 |s2cid=216630259 |access-date=31 August 2023 |archive-date=31 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831071229/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvzgb64z |url-status=live }}</ref> One significant influence on Japan had been the United States, which had begun projecting influence across the Pacific after its early-to-mid-19th century ].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The United States and the Opening to Japan, 1853 |url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/opening-to-japan}}</ref> The ] in the early 20th century led to the Middle East also being ]{{Broken anchor|date=2024-12-10|bot=User:Cewbot/log/20201008/configuration|target_link=History of the Middle East#Modern Middle East|reason= The anchor (Modern Middle East) ].}} by the British and French.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yakoubi |first=Myriam |date=2022-01-04 |title=The French, the British and their Middle Eastern Mandates (1918-1939): Two Political Strategies |url=https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/8787 |url-status=live |journal=Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique. French Journal of British Studies |language=en |volume=XXVII |issue=1 |doi=10.4000/rfcb.8787 |issn=0248-9015 |s2cid=246524226 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831071229/https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/8787 |archive-date=31 August 2023 |access-date=31 August 2023 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

=== Contemporary era ===
]
With the end of ] in 1945 and the wartime ruination of Europe and imperial Japan, many countries in Asia were able to rapidly ] of colonial rule.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Global war's colonial consequences |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/697/chapter-abstract/135374210 |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=academic.oup.com |archive-date=31 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831071220/https://academic.oup.com/book/697/chapter-abstract/135374210 |url-status=live }}</ref> The ] came along with the ] of a separate nation for the majority of ], which in 1971 ] into the countries ] and ];<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Dalrymple |first=William |date=2015-06-22 |title=The Mutual Genocide of Indian Partition |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/29/the-great-divide-books-dalrymple |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423182031/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/29/the-great-divide-books-dalrymple |archive-date=23 April 2019 |access-date=2023-08-31 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref> ] between the United States and the Soviet Union strained relations between India and Pakistan and affected Asia more generally.<ref>{{Cite web |title=How the Cold War Shaped Bangladesh's Liberation War |url=https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/how-the-cold-war-shaped-bangladeshs-liberation-war/ |access-date=2024-08-07 |website=thediplomat.com }}</ref> The ] and the ] by 1991 saw the independence of the five modern Central Asian countries.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Foust |first=Joshua |date=2011-12-16 |title=No Great Game: The Story of Post-Cold War Powers in Central Asia |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/no-great-game-the-story-of-post-cold-war-powers-in-central-asia/250010/ |access-date=2024-08-08 |website=The Atlantic}}</ref>

Some Arab countries took economic advantage of massive oil deposits that were discovered in their territory, becoming globally influential,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Oil Discovered in Saudi Arabia |url=https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/oil-discovered-saudi-arabia/ |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=education.nationalgeographic.org |archive-date=3 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231203035632/https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/oil-discovered-saudi-arabia/ |url-status=live }}</ref> though stability in the Middle East has been affected since 1948 by the ] and American-led ].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bazelon |first=Emily |date=2024-02-01 |title=The Road to 1948, and the Roots of a Perpetual Conflict |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/01/magazine/israel-founding-palestinian-conflict.html |access-date=2024-08-08 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=America's Middle East Scorecard: Many Interventions, Few Successes |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/08/25/341892606/america-s-middle-east-scorecard-many-interventions-few-successes |work=NPR}}</ref> East Asian nations (along with Singapore in Southeast Asia) became economically prosperous with high-growth "]";<ref>{{Cite web |title=Economic Issues 1 – Growth in East Asia |url=https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues1/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230320132157/https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues1/ |archive-date=20 March 2023 |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=imf.org}}</ref> China, having undergone ] under ],<ref>{{Cite web |title=China's Post-1978 Economic Development and Entry into the Global Trading System |url=https://www.cato.org/publications/chinas-post-1978-economic-development-entry-global-trading-system |access-date=2024-08-09 |website=www.cato.org}}</ref> regained its place among the top two economies of the world by the 21st century.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Saul |first=Derek |title=China And India Will Overtake U.S. Economically By 2075, Goldman Sachs Economists Say |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/12/06/china-and-india-will-overtake-us-economically-by-2075-goldman-sachs-economists-say/ |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=Forbes |language=en |archive-date=5 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230705185916/https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/12/06/china-and-india-will-overtake-us-economically-by-2075-goldman-sachs-economists-say/ |url-status=live }}</ref> India has also grown significantly because of ] that started in the 1990s,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-07-07 |title=25 years of liberalisation: A glimpse of India's growth in 14 charts-Business News |url=https://www.firstpost.com/business/25-years-of-liberalisation-a-glimpse-of-indias-growth-in-14-charts-2877654.html |access-date=2023-09-04 |website=Firstpost |archive-date=4 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230904005244/https://www.firstpost.com/business/25-years-of-liberalisation-a-glimpse-of-indias-growth-in-14-charts-2877654.html |url-status=live }}</ref> with extreme poverty now below 20%;<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kumar |first=Manoj |date=2023-07-17 |title=One-tenth of India's population escaped poverty in 5 years – government report |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/india/one-tenth-indias-population-escaped-poverty-5-years-government-report-2023-07-17/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230904034523/https://www.reuters.com/world/india/one-tenth-indias-population-escaped-poverty-5-years-government-report-2023-07-17/ |archive-date=4 September 2023 |access-date=2023-09-04 |work=Reuters |language=en}}</ref> India and China's rise has coincided with ] between the two, with the ] now an actively contested area between China and counterbalancing forces.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Matamis |first=Joaquin |date=2024-06-16 |title=From the Mountains to the Seas: India-China Competition in the Wake of Galwan • Stimson Center |url=https://www.stimson.org/2024/from-the-mountains-to-the-seas-india-china-competition-in-the-wake-of-galwan/ |access-date=2024-08-08 |website=Stimson Center |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Kuo |first=Mercy A. |title=The Origin of 'Indo-Pacific' as Geopolitical Construct |url=https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/the-origin-of-indo-pacific-as-geopolitical-construct/ |access-date=2024-08-08 |website=thediplomat.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

<gallery>
File:Anaximander world map-en.svg|The threefold division of the ] into Europe, Asia and Africa has been in use since the 6th century BCE, due to ] such as ] and ]
File:A new universal atlas of the world.Asia.jpg|1825 map of Asia by ]
File:A Map of the Countries between Constantinople and Calcutta- Including Turkey in Asia, Persia, Afghanistan and Turkestan WDL11753.png|Map of western, southern, and central Asia in 1885<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/11753/#institution=library-of-congress&page=17 |title=A Map of the Countries between Constantinople and Calcutta: Including Turkey in Asia, Persia, Afghanistan and Turkestan |website=Wdl.org |access-date=9 November 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171017220525/https://www.wdl.org/en/item/11753/#institution=library-of-congress&page=17 |archive-date=17 October 2017 |year=1885 }}</ref>
File:Modern Asia (1796).tif|The map of Asia in 1796, which also included the continent of ] (then known as ])
File:Asien Bd1.jpg|1890 map of Asia
</gallery>

== Geography ==
{{Main|Geography of Asia}}
{{See also|:Category:Biota of Asia}}
] range is home to some of the planet's highest peaks]]
Asia is the largest continent on Earth. It covers 9% of the Earth's total surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has the longest coastline, at {{convert|62800|km|mi|0}}. Asia is generally defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the ] and the ], and south of the ] (or the ]) and the ] and ]s.<ref name="ReferenceA" /><ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Asia |url=https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9110518/Asia |encyclopedia=] Online |year=2006 |location=Chicago |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081118141016/https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9110518/Asia |archive-date=18 November 2008}}</ref> It is bounded on the east by the ], on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Asia is subdivided into 49 countries, five of them (], ], ], ] and ]) are ] lying partly in ]. Geographically, Russia is partly in Asia, but is considered a ], both ] and politically.

The ] is in Mongolia and the ] stretches across much of the Middle East. The ] in China is the longest river in the continent. The Himalayas between Nepal and China is the tallest mountain range in the world. ]s stretch across much of southern Asia and coniferous and ] forests lie farther north.

<gallery>
File:Tundra in Siberia.jpg|] ]
File:Gunung Palung Jungle.jpg|] in ]
File:Kerala Backwaters, India.JPG|]
File:Naadam rider 2.jpg|Mongolian ]
File:1 li jiang guilin yangshuo 2011.jpg|]
File:Taman Negara, Malaysia, Panoramic view.jpg|], ]
File:Akkem Valley 2011.jpg|]
File:Hunza Valley from Eagle Point.jpg|]
File:Baa atoll islands.JPG|]
File:Red sand of the Wadi Rum desert.jpg|] in ]
</gallery>

=== Main regions ===
]

There are various approaches to the regional division of Asia. The following subdivision into regions is used, among others, by the ] (UNSD). This division of Asia into regions by the United Nations is done solely for statistical reasons and does not imply any assumption about political or other affiliations of countries and territories.<ref>{{cite web|title=Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use (M49 Standard)|publisher=UN Statistica Division|url=https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/|access-date=2 May 2020|archive-date=30 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170830170949/https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/|url-status=live}} "Geographic Regions" anklicken Zitat: "The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories by the United Nations."</ref>
* ] (]){{Notetag|Siberia lies in Asia geographically, but is considered a part of ] culturally and politically.}}
* ]
* ] (The ] or ] and part of the ])
* ] (])
* ] (])
* ] (] and ])

=== Climate ===
{{Main|Climate of Asia}}
] map for Asia<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Beck |first1=Hylke E. |last2=Zimmermann |first2=Niklaus E. |last3=McVicar |first3=Tim R. |last4=Vergopolan |first4=Noemi |last5=Berg |first5=Alexis |last6=Wood |first6=Eric F. |author-link6=Eric Franklin Wood |title=Present and future Köppen-Geiger climate classification maps at 1-km resolution |journal=Scientific Data |date=30 October 2018 |volume=5 |pages=180214 |doi=10.1038/sdata.2018.214|pmid=30375988 |pmc=6207062 |bibcode=2018NatSD...580214B }}</ref>]]
Asia has extremely diverse climate features. Climates range from ] and ] in Siberia to tropical in southern India and Southeast Asia. It is moist across southeast sections, and dry across much of the interior. Some of the largest daily temperature ranges on Earth occur in western sections of Asia. The ] circulation dominates across southern and eastern sections, due to the presence of the Himalayas forcing the formation of a thermal low which draws in moisture during the summer. Southwestern sections of the continent are hot. Siberia is one of the coldest places in the ], and can act as a source of arctic air masses for North America. The most active place on Earth for ] activity lies northeast of the ] and south of Japan.

====Climate change====
{{excerpt|Climate change in Asia}}

== Economy ==
{{Main|Economy of Asia|List of Asian countries by GDP|List of countries in Asia-Pacific by GDP (nominal)|List of Asian and Pacific countries by GDP (PPP)}}
] and is the world's fourth largest ] trading hub]]
Asia has the ] in the world by both ] and ] values, and is the fastest growing economic region.<ref name=":5">{{cite web |author=International Monetary Fund |title=World Economic Outlook Database, April 2023 |url=https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/April |publisher=] |access-date=7 May 2023 |archive-date=13 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230413194731/https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/April |url-status=live }}</ref> {{as of|2023}}, ] is by far the largest economy on the continent, making up nearly half of the continent's economy by GDP nominal. It is followed by Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which are all ranked among the top 20 largest economies both by nominal and PPP values.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aneki.com/countries2.php?t=Largest_Economies_in_Asia&table=fb126&places=2&unit=*&order=desc&dependency=independent&number=5&cntdn=n&r=-201-202-203-204-205-206-207-208-209-210-211-212-116-214-215-216-217-218-219-220&c=asia&measures=Country--GDP&units=*--$*&decimals=*--*|title=Largest_Economies_in_Asia|website=Aneki.com|access-date=9 November 2017|archive-date=30 July 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730041726/https://www.aneki.com/countries2.php?t=Largest_Economies_in_Asia&table=fb126&places=2&unit=%2A&order=desc&dependency=independent&number=5&cntdn=n&r=-201-202-203-204-205-206-207-208-209-210-211-212-116-214-215-216-217-218-219-220&c=asia&measures=Country--GDP&units=%2A--%24%2A&decimals=%2A--%2A|url-status=live}}</ref> Based on Global Office Locations 2011, Asia dominated the office locations with 4 of the top 5 being in Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, ] and ]. Around 68 percent of international firms have an office in Hong Kong.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cfoinnovation.com/content/hong-kong-singapore-tokyo-worlds-top-office-destinations |title=Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo World's Top Office Destinations |work=CFO innovation ASIA |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807011203/http://www.cfoinnovation.com/content/hong-kong-singapore-tokyo-worlds-top-office-destinations |archive-date=7 August 2011 |access-date=21 July 2011 }}</ref>

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economy of China<ref>{{citation |ssrn=916768 |title=Five Years of China WTO Membership: EU and US Perspectives About China's Compliance With Transparency Commitments and the Transitional Review Mechanism|date=4 August 2006|last1=Farah|first1=Paolo Davide}}</ref> had an average annual growth rate of more than 8%. According to ] ], India had the world's largest economy during 1000 BCE and 1 CE. India was the largest economy in the world for most of the two millennia from the 1st until 19th century, contributing 25% of the world's industrial output.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a-JGGp2suQUC&q=angus+maddison|title=Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History|isbn=978-0-19-164758-1|last1=Maddison|first1=Angus|date=20 September 2007|publisher=OUP Oxford |access-date=30 May 2021|archive-date=24 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924191955/https://books.google.com/books?id=a-JGGp2suQUC&dq=angus+maddison&hl=en|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rHJGz3HiJbcC&pg=PA261|title = Development Centre Studies the World Economy Historical Statistics: Historical Statistics|isbn = 978-9264104143|last1 = Angus|first1 = Maddison|date = 2003| publisher=OECD |access-date = 30 May 2021|archive-date = 14 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414054608/https://books.google.com/books?id=rHJGz3HiJbcC&pg=PA261|url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/economicsworldhi00bair_0|isbn = 978-0-226-03463-8|title = Economics and world history : Myths and paradoxes|year = 1995|last1 = Bairoch|first1 = Paul| publisher=University of Chicago Press }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.theworldeconomy.org/MaddisonTables/MaddisontableB-18.pdf |title=Table B–18. World GDP, 20 Countries and Regional Totals, 0–1998 A.D. |website=theworldeconomy.org |access-date=20 September 2021 |archive-date=22 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130722202625/http://www.theworldeconomy.org/MaddisonTables/MaddisontableB-18.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> China was the ] on earth for much of recorded history and shared the mantle with India.<ref>{{cite web |author=Nalapat |first=M. D. |date=11 September 2001 |title=Ensuring China's "Peaceful Rise" |url=http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/SRR/Volume14/nalapat.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100110045822/http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/SRR/Volume14/nalapat.html |archive-date=10 January 2010 |access-date=1 June 2010 |publisher=Bharat-rakshak.com}}</ref><ref name="Dahlman">{{Cite book |url=http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED460052&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED460052 |title=Dahlman, Carl J; Aubert, Jean-Eric. China and the Knowledge Economy: Seizing the 21st century. WBI Development Studies. World Bank Publications. Accessed 30 January 2008 |publisher=Eric.ed.gov |access-date=1 June 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080304235359/http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED460052&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED460052 |archive-date=4 March 2008 |isbn=978-0-8213-5005-8 |date=2000 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_PNTJQTR |title=The Real Great Leap Forward |newspaper=The Economist |date=30 September 2004 |access-date=1 June 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161227234147/http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_PNTJQTR |archive-date=27 December 2016}}</ref> For several decades in the late twentieth century Japan was the largest economy in Asia and second-largest of any single nation in the world, after surpassing the ] (measured in net material product) in 1990 and Germany in 1968. (NB: A number of supernational economies are larger, such as the ] (EU), the ] (NAFTA) or ]). This ended in 2010 when China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy. It is forecasted that India will overtake Japan in terms of nominal GDP by 2027.<ref name=":5" />

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP by currency exchange rates was almost as large as that of the rest of Asia combined.<ref name=":5" /> In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equaled that of the US as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 ]/US$. Economic growth in Asia since ] to the 1990s had been concentrated in Japan as well as the four regions of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore located in the ], known as the ], which are now all considered developed economies, having among the highest GDP per capita in Asia.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.emergingdragon.com/ |title=Rise of Japan and 4 Asian Tigers from |publisher=emergingdragon.com |access-date=1 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100422013118/http://www.emergingdragon.com/ |archive-date=22 April 2010 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=":5" />

]]]
Asia is the largest continent in the world by a considerable margin, and it is rich in natural resources, such as ], ]s, ], ], ], ] and ]. Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in China, ], South Korea, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Singapore. Japan and South Korea continue to dominate in the area of ]s, but increasingly the PRC and India are making significant inroads. Many companies from Europe, North America, South Korea and Japan have operations in Asia's developing countries to take advantage of its abundant supply of cheap labour and relatively developed infrastructure.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Fairless |first=Tom |title=Rich Countries Are Becoming Addicted to Cheap Labor |url=https://www.wsj.com/economy/business-immigrant-low-skilled-labor-addiction-bf009a83 |access-date=2024-06-04 |website=WSJ |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Global firms are eyeing Asian alternatives to Chinese manufacturing |url=https://www.economist.com/business/2023/02/20/global-firms-are-eyeing-asian-alternatives-to-chinese-manufacturing |access-date=2024-06-04 |newspaper=The Economist}}</ref>

According to ] in 2011, 9 of 11 ] countries came from Asia driven by population and income growth. They are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sme.com.ph/sme-news/news.php?newsid=2324 |title=Philippine potential cited |publisher=sme.com.ph |date=24 February 2011 |access-date=1 March 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110424124759/https://www.sme.com.ph/sme-news/news.php?newsid=2324 |archive-date=24 April 2011 }}</ref> Asia has three main financial centers: Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. ]s and ] (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly skilled, English-speaking workers. The increased use of outsourcing has assisted the rise of India and the China as financial centers. Due to its large and extremely competitive information technology industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-10-28 |title=India growing as offshore outsourcing hub even for non-IT roles: Randstad India |url=https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/corporate/story/india-growing-as-offshore-outsourcing-hub-even-for-non-it-roles-randstad-india-310773-2021-10-28 |access-date=2024-06-04 |website=Business Today }}</ref>

Trade between Asian countries and countries on other continents is largely carried out on the sea routes that are important for Asia. Individual main routes have emerged from this. The main route leads from the Chinese coast south via Hanoi to Jakarta, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur through the ] via the Sri Lankan Colombo to the southern tip of India via Malé to East Africa ] (see also: ]), from there to ], then through the Red Sea over the ] into Mediterranean (see also: ]), there via Haifa, Istanbul and ] to the upper Adriatic to the northern Italian hub of ] with its rail connections to Central and Eastern Europe or further to ] and around Spain and France to the European northern ports. A far smaller part of the goods traffic runs via ]. A particularly significant part of the Asian goods traffic is carried out ] towards ] and ]. The melting of the Arctic is also paving the way for ] from ] to Europe and North America.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-09-19 |title=Melting Arctic ice could transform international shipping routes, study finds {{!}} Brown University |url=https://www.brown.edu/news/2022-06-22/arctic |access-date=2024-11-20 |website=www.brown.edu |language=en}}</ref> In contrast to the sea routes, the Silk Road via the land route to Europe is on the one hand still under construction and on the other hand is much smaller in terms of scope. Intra-Asian trade, including sea trade, is growing rapidly.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/253988/estimated-containerized-cargo-flows-on-major-container-trade-routes/| title = Estimated containerized cargo flows on major container trade routes in 2020, by trade route| access-date = 26 January 2021| archive-date = 9 January 2021| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109011258/https://www.statista.com/statistics/253988/estimated-containerized-cargo-flows-on-major-container-trade-routes/| url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.futurenautics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/GlobalMarineTrends2030Report.pdf| title = Global Marine Trends 2030 Report| access-date = 26 January 2021| archive-date = 12 April 2021| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412162434/https://www.futurenautics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/GlobalMarineTrends2030Report.pdf| url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/maritime-trade| title = Maritime Trade| access-date = 26 January 2021| archive-date = 19 March 2021| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319005146/https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/maritime-trade| url-status = live}}</ref><ref>Harry G. Broadman. "Afrika's Silk Road" (2007), pp. 59.</ref><ref>Harry de Wilt. Is One Belt, One Road a China crisis for North Sea main ports? in World Cargo News, 17 December 2019.</ref><ref>Bernhard Simon: Can The New Silk Road Compete With The Maritime Silk Road? in The Maritime Executive, 1 January 2020.</ref><ref>Jean-Marc F. Blanchard "China's Maritime Silk Road Initiative and South Asia" (2018).</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.joc.com/maritime-news/trade-lanes/intra-asia| title = INTRA-ASIA| access-date = 26 January 2021| archive-date = 26 January 2021| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126022043/https://www.joc.com/maritime-news/trade-lanes/intra-asia| url-status = live}}</ref>

In 2010, Asia had 3.3 million millionaires (people with net worth over US$1 million excluding their homes), slightly below North America with 3.4 million millionaires. In 2011, Asia topped Europe in number of millionaires.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/asian-pacific/asias-millionaire-population-overtakes-europe/article2072205/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110625124306/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/asian-pacific/asias-millionaire-population-overtakes-europe/article2072205/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=25 June 2011 |title=Asia has more millionaires than Europe |location=Toronto}}</ref>
Citigroup in The Wealth Report 2012 stated that Asian centa-millionaire overtook North America's wealth for the first time as the world's "economic center of gravity" continued moving east. At the end of 2011, there were 18,000 Asian people mainly in Southeast Asia, China and Japan who have at least $100 million in disposable assets, while North America with 17,000 people and Western Europe with 14,000 people.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-27/citigroup-study-shows-asian-rich-topping-north-american.html |title=Citigroup Study Shows Asian Rich Topping North American |date=28 March 2012 |publisher=Bloomberg |first=Sanat |last=Vallikappen |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150114212900/http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-27/citigroup-study-shows-asian-rich-topping-north-american.html |archive-date=14 January 2015 }}</ref>

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: right; float:left; border:1px solid #aaa; margin:10px"
|- style="background:#dbdbdb;"
! Rank
! Country
! ] <small>(nominal, Peak Year)</small><br /><small>millions of ]</small>
! Peak Year
|- |-
| 1 ||align=left|{{flag|China}} ||18,273,357||2024
| colspan=5 style="background:#eee;" | ''']:'''
|- |-
| 2 ||align=left|{{flag|Japan}}<ref></ref>||6,272,363||2012
| {{flag|Kazakhstan}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;] is sometimes considered a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe; population and area figures are for Asian portion only.<br /></ref>
| align="right" | 2,724,927
| align="right" | 15,666,533
| align="right" | 5.7
| ]
|- |-
| {{flag|Kyrgyzstan}} | 3 ||align=left|{{flag|India}}||3,889,130||2024
| align="right" | 198,500
| align="right" | 5,356,869
| align="right" | 24.3
| ]
|- |-
| 4 ||align=left|{{flag|Russia}}<ref></ref>||2,292,470||2013
| {{flag|Tajikistan}}
| align="right" | 143,100
| align="right" | 7,211,884
| align="right" | 47.0
| ]
|- |-
| 5 ||align=left|{{flag|South Korea}} ||1,942,314||2021
| {{flag|Turkmenistan}}
| align="right" | 488,100
| align="right" | 5,179,573
| align="right" | 9.6
| ]
|- |-
| {{flag|Uzbekistan}} | 6 ||align=left|{{flag|Indonesia}} ||1,402,590||2024
| align="right" | 447,400
| align="right" | 28,268,441
| align="right" | 57.1
| ]
|- |-
| 7 ||align=left|{{flag|Turkey}} ||1,344,318||2024
| colspan=5 style="background:#eee;" | ''']:'''
|- |-
| 8 ||align=left|{{nowrap|{{flag|Saudi Arabia}}}} ||1,108,572||2022
| {{flag|China}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;The ] "]" is commonly known as simply "China", which is subsumed by the ]. Figures given are for ] only, and do not include ], ] and ].<br /></ref>
| align="right" | 9,584,492
| align="right" | 1,322,044,605
| align="right" | 134.0
| ]
|- |-
| 9 ||align=left|{{flag|Taiwan}} ||775,017||2024
| {{flag|Hong Kong}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;] is a ] (SAR) of the People's Republic of China.<br /></ref>
| align="right" | 1,092
| align="right" | 7,008,300<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/hong_kong_statistics/statistics_by_subject/index.jsp?subjectID=1&charsetID=1&displayMode=T |title=HK Census and Statistics Department |publisher=Censtatd.gov.hk |date= |accessdate=2009-08-28}}</ref>
| align="right" | 6,417.9
| —
|- |-
| 10 ||align=left|{{flag|Iran}}<ref></ref>||644,036||2012
| {{flag|Macau}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;] is a ] (SAR) of the People's Republic of China.<br /></ref>
|}
| align="right" | 25
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: right; float:left; border:1px solid #aaa; margin:10px"
| align="right" | 460,823
|- style="background:#dbdbdb;"
| align="right" | 18,473.3
! Rank
| —
! Country
! ] <small>(PPP, Peak Year)</small><br /><small>millions of ]</small>
! Peak Year
|- |-
| {{flag|Japan}} | 1 ||align=left|{{flag|China}} ||37,072,086||2024
| align="right" | 377,835
| align="right" | 127,288,628
| align="right" | 336.1
| ]
|- |-
| 2 ||align=left|{{flag|India}} ||16,019,970||2024
| {{flag|Taiwan|Taiwan)}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;Figures are for ] under the ''de facto'' control of the ] (ROC) government, commonly referred to as ]. Claimed in whole by the PRC; see ].<br /></ref>
| align="right" | 35,980
| align="right" | 22,920,946
| align="right" | 626.7
| ]
|- |-
| {{flag|North Korea}} | 3 ||align=left|{{flag|Russia}}||6,909,381||2024
| align="right" | 120,540
| align="right" | 23,479,095
| align="right" | 184.4
| ]
|- |-
| 4 ||align=left|{{flag|Japan}} ||6,572,198||2024
| {{flag|South Korea}}
| align="right" | 98,480
| align="right" | 49,232,844
| align="right" | 490.7
| ]
|- |-
| {{flag|Mongolia}} | 5 ||align=left|{{flag|Indonesia}} ||4,658,321||2024
| align="right" | 1,565,000
| align="right" | 2,996,082
| align="right" | 1.7
| ]
|- |-
| 6 ||align=left|{{flag|Turkey}}<ref name="WBGDPPPP">{{Cite web |url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD|title=Peak GDP (PPP) for Turkey|access-date=2024-11-10}}</ref>||3,767,230||2023
| colspan=5 style="background:#eee;" | ''']:'''
|- |-
| 7 ||align=left|{{flag|South Korea}} ||3,258,366||2024
| {{flag|Russia}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;Russia is considered a ] in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia; population and area figures are for the entire state.<br /></ref>
| align="right" | 17,075,400
| align="right" | 142,200,000
| align="right" | 26.8
| ]
|- |-
| 8 ||align=left|{{flag|Egypt}} ||2,231,822||2024
| colspan=5 style="background:#eee;" | ''']:'''<ref name="ccau">Excludes ] and ] (] in the ] southwest of ]).<br /></ref>
|- |-
| 9 ||align=left|{{nowrap|{{flag|Saudi Arabia}}}} ||2,112,880||2024
| {{flag|Brunei}}
| align="right" | 5,770
| align="right" | 381,371
| align="right" | 66.1
| ]
|- |-
| 10 ||align=left|{{flag|Taiwan}} ||1,843,016||2024
| {{flag|Burma|name=Burma (Myanmar)}}
|}
| align="right" | 676,578
{{clear}}
| align="right" | 47,758,224

| align="right" | 70.3
== Tourism ==
| ]<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;The administrative capital of ] was officially moved from ] to a militarised greenfield just west of ] on 6 November 2005.</ref>
] in the ] is among ]'s major tourist attractions.]]
{{Category see also|Tourism in Asia|Transport in Asia}}
With growing Regional Tourism with domination of Chinese visitors, ] has released Global Destination Cities Index 2013 with 10 of 20 are dominated by Asia and Pacific Region Cities and also for the first time a city of a country from Asia (]) set in the top-ranked with 15.98 million international visitors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.italianvenue.com/news/20135281339-milan-and-rome-named-among-the-most-widely-visited-cities-in-the-world-in-the-mastercard-global-destination-cities-index-report/|title=Milan and Rome named among the most widely visited cities in the world in the Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index report|date=28 May 2013|website=Italianavenue.com|access-date=9 November 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171017220531/http://www.italianvenue.com/news/20135281339-milan-and-rome-named-among-the-most-widely-visited-cities-in-the-world-in-the-mastercard-global-destination-cities-index-report/|archive-date=17 October 2017}}</ref>

== Demographics ==
{{Main|Demographics of Asia}}
{{See also|List of Asian countries by population|List of Asian countries by life expectancy}}
{{Historical populations
|title = Historical populations
|type = Asia
|align = right
|percentages = pagr
|footnote = Source: <br />The figure for {{UN Population|Year}} is provided by.{{UN Population|source}}
|1500|243000000
|1700|436000000
|1900|947000000
|1950|1402000000
|1999|3634000000
|2016|4462676731|graph-pos=bottom
}}
] East Asia had by far the strongest overall ] (HDI) improvement of any region in the world, nearly doubling average HDI attainment over the past 40 years, according to the report's analysis of health, education and income data. China, the second highest achiever in the world in terms of HDI improvement since
1970, is the only country on the "Top 10 Movers" list due to income rather than health or education achievements. Its per capita income increased a stunning 21-fold over the last four decades, also lifting hundreds of millions out of income poverty. Yet it was not among the region's top performers in improving school enrollment and life expectancy.<ref name="UNDP">{{cite web |url=http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/PR6-HDR10-RegRBAP-E-rev5-sm.pdf |title=2010 Human Development Report: Asian countries lead development progress over 40 years |publisher=UNDP |access-date=22 December 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101121161015/http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/PR6-HDR10-RegRBAP-E-rev5-sm.pdf |archive-date=21 November 2010}}</ref><br />], a South Asian country, emerges as one of the world's fastest movers since 1970 mainly due to health and education achievements. Its present ] is 25 years longer than in the 1970s. More than four of every five children of school age in Nepal now attend primary school, compared to just one in five 40 years ago.<ref name="UNDP" /><br /> Hong Kong ranked highest among the countries grouped on the HDI (number 7 in the world, which is in the "very high human development" category), followed by Singapore (9), Japan (19) and South Korea (22). ] (155) ranked lowest amongst Asian countries out of the 169 countries assessed.<ref name="UNDP" />

=== Languages ===
{{Main|Languages of Asia}}
Asia is home to several ] and many ]s. Most Asian countries have more than one language that is natively spoken. For instance, according to ], more than 700 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 400 languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces.

=== Religions ===
{{See also|Eastern philosophy|Religion in Asia|List of Asian mythologies}}
Many of the world's ] have their origins in Asia, including the five most practiced in the world (excluding ]), which are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Chinese folk religion (classified as Confucianism and Taoism), and Buddhism. Asian mythology is complex and diverse. The story of the ] for example, as presented to Jews in the ] in the narrative of ]—and later to Christians in the ], and to Muslims in the ]—is earliest found in ], in the ] and '']''. ] similarly tells about an ] of ] in the form of a ] who warned ] of a terrible flood. Ancient ] also tells of a ] spanning generations, one that required the combined efforts of emperors and divinities to control.

==== Abrahamic ====
{{See also|Christianity in Asia|Islam in Asia}}
] and the ], ]]]
] in ]]]
] at the ] in ]]]
The ] including ], ], ], ],<ref name="TheDruze">{{cite book|last=Obeid|first=Anis|title=The Druze & Their Faith in Tawhid|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FejqBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT1|year=2006|publisher=Syracuse University Press|isbn=978-0-8156-5257-1|page=1}}</ref> and ] originated in West Asia.<ref>{{cite book|title=An Introduction to Middle East Politics: Continuity, Change, Conflict and Co-operation|first=Benjamin |last=MacQueen|year= 2013| isbn=978-1-4462-8976-1| page =5|publisher=SAGE|quote=The Middle East is the cradle of the three monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Modern World: Civilizations of Africa, Civilizations of Europe, Civilizations of the Americas, Civilizations of the Middle East and Southwest Asia, Civilizations of Asia and the Pacific| first=Sarolta |last=Takacs|year= 2015| isbn= 978-1-317-45572-1| page =552|publisher=Routledge|quote=}}</ref>

], the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in ], the indigenous homeland and historical birthplace of the ]: which today consists both of those ] who remained in ] and those who returned from ] in Europe, North America, and other regions;<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/jewpop.html |title=The Jewish Population of the World |publisher=Jewishvirtuallibrary.org |access-date=1 June 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100621102211/http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/jewpop.html |archive-date=21 June 2010}}</ref> though various diaspora communities persist worldwide. Jews are the predominant ethnic group in ] (75.6%) numbering at about 6.1 million,<ref>{{cite news |first=Yoram |last=Ettinger |title=Defying demographic projections |url=http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3913 |access-date=29 October 2013 |newspaper=] |date=5 April 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029191655/http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3913 |archive-date=29 October 2013}}</ref> although the levels of adherence to Jewish religion vary. Outside of Israel there are small ancient Jewish communities in ] (17,400),<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrary">{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Turkey.html |title=Turkey Virtual Jewish History Tour {{pipe}} Jewish Virtual Library |publisher=jewishvirtuallibrary.org |access-date=15 December 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141011161052/http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Turkey.html |archive-date=11 October 2014}}</ref> ] (9,100),<ref name="mashke2">{{cite web |url=http://pop-stat.mashke.org/azerbaijan-ethnic2009.htm |title=Ethnic composition of Azerbaijan 2009 |publisher=Pop-stat.mashke.org |date=7 April 1971 |access-date=22 December 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207161726/http://pop-stat.mashke.org/azerbaijan-ethnic2009.htm |archive-date=7 February 2012}}</ref> Iran (8,756),<ref name=IranCensusMurder>{{cite news |url=http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-woman-brutally-murdered-in-iran-over-property-dispute/ |title=Jewish woman brutally murdered in Iran over property dispute |newspaper=The Times of Israel |date=28 November 2012 |access-date=16 August 2014 |quote=A government census published earlier this year indicated there were a mere 8,756 Jews left in Iran |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140819102713/http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-woman-brutally-murdered-in-iran-over-property-dispute/#ixzz3Ac6duaqw |archive-date=19 August 2014}} See ]</ref> India (5,000) and ] (4,000),<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/AJYB727.CV.pdf| title = World Jewish Population 2007| access-date = 18 July 2015| archive-date = 26 March 2009| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090326020910/http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/AJYB727.CV.pdf| url-status = dead}}, ''American Jewish Yearbook'', vol. 107 (2007), p. 592.</ref> among many other places. In total, there are 14.4–17.5 million (2016, est.)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Studies/details.cfm?StudyID=831|title=World Jewish Population 2016 (DellaPergola, AJYB) {{!}} Berman Jewish DataBank|website=jewishdatabank.org|access-date=24 March 2018|archive-date=30 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170930084907/http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Studies/details.cfm?StudyID=831|url-status=live}}</ref> Jews alive in the world today, making them one of the smallest Asian minorities, at roughly 0.3 to 0.4 percent of the total population of the continent.

] is a widespread religion in Asia with more than 286 million adherents according to ] in 2010,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-christians/ |title=Christians |date=18 December 2012 |work=Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project |access-date=13 March 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150310002132/http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-christians/ |archive-date=10 March 2015}}</ref> and nearly 364 million according to ] Book of the Year 2014.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LccRAwAAQBAJ&q=reconciled%20table%20%22worldwide%20by%20religion%22&pg=PA324 |title=Britannica Book of the Year 2014 |access-date=13 March 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429073722/https://books.google.com/books?id=LccRAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA324&q=reconciled%20table%20%22worldwide%20by%20religion%22&f=falsePew |archive-date=29 April 2016 |isbn=978-1-62513-171-3 |year=2014 |publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica }}</ref> Christians constitute around 12.6% of the total population of Asia. In the Philippines and ], ] is the predominant religion;<ref name="Global Christianity" /> it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In ] and Georgia, ] is the predominant religion.<ref name="Global Christianity" /> In the Middle East, such as in the ], ] and ], ] (]) and ] are prevalent minority denominations,<ref name="HindsonMitchell2013">{{cite book|last1=Hindson|first1=Edward E.|last2=Mitchell|first2=Daniel R.|title=The Popular Encyclopedia of Church History|date=1 August 2013|publisher=Harvest House Publishers|language=en|isbn=978-0-7369-4807-4|page=225}}</ref> which are both ] sects mainly adhered to ] or Syriac Christians. Vibrant indigenous minorities in ] are adhering to the ] and ].<ref name="Global Christianity" /> ] in India trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of ] in the 1st century.<ref>''The Encyclopedia of Christianity'', Volume 5 by Erwin Fahlbusch. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. 2008, p. 285. {{ISBN|978-0-8028-2417-2}}.</ref> Significant Christian communities also found in ], ], ] and ].<ref name="Global Christianity">{{cite web|url=https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2011/12/Christianity-fullreport-web.pdf|title=Global Christianity – A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population|publisher=Pew Research Center|access-date=16 February 2022|archive-date=9 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210809110719/https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2011/12/Christianity-fullreport-web.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

], which originated in the ] located in modern-day Saudi Arabia, is the second largest and most widely-spread religion in Asia with at least 1 billion Muslims constituting around 23.8% of the total population of Asia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/future-of-the-global-muslim-population-regional-asia/|title=Region: Asia–Pacific|date=27 January 2011|website=Pewforum.org|access-date=9 November 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010061404/http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/future-of-the-global-muslim-population-regional-asia/|archive-date=10 October 2017}}</ref> With 12.7% of the world Muslim population, the country currently with the largest Muslim population in the world is Indonesia, followed by Pakistan (11.5%), India (10%), ], Iran and Turkey. ], ] and ] are the three holiest cities for Islam in all the world. The ] and ] attract large numbers of Muslim devotees from all over the world to Mecca and Medina. Iran is the largest ] country.

The ] Faith or Druzism originated in West Asia, is a monotheistic religion based on the teachings of figures like ] and ], and Greek ] such as ] and ]. The number of ] people worldwide is around one million. About 45% to 50% live in ], 35% to 40% live in ], and less than 10% live in ]. Recently there has been a growing Druze diaspora.<ref>{{cite book |last=Colbert |first=C. Held |title=Middle East Patterns: Places, People, and Politics |publisher=Routledge |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-429-96200-4 |page=109 |quote=Worldwide, they number 1 million or so, with about 45 to 50 percent in Syria, 35 to 40 percent in Lebanon, and less than 10 percent in Israel. Recently there has been a growing Druze diaspora.}}</ref>

The ] originated in Asia, in Iran (Persia), and spread from there to the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, India, and Burma during the lifetime of ]. Since the middle of the 20th century, growth has particularly occurred in other Asian countries, because Baháʼí activities in many Muslim countries has been ] by authorities. ] is a big ] in India.

==== Indian and East Asian religions ====
{{See also|Eastern religions}}] ] in ], according to the ]s, is the ''World's Largest Comprehensive Hindu Temple''.<ref>{{cite news |first=Preeti |last=Jha |url=http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Guinness-comes-to-east-Delhi-Akshardham-worlds-largest-Hindu-temple/254631/ |title=Guinness comes to east Delhi: Akshardham world's largest Hindu temple |date=26 December 2007 |newspaper=] |access-date=2 January 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071228055300/http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Guinness-comes-to-east-Delhi-Akshardham-worlds-largest-Hindu-temple/254631/ |archive-date=28 December 2007 }}</ref>]]
Almost all Asian religions have philosophical character and Asian philosophical traditions cover a large spectrum of philosophical thoughts and writings. ] includes ] and ]. They include elements of nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India, ], preached the enjoyment of the material world. The religions of ], ], ] and ] originated in India, South Asia. In East Asia, particularly in China and Japan, ], ] and ] Buddhism took shape.

{{as of|2012}}, Hinduism has around 1.1 billion adherents. The faith represents around 25% of Asia's population and is the largest religion in Asia. However, it is mostly concentrated in South Asia. Over 80% of the populations of both India and Nepal adhere to Hinduism, alongside significant communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and ], Indonesia. Many overseas Indians in countries such as Burma, Singapore and Malaysia also adhere to Hinduism.
] in ], the largest religious monument in the world]]
Buddhism has a great following in mainland Southeast Asia and East Asia. Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the populations of ] (96%),<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Cambodia|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> ] (95%),<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Thailand|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> ] (80–89%),<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=burma|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> Japan (36–96%),<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Japan|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> ] (75–84%),<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Bhutan|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> ] (70%),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.statistics.gov.lk/PopHouSat/CPH2011/index.php?fileName=pop43&gp=Activities&tpl=3 |title=The Census of Population and Housing of Sri Lanka-2011 |publisher=Department of Census and Statistics |access-date=29 July 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130724072557/http://www.statistics.gov.lk/PopHouSat/CPH2011/index.php?fileName=pop43&gp=Activities&tpl=3 |archive-date=24 July 2013}}</ref> ] (60–67%)<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Laos|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> and ] (53–93%).<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Mongolia|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> ] (35–93%),<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Taiwan|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=China (includes Taiwan only): International Religious Freedom Report 2005 |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51508.htm |publisher=US Department of State: ] |date=8 November 2005 |access-date=24 January 2008 |archive-date=26 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201226103042/https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51508.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=China (includes Taiwan only): International Religious Freedom Report 2006 |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71337.htm |publisher=]: ] |date=15 September 2006 |access-date=24 February 2008 |archive-date=17 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200917184720/https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71337.htm/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=China (includes Taiwan only): International Religious Freedom Report 2007 |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90134.htm |publisher=]: ] |date=15 September 2006 |access-date=24 February 2008 |archive-date=25 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200625070300/https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90134.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> South Korea (23–50%),<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=South Korea|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> ] (19–21%),<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Malaysia|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> ] (9–11%),<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Nepal|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> ] (10–75%),<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=vietnam|access-date=20 December 2010 }}</ref> China (20–50%),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/nationality/han/ |title=Chinese Han Nationality: Language, Religion, Customs |website=Travelchinaguide.com |access-date=9 November 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171017220534/https://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/nationality/han/ |archive-date=17 October 2017}}</ref> ] (2–14%),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/North-Korea.html |title=Culture of North Korea – Alternative name, History and ethnic relations |work=Countries and Their Cultures |publisher=Advameg Inc. |access-date=4 July 2009 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090805183929/http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/North-Korea.html |archive-date=5 August 2009}}</ref><ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=North Korea|access-date=9 November 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2792.htm |title=Background Note: North Korea |author=Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs |year=2009 |publisher=U.S. State Department |access-date=4 July 2009 |archive-date=18 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200818233244/https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2792.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> and small communities in India and ]. The Communist-governed countries of China, Vietnam and North Korea are officially atheist, thus the number of Buddhists and other religious adherents may be under-reported.

] is found mainly in India and in overseas Indian communities such as the United States and Malaysia. ] is found in Northern India and amongst overseas Indian communities in other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia. ] is found predominantly in mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan and in overseas Chinese populations. ] is found mainly in mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. In many Chinese communities, Taoism is easily syncretised with ], thus exact religious statistics are difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated.

<gallery>
File:Traditional wedding at Meji-jingu 72570539 f30636e2ef o.jpg|] at the ]
File:A day of devotion – Thaipusam in Singapore (4316108409).jpg|] festival celebrated by Singapore's ] community
File:Bar Mitzvah Western Wall.jpg|] at the Western Wall in Jerusalem
File:Feast of Black Nazarene, Quiapo, Manila.JPG|Catholic procession of the ] in ]
File:Flickr - Government Press Office (GPO) - Nebi Shueib Festival.jpg|] dignitaries celebrating the ] festival at the tomb of the prophet in ]
File:Echmiadzin Cathedral, Armenia (5047080550).jpg|Christian Armenians praying at the ] in ]
File:İstanbul 4258.jpg|Muslim men praying at the ] in ]
File:Buddhist Monks performing traditional Sand mandala made from coloured sand.jpg|Buddhist Monks performing traditional Sand mandala made from coloured sand
</gallery>

== Modern conflicts and events ==
] during the partition of India in 1947]]
] on suspected ] positions in 1965.]]
] against the ] began in March 2019 and turned into continuing mass movements, drawing around 2 million protesters by June]]
Some of the events pivotal in Asia related to the relationship with the outside world in the post-] were:
* The ] (1947):
Led to the creation of India and Pakistan, shaping the political landscape in South Asia.
*The ] of 1947–1948:
Fought over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, setting the stage for future conflicts.
*The ] (1927–1949):
Culminated in the establishment of the People's Republic of China under the Communist Party.
*The ] (1950–1953):
Involved international forces and led to the division of the Korean Peninsula.
*The ] (1946–1954):
Ended with the defeat of French colonial forces and the partition of Vietnam.
*The ] (1955–1975):
A protracted conflict with significant global implications, especially during the Cold War.

* The ] (1971):

India helped East Pakistan become independent, with Cold War ramifications.
*The ] (1979):
Conflict between China and Vietnam following Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia.
*The ] (1975–1999):
Involved Indonesia's annexation and subsequent independence through a UN-backed referendum.
*The ] (1979–1989):
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, contributing to the rise of the mujahideen.
*The ] (1980–1988):
Long-lasting conflict with regional and international implications.
*The ] (1990–1991):
Resulted from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, with international intervention.
*The ] (1991):
Marked the end of the Cold War and the emergence of independent states.
*The ] (2001–2021):
U.S.-led intervention post-9/11 with long-lasting consequences.
*The ] (2003–2011):
Led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and subsequent instability.
*The ] (2010–2012):
Series of uprisings and protests across the Arab world, influencing regional dynamics.
*The ] (2011–present):
Ongoing conflict with widespread humanitarian implications.

== Culture ==
{{Main|Culture of Asia}}

The ] is a diverse blend of customs and traditions that have been practiced by the various ethnic groups of the continent for centuries. The continent is divided into six geographic sub-regions: ], ], ], ], ], and ].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/ |title=Geographic Regions |publisher=United Nations |access-date=March 31, 2018 |archive-date=30 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170830170949/https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/ |url-status=live }}</ref> These regions are defined by their cultural similarities, including common religions, languages, and ethnicities. West Asia, also known as Southwest Asia or the ], has cultural roots in the ancient civilisations of the ] and ], which gave rise to the ], ], ] empires, as well as the Abrahamic religions of ], ] and ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Collon |first=Dominique |title=BBC – History – Ancient History in depth: Mesopotamia |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/cultures/mesopotamia_gallery.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230102042221/https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/cultures/mesopotamia_gallery.shtml |archive-date=2 January 2023 |access-date=March 31, 2018}}</ref> These civilisations, which are located in the ], are among the oldest in the world, with evidence of farming dating back to around 9000 BCE.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morris |first=Ian |title=Why the West rules – for now : the patterns of history, and what they reveal about the future |date=2011 |publisher=Profile |isbn=978-1846682087 |oclc=751789199}}</ref> Despite the challenges posed by the vast size of the continent and the presence of natural barriers such as deserts and mountain ranges, trade and commerce have helped to create a ] culture that is shared across the region.<ref>{{cite book | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=lTEeCgAAQBAJ&q=Indianized+kingdoms&pg=PA299 | title= Societies, Networks, and Transitions, Volume I: To 1500: A Global History | date= 2014-06-19 | access-date= March 31, 2018 | isbn= 978-1285783086 | last1= Lockard | first1= Craig A. | publisher= Cengage Learning | archive-date= 26 March 2023 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230326205006/https://books.google.com/books?id=lTEeCgAAQBAJ&q=Indianized+kingdoms&pg=PA299 | url-status= live }}</ref>

=== Nobel laureates ===
] was awarded the ] in 1913, and became Asia's first ].]]

The ] ], a ] poet, dramatist, and writer from ], now in ], India, became in 1913 the first Asian ]. He won his ] for notable impact his prose works and poetic thought had on English, French, and other national literatures of Europe and the Americas. He is also the writer of the national anthems of ] and India.

Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prize for literature include ] (Japan, 1968), ] (Japan, 1994), ] (China, 2000), ] (Turkey, 2006), and ] (China, 2012). Some may consider the American writer, ], an honourary Asian Nobel laureate, having spent considerable time in China as the daughter of missionaries, and based many of her novels, namely '']'' (1931) and '']'' (1933), as well as the biographies of her parents for their time in China, '']'' and '']'', all of which earned her the Literature prize in 1938.

] of India and ] of Iran were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their significant and pioneering efforts for ] and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. Another Nobel Peace Prize winner is ] from ] for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship in Burma. She is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma (Myanmar) and a noted prisoner of conscience. She is a ] and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Chinese dissident ] was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" on 8 October 2010. He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. In 2014, ] from India and ] from Pakistan were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".

] is the first Asian to get a Nobel prize in Sciences. He won the ] "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the ]".

Japan has won the most Nobel Prizes of any Asian nation with 24 followed by India which has won 13.

] ({{b.|1933}}) is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and ], and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members.

Other Asian Nobel Prize winners include ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and Bishop ] of ], ], and 13 Japanese scientists. Most of the said awardees are from Japan and ] except for Chandrasekhar and Raman (India), Abdus Salam (Pakistan), Arafat (Palestinian Territories), Kim (South Korea), and Horta and Belo (Timor Leste).

In 2006, ] of ] was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the establishment of ], a community development bank that lends money to poor people, especially women. He is known for the concept of micro credit which, allows poor and destitute people to borrow money. The borrowers pay back money within the specified period and defaulting is very low. Yunus also became the leader of an ] after the ].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Muhammad Yunus returns to Bangladesh to lead interim government |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/8/muhammad-yunus-returns-to-bangladesh-to-lead-interim-government |access-date=2024-09-11 |website=Al Jazeera |language=en}}</ref> The ] received the Nobel Peace Prize, in ], Norway in 1989.<ref>{{cite web |author=His Holiness's Teachings at TCV |url=http://www.dalailama.com/biography/a-brief-biography |title=A Brief Biography – The Office of His Holiness The Dalai Lama |publisher=Dalailama.com |access-date=1 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100525181231/http://www.dalailama.com/biography/a-brief-biography |archive-date=25 May 2010 |url-status=live }}</ref>

== States of Asia ==
{{Main|Politics of Asia}}
{{See also|List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Asia}}
{{Asia Labelled Map}}
{| class="sortable wikitable"
! style="line-height:95%; width:2em" class="unsortable" scope="col" | Symbol
! style="line-height:95%; width:2em" class="unsortable" scope="col" | Flag
! Name
! ]{{UN Population|ref}}<br />({{UN Population|Year}})
! ]<br />(km<sup>2</sup>)
! Capital
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Cambodia}}<ref></ref>
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Afghanistan|link=Flag of Afghanistan}}
| align="right" | 181,035
| ]
| align="right" | 13,388,910
| align="right" | 74 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Afghanistan}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 652,864
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Armenia|text=none|link=Coat of arms of Armenia}}
| {{flag|East Timor|name=East Timor (Timor-Leste)}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;] is often considered a transcontinental country in Southeastern Asia and ].<br /></ref>
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Armenia|link=Flag of Armenia}}
| align="right" | 15,007
| ]
| align="right" | 1,108,777
| align="right" | 73.8 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Armenia}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 29,743
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Azerbaijan|text=none|link=National emblem of Azerbaijan}}
| {{flag|Indonesia}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;] is often considered a transcontinental country in Southeastern Asia and ]; figures do not include ] and ], frequently reckoned in Oceania (]/]).<br /></ref>
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Azerbaijan|link=Flag of Azerbaijan}}
| align="right" | 1,919,440
| ]{{NoteTag|name=transcon|]}}
| align="right" | 230,512,000
| align="right" | 120.1 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Azerbaijan}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 86,600
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Bahrain|text=none|link=Coat of arms of Bahrain}}
| {{flag|Laos}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Bahrain|link=Flag of Bahrain}}
| align="right" | 236,800
| ]
| align="right" | 6,677,534
| align="right" | 28.2 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Bahrain}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 760
| ]
| ]
|-
| {{flag|Malaysia}}
| align="right" | 329,847
| align="right" | 27,780,000
| align="right" | 84.2
| ]
|-
| {{flag|Philippines}}
| align="right" | 300,000
| align="right" | 92,681,453
| align="right" | 308.9
| ]
|-
| {{flag|Singapore}}
| align="right" | 704
| align="right" | 4,608,167
| align="right" | 6,545.7
| ]
|-
| {{flag|Thailand}}
| align="right" | 514,000
| align="right" | 65,493,298
| align="right" | 127.4
| ](Krung Thep Mahanakhon)
|-
| {{flag|Vietnam}}
| align="right" | 331,690
| align="right" | 86,116,559
| align="right" | 259.6
| ]
|-
| colspan=5 style="background:#eee;" | ''']:'''
|-
| {{flag|Afghanistan}}
| align="right" | 647,500
| align="right" | 32,738,775
| align="right" | 42.9
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Bangladesh}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Bangladesh|link=Flag of Bangladesh}}
| align="right" | 147,570
| ]
| align="right" | 153,546,901
| align="right" | 1040.5 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Bangladesh}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 147,570
| ] | ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Bhutan}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Bhutan|link=Flag of Bhutan}}
| align="right" | 38,394
| ]
| align="right" | 682,321
| align="right" | 17.8 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Bhutan}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 38,394
| ] | ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|India}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;Includes ], a contested territory among India, ], and the ].<br /></ref>
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Brunei|link=Flag of Brunei}}
| align="right" | 3,287,263
| ]
| align="right" | 1,147,995,226
| align="right" | 349.2 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Brunei Darussalam}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 5,765
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Maldives}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Cambodia|link=Flag of Cambodia}}
| align="right" | 300
| ]
| align="right" | 379,174
| align="right" | 1,263.3 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Cambodia}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 181,035
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Nepal}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|China|link=Flag of China}}
| align="right" | 147,181
| ] (PRC)
| align="right" | 29,519,114
| align="right" | 200.5 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|China}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 9,596,961
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Cyprus|text=none|link=Coat of arms of Cyprus}}
| {{flag|Pakistan}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Cyprus|link=Flag of Cyprus}}
| align="right" | 803,940
| ]
| align="right" | 167,762,049
| align="right" | 208.7 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Cyprus}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 9,251
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|East Timor|text=none|link=National emblem of East Timor}}
| {{flag|Sri Lanka}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|East Timor|link=Flag of East Timor}}
| align="right" | 65,610
| ]
| align="right" | 21,128,773
| align="right" | 322.0 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Timor-Leste}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 14,874
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Egypt|text=none|link=Coat of arms of Egypt}}
| colspan=5 style="background:#eee;" | ''']:'''
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Egypt|link=Flag of Egypt}}
| ]{{NoteTag|name=transcon|]}}
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Egypt}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 1,001,449
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Georgia (country)|text=none|link=Coat of arms of Georgia (country)}}
| {{flag|Armenia}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;] is sometimes considered a transcontinental country: physiographically in ], it has historical and sociopolitical connections with Europe.<br /></ref>
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Georgia (country)|link=Flag of Georgia (country)}}
| align="right" | 29,800
| ]{{NoteTag|name=transcon}}
| align="right" | 2,968,586
| align="right" | 111.7 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Georgia}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 69,700
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Azerbaijan}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;] is often considered a transcontinental country in Western Asia and Eastern Europe; population and area figures are for Asian portion only. Figures include ], an autonomous ] of Azerbaijan bordered by ], ] and ].<br /></ref>
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Hong Kong|link=Flag of Flag of Hong Kong}}
| align="right" | 46,870
| ]
| align="right" | 3,845,127
| align="right" | 82.0 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Hong Kong}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 2,754
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Bahrain}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|India|link=Flag of India}}
| align="right" | 665
| ]
| align="right" | 718,306
| align="right" | 987.1 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|India}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 3,287,263
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Cyprus}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;The island of ] is sometimes considered a transcontinental territory: in the Eastern Basin of the ] south of ], it has historical and socio-political connections with Europe. However, the ] considers Cyprus to be in Western Asia, while the ] considers it to be in the ].<br /></ref>
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Indonesia|link=Flag of Indonesia}}
| align="right" | 9,250
| ]{{NoteTag|name=transcon}}
| align="right" | 792,604
| align="right" | 83.9 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Indonesia}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 1,904,569
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Georgia}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;] is often considered a transcontinental country in Western Asia and Eastern Europe; population and area figures are for Asian portion only.<br /></ref>
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Iran|link=Flag of Iran}}
| align="right" | 20,460
| ]
| align="right" | 4,630,841
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Iran (Islamic Republic of)}}
| align="right" | 99.3
| style="text-align:right;"| 1,648,195
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Iraq|text=none|link=Emblem of Iraq}}
| {{flag|Iraq}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Iraq|link=Flag of Iraq}}
| align="right" | 437,072
| ]
| align="right" | 28,221,181
| align="right" | 54.9 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Iraq}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 438,317
| ] | ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Israel|text=none|link=Emblem of Israel}}
| {{flag|Iran}}<!--{{editnote | NOTE: Do not alter or move this entry without discussion -- in the UN scheme for countries/regions (used in the table), Iran is in Southern Asia, not Western Asia.}}-->
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Israel|link=Flag of Israel}}
| align="right" | 1,648,195
| ]
| align="right" | 70,472,846
| align="right" | 42.8 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Israel}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 20,770
| ]
| ] (])
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Israel}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Japan|link=Flag of Japan}}
| align="right" | 20,770
| ]
| align="right" | 7,112,359
| align="right" | 290.3 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Japan}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 377,915
| ]<ref>In 1980, ] was proclaimed Israel's united capital, following its annexation of Arab-dominant ] during the ]. The ] and many countries do not recognize this claim, with most countries maintaining embassies in ] instead.</ref>
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Jordan|text=none|link=Coat of arms of Jordan}}
| {{flag|Jordan}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Jordan|link=Flag of Jordan}}
| align="right" | 92,300
| ]
| align="right" | 6,198,677
| align="right" | 57.5 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Jordan}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 89,342
| ] | ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Kuwait}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Kazakhstan|link=Flag of Kazakhstan}}
| align="right" | 17,820
| ]{{NoteTag|name=transcon}}
| align="right" | 2,596,561
| align="right" | 118.5 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Kazakhstan}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 2,724,900
| ]
|-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Kuwait|text=none|link=Emblem of Kuwait}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Kuwait|link=Flag of Kuwait}}
| ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Kuwait}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 17,818
| ] | ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Lebanon}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Kyrgyzstan|link=Flag of Kyrgyzstan}}
| align="right" | 10,452
| ]
| align="right" | 3,971,941
| align="right" | 353.6 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Kyrgyzstan}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 199,951
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Oman}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Laos|link=Flag of Laos}}
| align="right" | 212,460
| ]
| align="right" | 3,311,640
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Lao People's Democratic Republic}}
| align="right" | 12.8
| style="text-align:right;"| 236,800
| ]
| ]
|- |-
|
| {{flag|Palestine}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Lebanon|link=Flag of Lebanon}}
| align="right" | 6,257
| ]
| align="right" | 4,277,000
| align="right" | 683.5 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Lebanon}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 10,400
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Qatar}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Macau|link=Flag_of_Macau}}
| align="right" | 11,437
| ]
| align="right" | 928,635
| align="right" | 69.4 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Macau}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 32.9
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Saudi Arabia}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Malaysia|link=Flag of Malaysia}}
| align="right" | 1,960,582
| ]
| align="right" | 23,513,330
| align="right" | 12.0 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Malaysia}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 329,847
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Syria}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Maldives|link=Flag of Maldives}}
| align="right" | 185,180
| ]
| align="right" | 19,747,586
| align="right" | 92.6 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Maldives}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 298
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Turkey}}<ref>&nbsp;&nbsp;] is generally considered a transcontinental country in Western Asia and Southern Europe; population and area figures are for Asian portion only, excluding all of ].</small><br /></ref>
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Mongolia|link=Flag of Mongolia}}
| align="right" | 756,768
| ]
| align="right" | 71,892,807
| align="right" | 76.5 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Mongolia}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 1,564,116
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|United Arab Emirates}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Myanmar|link=Flag of Myanmar}}
| align="right" | 82,880
| ]
| align="right" | 4,621,399
| align="right" | 29.5 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Myanmar}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 676,578
| ]
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| {{flag|Yemen}}
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Nepal|link=Flag of Nepal}}
| align="right" | 527,970
| ]
| align="right" | 23,013,376
| align="right" | 35.4 | style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Nepal}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 147,181
| ]
| ]
|- style="font-weight:bold;"
| Total
| align="right" | 43,810,582
| align="right" | 4,162,966,086
| align="right" | 89.07
|}

:''Note'': Part of ] (]) is geographically in Western Asia

===Country name changes===
Various Asian countries have undergone name changes during the previous century as the result of consolidations, ]s, territories gaining ] and ]s.

{|class="wikitable sortable" border="1" style="font-size: 90%"
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
! Previous Name !! Year !! Current Name
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|North Korea|link=Flag of North Korea}}
| ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Dem. People's Republic of Korea}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 120,538
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ], ''formerly ]''
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Oman|link=Flag of Oman}}
| 1950
| ] | ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Oman}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 309,500
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Pakistan|text=none|link=State emblem of Pakistan}}
| ] province
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Pakistan|link=Flag of Pakistan}}
| 1905-1911 and 1947-1955<br />1955-1971<br />1971
| ] state <br /> ], People's Republic of | ]
| style="text-align:right;"| 211,103,000
| style="text-align:right;"| 881,913
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|State of Palestine|link=Flag of Palestine}}
| 1975
| ], Kingdom of | ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|State of Palestine}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 6,220
| {{ubl|] (])|] ({{abbr|adm.|administrative}} center)}}
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Philippines|text=none|link=Coat of arms of the Philippines}}
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Philippines|link=Flag of the Philippines}}
| 1912<br />1949
| ]
| ], Republic of<br />China, People's Republic of
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Philippines}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 343,448
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"|
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Qatar|link=Flag of Qatar}}
| 1975<br />2002
| ]
| ] (province of Indonesia) <br />], Democratic Republic of
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Qatar}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 11,586
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|Russia|text=none|link=Coat of arms of Russia}}
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Russia|link=Flag of Russia}}
| 1949
| ]{{NoteTag|Russia is a ] located in ] and ], but is considered European historically, culturally, ethnically, and politically, and the vast majority of its population (78%) lives within its ].}}
| ], Republic of
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Russian Federation}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 17,098,242
| ]{{NoteTag|Moscow is located in ].}}
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Saudi Arabia|link=Flag of Saudi Arabia}}
| 1935<br />1979
| ]
| ], <br />], Islamic Republic of
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Saudi Arabia}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 2,149,690
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Singapore|link=Flag of Singapore}}
| 1946
| ], Kingdom of | ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Singapore}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 697
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ] (USSR)
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|South Korea|link=Flag of South Korea}}
| 1991
| ]
| Kyrgyzstan, Republic
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Republic of Korea}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 100,210
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ], ], ] and ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Sri Lanka|link=Flag of Sri Lanka}}
| 1963<br />1965
| ]
| ] (including ])<br />] and ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Sri Lanka}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 65,610
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Syrian opposition|link=Flag of Syria}}
| 1989
| ], Union of | ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Syrian Arab Republic}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 185,180
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Tajikistan|link=Flag of Tajikistan}}
| 1971
| ]
| ], Sultanate of
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Tajikistan}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 143,100
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Thailand|link=Flag of Thailand}}
| 1947-1956<br />1956-1970<br />1971
| ]
| ], Islamic State of<br/>], Islamic Republic of
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Thailand}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 513,120
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| <!-- The Turkish Constitution doesn't specify an official coat of arms -->
| ], ], ] and ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Turkey|link=Flag of Turkey}}
| 1965
| ]{{NoteTag|Turkey is a ] located mainly in ] with a smaller portion in ].}}
| ], Republic of the
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Turkey}}
|-
| style="text-align:right;"| 783,562
| ]-], The Kingdom of
| ]
| 1932
| ], Kingdom of
|-
| ]
| 1970
| ], People's Republic of
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Turkmenistan|link=Flag of Turkmenistan}}
| 1972
| ], Democratic Socialist Republic of
|-
| ] (USSR)
| 1991
| ], Republic of
|-
| ]
| 1939
| ], Kingdom of
|-
| ]
| 1923
| ], Republic of
|-
| ] (USSR)
| 1991
| ] | ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Turkmenistan}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 488,100
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ] and ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|United Arab Emirates|link=Flag of the United Arab Emirates}}
| 1971
| ] | ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|United Arab Emirates}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 83,600
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Uzbekistan|link=Flag of Uzbekistan}}
| 1949
| ]
| ], ] and ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Uzbekistan}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 447,400
| ]
|-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Vietnam|link=Flag of Vietnam}}
| ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Viet Nam}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 331,212
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ], People's Democratic and ]
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Yemen|link=Flag of Yemen}}
| 1990
| ], Republic of | ]
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Yemen}}
| style="text-align:right;"| 527,968
| {{ubl|] ({{abbr|const.|constitutional capital}}; {{abbrlink|SPC|Supreme Political Council}} control)|] ({{abbr|prv.|provisional}} capital of {{abbrlink|PLC|Presidential Leadership Council}})}}
|} |}


Within the above-mentioned states are several partially recognised countries with ]. None of them are members of the ]:
==Economy==
{| class="sortable wikitable"
{{Update|type=section|date=September 2009}}
! style="line-height:95%; width:2em" class="unsortable" | ]
{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="width:300px;margin-left:1.5em; float:right;"
! style="line-height:95%; width:2em" class="unsortable" | ]
|+ <big>'''Economy of Asia'''</big><br /><small>During 2003 unless otherwise stated</small>
! Name
|-
|Population: ! ]<br />
! ]<br />(km<sup>2</sup>)
| 3,958,768,100 (2006 Estimate)
! Capital
|-
|] (]):
|]18.077 trillion
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
|] (]):
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Abkhazia|link=Flag of Abkhazia#Republic of Abkhazia}}
| $8.782 trillion
| ]
| style="text-align:right;"| 242,862
| style="text-align:right;"| 8,660
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
|GDP/capita (]):
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Northern Cyprus|link=Flag of Northern Cyprus}}
| $4,518
| ]
| style="text-align:right;"| 326,000
| style="text-align:right;"| 3,355
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Coat of arms|South Ossetia|text=none|link=Coat of arms of South Ossetia#Republic of South Ossetia–the State of Alania}}
|GDP/capita (]):
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|South Ossetia|link=Flag of South Ossetia}}
| $2,143
| ]
| style="text-align:right;"| 51,547
| style="text-align:right;"| 3,900
| ]
|- |-
| style="text-align:center;"| ]
| ]s:
| style="text-align:center;"| {{Linkflag|Taiwan|link=Flag of the Republic of China}}
| 2.0 million (0.05%)
| ] (ROC)
|-
| style="text-align:right;"| {{UN Population|Taiwan}}
| align="center" colspan="2" | <small>Most numbers are from the ] from 2002, some numbers exclude certain countries for lack of information.</small>
| style="text-align:right;"| 36,193
|-
| ]
| align="center" colspan="2" | {{World economy infobox footer}}
|} |}
{{Main|Economy of Asia}}
{{See also|List of regions by past GDP (PPP)}}

Asia has the third largest ] GDP of all continents, after North America and Europe, but the largest when measured in ]. As of 2007, the largest national economy within Asia, in terms of ] (GDP), is that of ] followed by that of ], ], ] and ]. However, in nominal (exchange value) terms, they rank as follows: Japan, China, India, South Korea, ], ], ]. Since the 1960s, South Korea had maintained the highest economic growth rate in Asia, nicknamed as an ], becoming a ] in the 1980s and a ] by the 21st century. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economies of the PRC<ref>, Legal Issues of Economic Integration, Kluwer Law International, Volume 33, Number 3, pp. 263-304, 2006. by </ref> and India have been growing rapidly, both with an average annual growth rate of more than 8%. Other recent very high growth nations in Asia include ], the ], ], ], ], ] and mineral-rich nations such as ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and ].

During the ], India had the largest GDP at approximately 30% of the global GDP. By 1500 China had surpassed India; however, over the next four centuries the two were to alternate between 1st and 2nd largest GDP, until the ] (excluding ]) overtook them both in the mid 19th century. Japan has had for only several dacades after WW2 the largest economy in Asia and second-largest of any single nation in the world, after surpassing the ] (measured in net material product) in 1986 and Germany in 1968. (NB: A number of supernational economies are larger, such as the ] (EU), the ] (NAFTA) or ]). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP was almost as large (current exchange rate method) as that of the rest of Asia combined. In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equalled that of the USA to tie as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 ]/]. Economic growth in Asia since ] to the 1990s had been concentrated in Japan as well as the four regions of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore located in the ], known as the ], which have now all received developed country status, having the highest ] in Asia.<ref></ref>

It is forecasted that the ] will surpass ] to have the largest nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP in Asia within a decade. ] is also forecast to overtake Japan in terms of Nominal GDP by 2020.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cbcglobal.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=84&Itemid=507|title=Commonwealth Business Council-Asia|dateformat=mdy|accessdate=April 12 2007}}</ref> In terms of GDP per capita, both nominal and PPP-adjusted, South Korea will become the second wealthiest country in Asia by 2025, overtaking Germany, the United Kingdom and France. By 2050, according to a 2006 report by Price Waterhouse Cooper, China will have the largest economy in the world (43% greater than the United States when PPP adjusted, although perhaps smaller than the United States in nominal terms).<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4770590.stm|title=China to dwarf G7 states by 2050|dateformat=mdy|accessdate=November 19 2008}}</ref>

===Trade blocs===
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

===Natural resources===
Asia is the largest continent in the ] by a considerable margin, and it is rich in natural resources, such as ], ]s, fish, water, rice, copper and silver.

===Manufacturing===
Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in mainland ], ], ], ], ] , ] and ]. ] and ] continue to dominate in the area of ], but increasingly mainland ], and ] are making significant inroads. Many companies from Europe, North America, South Korea and Japan have operations in Asia's developing countries to take advantage of its abundant supply of cheap labour and relatively developed infrastructure.

===Financial and other services===
Asia has four main financial centres: ], ], ] and ]. ]s and ] (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India, Pakistan and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly-skilled, ] workers. The increased use of ] has assisted the rise of India and the China as financial centres. Due to its large and extremely competitive ] industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.

==Early history==
{{Main|History of Asia}}
].]]
]
The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions: ], ], ] and the ], linked by the interior mass of the ]n ].

The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in ], the ] and the ] shared many similarities. These civilizations may well have exchanged technologies and ideas such as ] and the wheel. Other innovations, such as writing, seem to have been developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands.

The central steppe region had long been inhabited by horse-mounted nomads who could reach all areas of Asia from the steppes. The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the ], who spread their languages into the Middle East, South Asia, and the borders of China, where the ] resided. The northernmost part of Asia, including much of ], was largely inaccessible to the steppe nomads, owing to the dense forests, climate and ]. These areas remained very sparsely populated.

The center and the peripheries were mostly kept separated by mountains and deserts. The ] and ] mountains and the ] and ] deserts formed barriers that the steppe horsemen could cross only with difficulty. While the urban city dwellers were more advanced technologically and socially, in many cases they could do little in a military aspect to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However, the lowlands did not have enough open grasslands to support a large horsebound force; for this and other reasons, the nomads who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East often found themselves adapting to the local, more affluent societies.

==Languages and literature==
{{Main|Languages of Asia}}
Asia is home to several ] and many ]s. Most Asian countries have more than one language that is natively spoken. For instance, according to ], more than 600 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 800 languages spoken in India and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces.

===Nobel prizes===
], the first Asian ].]]
], the first Asian ] in Sciences.]]

The ] ], a ] poet, ]tist, and writer from ], now in ], India, became in 1913 the first Asian ]. He won his ] for notable impact his prose works and poetic thought had on ], ], and other national literatures of Europe and the ]. He is also the writer of the national anthems of Bangladesh and India.

Tagore is said to have named another Bengali Indian Nobel prize winner, the 1998 laureate in Economics, ]. Sen's work has centered around global issues including famine, welfare, and third-world development. Amartya Sen was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK, from 1998-2004, becoming the first Asian to head an 'Oxbridge' College.

Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prizes include ] (Japan, 1966), ] (Japan, 1994), ] (People's Republic of China, 2000) and ] (Turkey, 2006).

Also, ] of India and ] of Iran were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. Another Nobel Peace Prize winner is ] from ] for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship in Burma. She is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma(Myanmar) and a noted prisoner of conscience. She is a ] and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

Sir ] is the first Asian to get a Nobel prize in Sciences. He won the ] "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the ]".

Other Asian Nobel Prize winners include ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and Bishop ] of ], ], and thirteen ] scientists. Most of the said awardees are from ] and ] except for Chandrasekhar and Raman (India), Salam (Pakistan), Arafat (Palestinian Territories) and Kim (South Korea).

In 2006, Dr. ] of Bangladesh was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the establishment of ], a community development bank that lends money to poor people, especially women in Bangladesh. Dr. Yunus received his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt University, United States. He is internationally known for the concept of micro credit which allows poor and destitutes with little or no collateral to borrow money. The borrowers typically pay back money within the specified period and the incidence of default is very low.


] for Asia
The Dalai Lama has received numerous awards over his spiritual and political career. On 22 June 2006, he became one of only four people ever to be recognized with Honorary Citizenship by the Governor General of Canada. On 28 May 2005, he received the Christmas Humphreys Award from the Buddhist Society in the United Kingdom. Most notable was the Nobel Peace Prize, presented in Oslo on 10 December 1989
{{Col-begin}}
{{Col-break}}
{{Legend|#0c3091|0.900–1.000}}
{{legend|#2f5cd5|0.800–0.899}}
{{legend|#6bd2df|0.700–0.799}}
{{Col-break}}
{{legend|#c3eded|0.600–0.699}}
{{legend|#f9f8bb|0.500–0.599}}
{{legend|#fad45d|0.400–0.499}}
{{Col-break}}
{{legend|#da820f|0.300–0.399}}
{{legend|#a8261f|0.200–0.299}}
{{legend|#66000f|0.100–0.199}}
{{Col-break}}
{{legend|#240011|0.000–0.099}}
{{legend|#c0c0c0|No data}}
{{Col-end}}|upright=1.4]]
The most ] are ], ] and ] according to the ] in 2024.<ref name="report">{{Cite web |url=https://v-dem.net/documents/43/v-dem_dr2024_lowres.pdf |title=Democracy Report 2024, Varieties of Democracy |access-date=16 March 2024 |archive-date=12 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240312185522/https://v-dem.net/documents/43/v-dem_dr2024_lowres.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>


==Beliefs== == See also ==
{{Portal|Asia}}
===Mythology===
<!-- {{Misplaced Pages-Books}} -->
{{See also|List of Asian mythology}}
{{Main|Outline of Asia|Index of Asia-related articles}}
Asian mythology is diverse. The story is first found in ], in the '']''. ] tells about an ] of ] in the form of a ] who warned ] of a terrible flood. In ancient ], ], the Chinese ruler ], had to spend 10 years to control a deluge which swept out most of ancient China and was aided by the goddess ] who literally fixed the broken sky through which huge rains were pouring.

===Religions===
{{See also|Eastern philosophy|Religion in Asia}}
Asian philosophical traditions cover a large spectrum of philosophical thoughts and writings. ] includes ] and ]. They include elements of nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India, ], preached the enjoyment of material world. ] is also present in most Asian countries.

====Abrahamic====
], the nation with the highest population of ].]]
The ]s of ], ] and ] originated in ]. Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in Israel (which has the world's largest ] population){{Citation needed|date=August 2009}}, though small communities exist in other countries, such as the ] in India. In the Philippines and ], ] is the predominant religion; it was introduced by the ] and the ], respectively. In ], ] is the predominant religion. Various ] ]s have adherents in portions of the Middle East, as well as China and India. The world's largest Muslim community (within the bounds of one nation) is in Indonesia. ] (mainly ], India and ]) holds 30% of Muslims. There are also significant Muslim populations in China, ], ], southern ] (]), Russia and most of West Asia and ].

====Dharmic & Taoist====
The ] of ], ], ] and ] originated in India, South Asia. In East Asia, particularly in China and Japan, ], ] and ] took shape.

==See also==
{{portal}}
{{commons|Asia}}
{{Main|Outline of Asia}}
{{columns-list|2
|
* ] * ]
* ] * ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ] * ]
* ]
* ] * ]
* ] * ]
* ] * ]
* ] * ]
* ]
* ]
* ] * ]
* ] * ]
* ] * ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
}}


==References== == Notes ==
{{reflist|2}} {{notelist|30em}}
{{NoteFoot|30em}}
* "Asia". ''''. 2005. New York: Columbia University Press.
* World Conflicts: Asia and the Middle East ''''. Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. New York: Salem Press.


==Further reading== == References ==
{{Reflist}}
'''Reference works'''

== Bibliography ==
* {{Cite book |title=The myth of continents: a critique of metageography |first1=Martin W. |last1=Lewis |first2=Kären |last2=Wigen |publisher=University of California Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-520-20743-1 |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles}}
* {{cite book |first1=Michael |last1=Ventris |first2=John |last2=Chadwick |title=Documents in Mycenaean Greek |edition=2nd |year=1973 |location=Cambridge |publisher=University Press}}

== Further reading ==
* Embree, Ainslie T., ed. ''Encyclopedia of Asian history'' (1988)
** ; ; ;
* Higham, Charles. ''Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations''. Facts on File library of world history. New York: Facts On File, 2004. * Higham, Charles. ''Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations''. Facts on File library of world history. New York: Facts On File, 2004.
* Kamal, Niraj. "Arise Asia: Respond to White Peril". New Delhi: Wordsmith, 2002, {{ISBN|978-81-87412-08-3}}
* Kapadia, Feroz, and Mandira Mukherjee. ''Encyclopaedia of Asian Culture and Society.'' New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1999. * Kapadia, Feroz, and Mandira Mukherjee. ''Encyclopaedia of Asian Culture and Society.'' New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1999.
* Levinson, David, and Karen Christensen. ''Encyclopedia of Modern Asia''. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. * Levinson, David, and Karen Christensen, eds. ''Encyclopedia of Modern Asia''. (6 vol. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002).
* {{cite book | last=Wang | first=Hui | title=The Politics of Imagining Asia | publisher=Harvard University Press | publication-place=Cambridge, Mass | date=2011-03-31 | isbn=978-0-674-05519-3| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L_d9QajZdFwC}}
* Kamal,Niraj. "Arise Asia: Respond to White Peril". New Delhi:Wordsmith,2002, ISBN 81-87412-08-9


==External links== == External links ==
* {{GovPubs|Asia}}
*
* {{Britannica|38479}}
*
* at the ]
*
* from the United States ]
* Philp Bowring, "What is Asia?" (Columbia University Asia For Educators),
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle= Asia | volume= 2 | pages = 320–358 |short= 1}}
* Niraj Kumar, 'Asia's Swan song"
* {{cite web |title=Display Maps |work=The Soil Maps of Asia |publisher=European Digital Archive of Soil Maps – EuDASM |url=http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/esdb_archive/EuDASM/asia/indexes/idx_country.htm |access-date=26 July 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110812114558/http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/esdb_archive/EuDASM/asia/indexes/idx_country.htm |archive-date=12 August 2011}}
{{Template group
* {{cite web |title=Asia Maps |work=Perry–Castañeda Library Map Collection |url=http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/asia.html |publisher=University of Texas Libraries |access-date=20 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718061834/http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/asia.html |archive-date=18 July 2011 |url-status=live }}
|list =
* {{cite web |title=Asia |publisher=Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library |url=http://maps.bpl.org/search_advanced/?mtid=786 |access-date=26 July 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929144209/http://maps.bpl.org/search_advanced/?mtid=786 |archive-date=29 September 2011}}
* {{cite journal |title=What is Asia? |url=http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/geography/geo_whatis.html |first=Philip |last=Bowring |journal=Eastern Economic Review |volume=135 |number=7 |date=12 February 1987 |ref=none |access-date=22 April 2009 |archive-date=28 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728121004/http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/geography/geo_whatis.html |url-status=dead }}

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Latest revision as of 19:31, 15 December 2024

Continent This article is about the continent. For other uses, see Asia (disambiguation).

Asia
Area44,579,000 km (17,212,000 sq mi) (1st)
Population4,694,576,167 (2021; 1st)
Population density100/km (260/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)$72.7 trillion (2022 est; 1st)
GDP (nominal)$39 trillion (2022 est; 1st)
GDP per capita$8,890 (2022 est; 4th)
Religions
DemonymAsian
Countries49 UN members
1 UN observer
5 other states
Dependencies List
Non-UN states List
LanguagesList of languages
Time zonesUTC+02:00 to UTC+12:00
Internet TLD.asia
Largest cities
UN M49 code142 – Asia
001 – World

Asia (/ˈeɪʒə/ AY-zhə, UK also /ˈeɪʃə/ AY-shə) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilisations. Its 4.7 billion people constitute roughly 60% of the world's population.

Asia shares the landmass of Eurasia with Europe, and of Afro-Eurasia with both Europe and Africa. In general terms, it is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. The border of Asia with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. A commonly accepted division places Asia to the east of the Suez Canal separating it from Africa; and to the east of the Turkish straits, the Ural Mountains and Ural River, and to the south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black seas, separating it from Europe.

Since the concept of Asia derives from the term for the eastern region from a European perspective, Asia is the remaining vast area of Eurasia minus Europe. Therefore, Asia is a region where various independent cultures coexist rather than sharing a single culture, and the boundary between Europe is somewhat arbitrary and has moved since its first conception in classical antiquity. The division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East–West cultural differences, some of which vary on a spectrum.

China and India traded places as the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 CE. China was a major economic power for much of recorded history, with the highest GDP per capita until 1500. The Silk Road became the main east–west trading route in the Asian hinterlands while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, but overall population growth has since fallen. Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's mainstream religions including Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and many other religions.

Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, and government systems. It also has a mix of many different climates ranging from the equatorial south via the hot deserts in parts of West Asia, Central Asia and South Asia, temperate areas in the east and the continental centre to vast subarctic and polar areas in North Asia.

Definition and boundaries

Further information on Asian borders: Geography of Asia § Boundary, Boundaries between the continents, List of transcontinental countries § Asia and Europe, and Copenhagen criteria

Asia–Africa boundary

The boundary between Asia and Africa is the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea, and the Bab-el-Mandeb. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa.

Asia–Europe boundary

Definitions used for the boundary between Asia and Europe in different periods of history. The commonly accepted modern definition mostly fits with the lines "B" and "F" in this image.

The threefold division of the Old World into Africa, Asia, and Europe has been in use since the 6th century BCE, due to Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus. Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni river) in Georgia of Caucasus (from its mouth by Poti on the Black Sea coast, through the Surami Pass and along the Kura River to the Caspian Sea), a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE. During the Hellenistic period, this convention was revised, and the boundary between Europe and Asia was now considered to be the Tanais (the modern Don River). This is the convention used by Roman era authors such as Posidonius, Strabo and Ptolemy.

The border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics.

In Sweden, five years after Peter's death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Ural Mountains as the border of Asia. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg. The latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century. The border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, although it is sometimes placed further north.

Asia–Oceania boundary

Definitions used for the boundary between Asia and Oceania.

The border between Asia and Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Indonesia Archipelago, specifically in Eastern Indonesia. The Wallace Line separates the Asian and Wallacea biogeographical realms, a transition zone of deep water straits between the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Weber's Line split the region in two with regard to the balance of fauna between Asian origin or Australo-Papuan origin. Wallacea's eastern boundary with Sahul is represented by the Lydekker's Line. The Maluku Islands (except the Aru Islands) are often considered to lie on the border of southeast Asia, with the Aru Islands and Western New Guinea, to the east of the Lydekker's Line, being wholly part of Oceania, as both lie on the Australian continental plate. Culturally, the Wallacea region denoted the transition between Austronesian and Melanesian people, with varying degrees of intermixing between the two. In general, the further west and coastal a region is, the stronger the Austronesian influences, and the further east and inland a region is, the stronger the Melanesian influences. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several vastly different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Indonesian Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the colonial possessions of the various empires there (not all European). Lewis and Wigen assert, "The narrowing of 'Southeast Asia' to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process."

Asia–North America boundary

See also: Northeast Asia
The border between the United States and Russia according to the USSR–USA Maritime Boundary Agreement.

The Bering Strait and Bering Sea separate the landmasses of Asia and North America, as well as forming the international boundary between Russia and the United States. This national and continental boundary separates the Diomede Islands in the Bering Strait, with Big Diomede in Russia and Little Diomede in the United States. The Aleutian Islands are an island chain extending westward from the Alaskan Peninsula toward Russia's Komandorski Islands and Kamchatka Peninsula. Most of them are always associated with North America, except for the westernmost Near Islands group, which is on Asia's continental shelf beyond the North Aleutians Basin and on rare occasions could be associated with Asia, which could then allow the U.S. state of Alaska as well as the United States itself to be considered a transcontinental state. The Aleutian Islands are sometimes associated with Oceania, owing to their status as remote Pacific islands, and their proximity to the Pacific Plate. This is extremely rare however, due to their non-tropical biogeography, as well as their inhabitants, who have historically been related to Indigenous Americans.

St. Lawrence Island in the northern Bering Sea belongs to Alaska and may be associated with either continent but is almost always considered part of North America, as with the Rat Islands in the Aleutian chain. At their nearest points, Alaska and Russia are separated by only 4 kilometres (2.5 miles).

Ongoing definition

Afro-Eurasia shown in green

Geographical Asia is a cultural artifact of European conceptions of the world, beginning with the Ancient Greeks, being imposed onto other cultures, an imprecise concept causing endemic contention about what it means. Asia does not exactly correspond to the cultural borders of its various types of constituents.

From the time of Herodotus, a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system (Europe, Africa, Asia) on the grounds that there is no substantial physical separation between them. For example, Sir Barry Cunliffe, the emeritus professor of European archeology at Oxford, argues that Europe has been geographically and culturally merely "the western excrescence of the continent of Asia".

Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of Eurasia with Europe being a northwestern peninsula of the landmass. Asia, Europe and Africa make up a single continuous landmass—Afro-Eurasia—and share a common continental shelf. Almost all of Europe and a major part of Asia sit atop the Eurasian Plate, adjoined on the south by the Arabian and Indian Plate and with the easternmost part of Siberia (east of the Chersky Range) on the North American Plate.

Etymology

Ptolemy's Asia

The term "Asia" is believed to originate in the Bronze Age toponym Assuwa (Hittite: 𒀸𒋗𒉿, romanized: aš-šu-wa) which originally referred only to a portion of northwestern Anatolia. The term appears in Hittite records recounting how a confederation of Assuwan states including Troy unsuccessfully rebelled against the Hittite king Tudhaliya I around 1400 BCE. Roughly contemporary Linear B documents contain the term aswia (Mycenaean Greek: 𐀀𐀯𐀹𐀊, romanized: a-si-wi-ja), seemingly in reference to captives from the same area.

The province of Asia highlighted (in red) within the Roman Empire

Herodotus used the term in reference to Anatolia and the territory of the Achaemenid Empire, in contrast to Greece and Egypt. He reports that Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of Prometheus, but that Lydians say it was named after Asies, son of Cotys, who passed the name on to a tribe at Sardis. In Greek mythology, "Asia" (Ἀσία or Ἀσίη) was the name of a "Nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia". The Iliad (attributed by the ancient Greeks to Homer) mentions two Phrygians in the Trojan War named Asios (an adjective meaning "Asian"); and also a marsh or lowland containing a marsh in Lydia as ασιος.

The term was later adopted by the Romans, who used it in reference to the province of Asia, located in western Anatolia. One of the first writers to use Asia as a name of the whole continent was Pliny.

History

Main article: History of Asia

Ancient era

See also: Sinosphere, Greater India, and Greater Iran
The Silk Road connected civilisations across Asia

The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions: East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia. The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilisations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilisations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Yellow River shared many similarities. These civilisations may well have exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Other innovations, such as writing, seem to have been developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands.

The central steppe region had long been inhabited by horse-mounted nomads who could reach all areas of Asia from the steppes. The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans, who spread their languages into West Asia, South Asia, and the borders of China, where the Tocharians resided. The northernmost part of Asia, including much of Siberia, was largely inaccessible to the steppe nomads, owing to the dense forests, climate and tundra. These areas remained very sparsely populated.

The center and the peripheries were mostly kept separated by mountains and deserts. The Caucasus and Himalaya mountains and the Karakum and Gobi deserts formed barriers that the steppe horsemen could cross only with difficulty. While the urban city dwellers were more advanced technologically and socially, in many cases they could do little in a military aspect to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However, the lowlands did not have enough open grasslands to support a large equestrian force; for this and other reasons, the nomads who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East often found themselves adapting to the local, more affluent societies.

Medieval era

The Mongol Empire at its greatest extent. The gray area is the later Timurid Empire

The Islamic Caliphate's defeats of the Byzantine and Persian empires led to West Asia and southern parts of Central Asia and western parts of South Asia under its control during its conquests of the 7th century; Islam also spread over centuries to the southern regions of India and Southeast Asia through trade along the Maritime Silk Road. The Mongol Empire conquered a large part of Asia in the 13th century, an area extending from China to Europe. Before the Mongol invasion, Song dynasty reportedly had approximately 120 million citizens; the 1300 census which followed the invasion reported roughly 60 million people.

The Black Death, one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road.

Modern era

See also: History of Eurasia § Modern era, and Afro-Asia § Modern era

European involvement in Asia became more significant from the Age of Discovery onward, with Iberian-sponsored sailors such as Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama paving the way for new routes from Atlantic Europe to Pacific Asia and the Indian Ocean respectively in the late 15th century. The Russian Empire also began to expand into northwestern Asia from the 17th century, and would eventually take control of all of Siberia and most of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century.

Among non-European empires, the Ottoman Empire controlled Anatolia, most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the mid 16th century onward, while in the 17th century, the Manchu conquered China and established the Qing dynasty. The Islamic Mughal Empire (preceded by the Delhi Sultanate of the 13th to early 16th century) and the Hindu Maratha Empire controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively.

The aftermath of the 1757 Battle of Plassey, which eventually led to British India.An 1898 depiction of Western powers carving up China.A depiction of America building connections to the Pacific and its Filipino colony (left) after the 1898 Spanish–American War.

Western imperialism in Asia from the 18th to 20th centuries coincided with the Industrial Revolution in the West and the dethroning of India and China as the world's foremost economies. The British Empire first became dominant in South Asia, with most of the region being conquered by British traders in the late 18th and early 19th centuries before falling under direct British rule after a failed 1857 revolt; the 1869 completion of the Suez Canal, which increased British access to India, went on to further European influence over Africa and Asia. Around this time, Western powers started to dominate China in what later became known as the century of humiliation, with the British-supported opium trade and later Opium Wars resulting in China being forced into an unprecedented situation of importing more than it exported.

Foreign domination of China was furthered by the Japanese colonial empire, which controlled some of East Asia and briefly much of Southeast Asia (which had earlier been taken over by the British, Dutch and French in the late 19th century), New Guinea and the Pacific islands; Japan's domination was enabled by its rapid rise that had taken place during the Meiji era of the late 19th century, in which it applied industrial knowledge learned from the West and thus overtook the rest of Asia. One significant influence on Japan had been the United States, which had begun projecting influence across the Pacific after its early-to-mid-19th century westward expansion. The breakup of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century led to the Middle East also being contested and partitioned by the British and French.

Contemporary era

The Soviet Union (in red) and China (yellow), which were partners for a time, controlled most of Asia in the late 20th century

With the end of World War II in 1945 and the wartime ruination of Europe and imperial Japan, many countries in Asia were able to rapidly free themselves of colonial rule. The independence of India came along with the carving out of a separate nation for the majority of South Asian Muslims, which in 1971 further split into the countries Pakistan and Bangladesh; Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union strained relations between India and Pakistan and affected Asia more generally. The end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union by 1991 saw the independence of the five modern Central Asian countries.

Some Arab countries took economic advantage of massive oil deposits that were discovered in their territory, becoming globally influential, though stability in the Middle East has been affected since 1948 by the Arab–Israeli conflict and American-led interventions. East Asian nations (along with Singapore in Southeast Asia) became economically prosperous with high-growth "tiger economies"; China, having undergone capitalistic reforms under Deng Xiaoping, regained its place among the top two economies of the world by the 21st century. India has also grown significantly because of economic liberalisation that started in the 1990s, with extreme poverty now below 20%; India and China's rise has coincided with growing tension between the two, with the Indo-Pacific now an actively contested area between China and counterbalancing forces.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Asia See also: Category:Biota of Asia
The Himalayan range is home to some of the planet's highest peaks

Asia is the largest continent on Earth. It covers 9% of the Earth's total surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has the longest coastline, at 62,800 kilometres (39,022 mi). Asia is generally defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma–Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Asia is subdivided into 49 countries, five of them (Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey) are transcontinental countries lying partly in Europe. Geographically, Russia is partly in Asia, but is considered a European nation, both culturally and politically.

The Gobi Desert is in Mongolia and the Arabian Desert stretches across much of the Middle East. The Yangtze in China is the longest river in the continent. The Himalayas between Nepal and China is the tallest mountain range in the world. Tropical rainforests stretch across much of southern Asia and coniferous and deciduous forests lie farther north.

Main regions

Detailed map of Asian regions

There are various approaches to the regional division of Asia. The following subdivision into regions is used, among others, by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). This division of Asia into regions by the United Nations is done solely for statistical reasons and does not imply any assumption about political or other affiliations of countries and territories.

Climate

Main article: Climate of Asia
Köppen-Geiger climate classification map for Asia

Asia has extremely diverse climate features. Climates range from Arctic and subarctic in Siberia to tropical in southern India and Southeast Asia. It is moist across southeast sections, and dry across much of the interior. Some of the largest daily temperature ranges on Earth occur in western sections of Asia. The monsoon circulation dominates across southern and eastern sections, due to the presence of the Himalayas forcing the formation of a thermal low which draws in moisture during the summer. Southwestern sections of the continent are hot. Siberia is one of the coldest places in the Northern Hemisphere, and can act as a source of arctic air masses for North America. The most active place on Earth for tropical cyclone activity lies northeast of the Philippines and south of Japan.

Climate change

This section is an excerpt from Climate change in Asia.
The 2022 South Asian floods, including in Pakistan (pictured) are an example of a climate change impact.

Climate change is particularly important in Asia, as the continent accounts for the majority of the human population. Warming since the 20th century is increasing the threat of heatwaves across the entire continent. Heatwaves lead to increased mortality, and the demand for air conditioning is rapidly accelerating as the result. By 2080, around 1 billion people in the cities of South and Southeast Asia are expected to experience around a month of extreme heat every year. The impacts on water cycle are more complicated: already arid regions, primarily located in West Asia and Central Asia, will see more droughts, while areas of East, Southeast and South Asia which are already wet due to the monsoons will experience more flooding.

The waters around Asia are subjected to the same impacts as elsewhere, such as the increased warming and ocean acidification. There are many coral reefs in the region, and they are highly vulnerable to climate change, to the point practically all of them will be lost if the warming exceeds 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). Asia's distinctive mangrove ecosystems are also highly vulnerable to sea level rise. Asia also has more countries with large coastal populations than any other continent, which would cause large economic impacts from sea level rise. Water supplies in the Hindu Kush region will become more unstable as its enormous glaciers, known as the "Asian water towers", gradually melt. These changes to water cycle also affect vector-borne disease distribution, with malaria and dengue fever expected to become more prominent in the tropical and subtropical regions. Food security will become more uneven, and South Asian countries could experience significant impacts from global food price volatility.

Climate change is expected to exacerbate heat stress over at the North China Plain, which is particularly vulnerable as widespread irrigation results in very moist air. There is a risk that agricultural labourers will be physically unable to work outdoors on hot summer days at the end of the century, particularly under the scenario of greatest emissions and warming.

Historical emissions from Asia are lower than those from Europe and North America. However, China has been the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the 21st century, while India is the third-largest. As a whole, Asia currently accounts for 36% of world's primary energy consumption, which is expected to increase to 48% by 2050. By 2040, it is also expected to account for 80% of the world's coal and 26% of the world's natural gas consumption. While the United States remains the world's largest oil consumer, by 2050 it is projected to move to third place, behind China and India. While nearly half of the world's new renewable energy capacity is built in Asia, this is not yet sufficient in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. They imply that the renewables would account for 35% of total energy consumption in Asia by 2030.

Climate change adaptation is already a reality for many Asian countries, with a wide range of strategies attempted across the continent. Important examples include the growing implementation of climate-smart agriculture in certain countries or the "sponge city" planning principles in China. While some countries have drawn up extensive frameworks such as the Bangladesh Delta Plan or Japan's Climate Adaptation Act, others still rely on localized actions that are not effectively scaled up.

Economy

Main articles: Economy of Asia, List of Asian countries by GDP, List of countries in Asia-Pacific by GDP (nominal), and List of Asian and Pacific countries by GDP (PPP)
Singapore has one of the busiest container ports in the world and is the world's fourth largest foreign exchange trading hub

Asia has the largest continental economy in the world by both GDP nominal and PPP values, and is the fastest growing economic region. As of 2023, China is by far the largest economy on the continent, making up nearly half of the continent's economy by GDP nominal. It is followed by Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which are all ranked among the top 20 largest economies both by nominal and PPP values. Based on Global Office Locations 2011, Asia dominated the office locations with 4 of the top 5 being in Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul. Around 68 percent of international firms have an office in Hong Kong.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economy of China had an average annual growth rate of more than 8%. According to economic historian Angus Maddison, India had the world's largest economy during 1000 BCE and 1 CE. India was the largest economy in the world for most of the two millennia from the 1st until 19th century, contributing 25% of the world's industrial output. China was the largest and most advanced economy on earth for much of recorded history and shared the mantle with India. For several decades in the late twentieth century Japan was the largest economy in Asia and second-largest of any single nation in the world, after surpassing the Soviet Union (measured in net material product) in 1990 and Germany in 1968. (NB: A number of supernational economies are larger, such as the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or APEC). This ended in 2010 when China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy. It is forecasted that India will overtake Japan in terms of nominal GDP by 2027.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP by currency exchange rates was almost as large as that of the rest of Asia combined. In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equaled that of the US as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 yen/US$. Economic growth in Asia since World War II to the 1990s had been concentrated in Japan as well as the four regions of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore located in the Pacific Rim, known as the Asian tigers, which are now all considered developed economies, having among the highest GDP per capita in Asia.

Mumbai is one of the most populous cities on the continent. The city is an infrastructure and tourism hub, and plays a crucial role in the economy of India

Asia is the largest continent in the world by a considerable margin, and it is rich in natural resources, such as petroleum, forests, fish, water, rice, copper and silver. Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Singapore. Japan and South Korea continue to dominate in the area of multinational corporations, but increasingly the PRC and India are making significant inroads. Many companies from Europe, North America, South Korea and Japan have operations in Asia's developing countries to take advantage of its abundant supply of cheap labour and relatively developed infrastructure.

According to Citigroup in 2011, 9 of 11 Global Growth Generators countries came from Asia driven by population and income growth. They are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Asia has three main financial centers: Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. Call centers and business process outsourcing (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly skilled, English-speaking workers. The increased use of outsourcing has assisted the rise of India and the China as financial centers. Due to its large and extremely competitive information technology industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.

Trade between Asian countries and countries on other continents is largely carried out on the sea routes that are important for Asia. Individual main routes have emerged from this. The main route leads from the Chinese coast south via Hanoi to Jakarta, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur through the Strait of Malacca via the Sri Lankan Colombo to the southern tip of India via Malé to East Africa Mombasa (see also: Indo-Pacific), from there to Djibouti, then through the Red Sea over the Suez Canal into Mediterranean (see also: Indo-Mediterranean), there via Haifa, Istanbul and Athens to the upper Adriatic to the northern Italian hub of Trieste with its rail connections to Central and Eastern Europe or further to Barcelona and around Spain and France to the European northern ports. A far smaller part of the goods traffic runs via South Africa to Europe. A particularly significant part of the Asian goods traffic is carried out across the Pacific towards Los Angeles and Long Beach. The melting of the Arctic is also paving the way for new shipping routes from Northeast Asia to Europe and North America. In contrast to the sea routes, the Silk Road via the land route to Europe is on the one hand still under construction and on the other hand is much smaller in terms of scope. Intra-Asian trade, including sea trade, is growing rapidly.

In 2010, Asia had 3.3 million millionaires (people with net worth over US$1 million excluding their homes), slightly below North America with 3.4 million millionaires. In 2011, Asia topped Europe in number of millionaires. Citigroup in The Wealth Report 2012 stated that Asian centa-millionaire overtook North America's wealth for the first time as the world's "economic center of gravity" continued moving east. At the end of 2011, there were 18,000 Asian people mainly in Southeast Asia, China and Japan who have at least $100 million in disposable assets, while North America with 17,000 people and Western Europe with 14,000 people.

Rank Country GDP (nominal, Peak Year)
millions of USD
Peak Year
1  China 18,273,357 2024
2  Japan 6,272,363 2012
3  India 3,889,130 2024
4  Russia 2,292,470 2013
5  South Korea 1,942,314 2021
6  Indonesia 1,402,590 2024
7  Turkey 1,344,318 2024
8  Saudi Arabia 1,108,572 2022
9  Taiwan 775,017 2024
10  Iran 644,036 2012
Rank Country GDP (PPP, Peak Year)
millions of USD
Peak Year
1  China 37,072,086 2024
2  India 16,019,970 2024
3  Russia 6,909,381 2024
4  Japan 6,572,198 2024
5  Indonesia 4,658,321 2024
6  Turkey 3,767,230 2023
7  South Korea 3,258,366 2024
8  Egypt 2,231,822 2024
9  Saudi Arabia 2,112,880 2024
10  Taiwan 1,843,016 2024

Tourism

A Thai temple complex with several ornate buildings, and a lot of visitors
Wat Phra Kaew in the Grand Palace is among Bangkok's major tourist attractions.
See also the categories Tourism in Asia and Transport in Asia

With growing Regional Tourism with domination of Chinese visitors, MasterCard has released Global Destination Cities Index 2013 with 10 of 20 are dominated by Asia and Pacific Region Cities and also for the first time a city of a country from Asia (Bangkok) set in the top-ranked with 15.98 million international visitors.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Asia See also: List of Asian countries by population and List of Asian countries by life expectancy
Historical populations
YearPop.±% p.a.
1500243,000,000—    
1700436,000,000+0.29%
1900947,000,000+0.39%
19501,402,000,000+0.79%
19993,634,000,000+1.96%
20164,462,676,731+1.22%
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
Source: "UN report 2004 data" (PDF).
The figure for 2021 is provided by.the 2022 revision of the World Population Prospects
world population

East Asia had by far the strongest overall Human Development Index (HDI) improvement of any region in the world, nearly doubling average HDI attainment over the past 40 years, according to the report's analysis of health, education and income data. China, the second highest achiever in the world in terms of HDI improvement since

1970, is the only country on the "Top 10 Movers" list due to income rather than health or education achievements. Its per capita income increased a stunning 21-fold over the last four decades, also lifting hundreds of millions out of income poverty. Yet it was not among the region's top performers in improving school enrollment and life expectancy.
Nepal, a South Asian country, emerges as one of the world's fastest movers since 1970 mainly due to health and education achievements. Its present life expectancy is 25 years longer than in the 1970s. More than four of every five children of school age in Nepal now attend primary school, compared to just one in five 40 years ago.
Hong Kong ranked highest among the countries grouped on the HDI (number 7 in the world, which is in the "very high human development" category), followed by Singapore (9), Japan (19) and South Korea (22). Afghanistan (155) ranked lowest amongst Asian countries out of the 169 countries assessed.

Languages

Main article: Languages of Asia

Asia is home to several language families and many language isolates. Most Asian countries have more than one language that is natively spoken. For instance, according to Ethnologue, more than 700 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 400 languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces.

Religions

See also: Eastern philosophy, Religion in Asia, and List of Asian mythologies

Many of the world's major religions have their origins in Asia, including the five most practiced in the world (excluding irreligion), which are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Chinese folk religion (classified as Confucianism and Taoism), and Buddhism. Asian mythology is complex and diverse. The story of the Great Flood for example, as presented to Jews in the Hebrew Bible in the narrative of Noah—and later to Christians in the Old Testament, and to Muslims in the Quran—is earliest found in Mesopotamian mythology, in the Enûma Eliš and Epic of Gilgamesh. Hindu mythology similarly tells about an avatar of Vishnu in the form of a fish who warned Manu of a terrible flood. Ancient Chinese mythology also tells of a Great Flood spanning generations, one that required the combined efforts of emperors and divinities to control.

Abrahamic

See also: Christianity in Asia and Islam in Asia
The Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem
The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem
Pilgrims in the annual Hajj at the Kaabah in Mecca

The Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druze faith, and Baháʼí Faith originated in West Asia.

Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in Israel, the indigenous homeland and historical birthplace of the Hebrew nation: which today consists both of those Jews who remained in the Middle East and those who returned from diaspora in Europe, North America, and other regions; though various diaspora communities persist worldwide. Jews are the predominant ethnic group in Israel (75.6%) numbering at about 6.1 million, although the levels of adherence to Jewish religion vary. Outside of Israel there are small ancient Jewish communities in Turkey (17,400), Azerbaijan (9,100), Iran (8,756), India (5,000) and Uzbekistan (4,000), among many other places. In total, there are 14.4–17.5 million (2016, est.) Jews alive in the world today, making them one of the smallest Asian minorities, at roughly 0.3 to 0.4 percent of the total population of the continent.

Christianity is a widespread religion in Asia with more than 286 million adherents according to Pew Research Center in 2010, and nearly 364 million according to Britannica Book of the Year 2014. Christians constitute around 12.6% of the total population of Asia. In the Philippines and East Timor, Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion; it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In Armenia and Georgia, Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion. In the Middle East, such as in the Levant, Anatolia and Fars, Syriac Christianity (Church of the East) and Oriental Orthodoxy are prevalent minority denominations, which are both Eastern Christian sects mainly adhered to Assyrian people or Syriac Christians. Vibrant indigenous minorities in West Asia are adhering to the Eastern Catholic Churches and Eastern Orthodoxy. Saint Thomas Christians in India trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. Significant Christian communities also found in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia.

Islam, which originated in the Hejaz located in modern-day Saudi Arabia, is the second largest and most widely-spread religion in Asia with at least 1 billion Muslims constituting around 23.8% of the total population of Asia. With 12.7% of the world Muslim population, the country currently with the largest Muslim population in the world is Indonesia, followed by Pakistan (11.5%), India (10%), Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey. Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are the three holiest cities for Islam in all the world. The Hajj and Umrah attract large numbers of Muslim devotees from all over the world to Mecca and Medina. Iran is the largest Shi'a country.

The Druze Faith or Druzism originated in West Asia, is a monotheistic religion based on the teachings of figures like Hamza ibn-'Ali ibn-Ahmad and Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, and Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. The number of Druze people worldwide is around one million. About 45% to 50% live in Syria, 35% to 40% live in Lebanon, and less than 10% live in Israel. Recently there has been a growing Druze diaspora.

The Baháʼí Faith originated in Asia, in Iran (Persia), and spread from there to the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, India, and Burma during the lifetime of Bahá'u'lláh. Since the middle of the 20th century, growth has particularly occurred in other Asian countries, because Baháʼí activities in many Muslim countries has been severely suppressed by authorities. Lotus Temple is a big Baháʼí temple in India.

Indian and East Asian religions

See also: Eastern religions
The Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in Delhi, according to the Guinness World Records, is the World's Largest Comprehensive Hindu Temple.

Almost all Asian religions have philosophical character and Asian philosophical traditions cover a large spectrum of philosophical thoughts and writings. Indian philosophy includes Hindu philosophy and Buddhist philosophy. They include elements of nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India, Cārvāka, preached the enjoyment of the material world. The religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated in India, South Asia. In East Asia, particularly in China and Japan, Confucianism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism took shape.

As of 2012, Hinduism has around 1.1 billion adherents. The faith represents around 25% of Asia's population and is the largest religion in Asia. However, it is mostly concentrated in South Asia. Over 80% of the populations of both India and Nepal adhere to Hinduism, alongside significant communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bali, Indonesia. Many overseas Indians in countries such as Burma, Singapore and Malaysia also adhere to Hinduism.

The Hindu-Buddhist temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the largest religious monument in the world

Buddhism has a great following in mainland Southeast Asia and East Asia. Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the populations of Cambodia (96%), Thailand (95%), Burma (80–89%), Japan (36–96%), Bhutan (75–84%), Sri Lanka (70%), Laos (60–67%) and Mongolia (53–93%). Taiwan (35–93%), South Korea (23–50%), Malaysia (19–21%), Nepal (9–11%), Vietnam (10–75%), China (20–50%), North Korea (2–14%), and small communities in India and Bangladesh. The Communist-governed countries of China, Vietnam and North Korea are officially atheist, thus the number of Buddhists and other religious adherents may be under-reported.

Jainism is found mainly in India and in overseas Indian communities such as the United States and Malaysia. Sikhism is found in Northern India and amongst overseas Indian communities in other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia. Confucianism is found predominantly in mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan and in overseas Chinese populations. Taoism is found mainly in mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. In many Chinese communities, Taoism is easily syncretised with Mahayana Buddhism, thus exact religious statistics are difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated.

Modern conflicts and events

A refugee special train in Ambala, Punjab during the partition of India in 1947
US forces drop Napalm on suspected Viet Cong positions in 1965.
Demonstrations in Hong Kong against the Extradition bill began in March 2019 and turned into continuing mass movements, drawing around 2 million protesters by June

Some of the events pivotal in Asia related to the relationship with the outside world in the post-Second World War were:

Led to the creation of India and Pakistan, shaping the political landscape in South Asia.

Fought over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, setting the stage for future conflicts.

Culminated in the establishment of the People's Republic of China under the Communist Party.

Involved international forces and led to the division of the Korean Peninsula.

Ended with the defeat of French colonial forces and the partition of Vietnam.

A protracted conflict with significant global implications, especially during the Cold War.

India helped East Pakistan become independent, with Cold War ramifications.

Conflict between China and Vietnam following Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia.

Involved Indonesia's annexation and subsequent independence through a UN-backed referendum.

Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, contributing to the rise of the mujahideen.

Long-lasting conflict with regional and international implications.

Resulted from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, with international intervention.

Marked the end of the Cold War and the emergence of independent states.

U.S.-led intervention post-9/11 with long-lasting consequences.

Led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and subsequent instability.

Series of uprisings and protests across the Arab world, influencing regional dynamics.

Ongoing conflict with widespread humanitarian implications.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Asia

The culture of Asia is a diverse blend of customs and traditions that have been practiced by the various ethnic groups of the continent for centuries. The continent is divided into six geographic sub-regions: Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and West Asia. These regions are defined by their cultural similarities, including common religions, languages, and ethnicities. West Asia, also known as Southwest Asia or the Middle East, has cultural roots in the ancient civilisations of the Fertile Crescent and Mesopotamia, which gave rise to the Persian, Arab, Ottoman empires, as well as the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These civilisations, which are located in the Hilly flanks, are among the oldest in the world, with evidence of farming dating back to around 9000 BCE. Despite the challenges posed by the vast size of the continent and the presence of natural barriers such as deserts and mountain ranges, trade and commerce have helped to create a Pan-Asian culture that is shared across the region.

Nobel laureates

Indian polymath Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, and became Asia's first Nobel laureate.

The polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, dramatist, and writer from Santiniketan, now in West Bengal, India, became in 1913 the first Asian Nobel laureate. He won his Nobel Prize in Literature for notable impact his prose works and poetic thought had on English, French, and other national literatures of Europe and the Americas. He is also the writer of the national anthems of Bangladesh and India.

Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prize for literature include Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1968), Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994), Gao Xingjian (China, 2000), Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 2006), and Mo Yan (China, 2012). Some may consider the American writer, Pearl S. Buck, an honourary Asian Nobel laureate, having spent considerable time in China as the daughter of missionaries, and based many of her novels, namely The Good Earth (1931) and The Mother (1933), as well as the biographies of her parents for their time in China, The Exile and Fighting Angel, all of which earned her the Literature prize in 1938.

Mother Teresa of India and Shirin Ebadi of Iran were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. Another Nobel Peace Prize winner is Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship in Burma. She is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma (Myanmar) and a noted prisoner of conscience. She is a Buddhist and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" on 8 October 2010. He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. In 2014, Kailash Satyarthi from India and Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".

C.V. Raman is the first Asian to get a Nobel prize in Sciences. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him".

Japan has won the most Nobel Prizes of any Asian nation with 24 followed by India which has won 13.

Amartya Sen (b. 1933) is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members.

Other Asian Nobel Prize winners include Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Abdus Salam, Robert Aumann, Menachem Begin, Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Daniel Kahneman, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ada Yonath, Yasser Arafat, José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of Timor Leste, Kim Dae-jung, and 13 Japanese scientists. Most of the said awardees are from Japan and Israel except for Chandrasekhar and Raman (India), Abdus Salam (Pakistan), Arafat (Palestinian Territories), Kim (South Korea), and Horta and Belo (Timor Leste).

In 2006, Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the establishment of Grameen Bank, a community development bank that lends money to poor people, especially women. He is known for the concept of micro credit which, allows poor and destitute people to borrow money. The borrowers pay back money within the specified period and defaulting is very low. Yunus also became the leader of an interim government after the 2024 Bangladesh quota reform movement. The Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize, in Oslo, Norway in 1989.

States of Asia

Main article: Politics of Asia See also: List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Asia Iran China Saudi
Arabia
Japan Kazakhstan India Mongolia Indonesia Malaysia Philippines Vietnam Singapore South Korea North Korea Afghanistan Pakistan Thailand Laos Cambodia East Timor Brunei Myanmar Bhutan Bangladesh Nepal Taiwan Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Oman Yemen UAE Qat. Bah. Kuw. Iraq Jordan Israel Syria Turkey Georgia Azer. Armenia Cyp. Egypt Maldives Sri Lanka Russia H.K. Macau
Symbol Flag Name Population
(2021)
Area
(km)
Capital
Emblem Afghanistan Afghanistan 40,099,462 652,864 Kabul
Coat of arms of Armenia Armenia Armenia 2,790,974 29,743 Yerevan
National emblem of Azerbaijan Azerbaijan Azerbaijan 10,312,992 86,600 Baku
Coat of arms of Bahrain Bahrain Bahrain 1,463,265 760 Manama
Emblem Bangladesh Bangladesh 169,356,251 147,570 Dhaka
Emblem Bhutan Bhutan 777,486 38,394 Thimphu
Emblem Brunei Brunei 445,373 5,765 Bandar Seri Begawan
Arms Cambodia Cambodia 16,589,023 181,035 Phnom Penh
Emblem China China (PRC) 1,425,893,465 9,596,961 Beijing
Coat of arms of Cyprus Cyprus Cyprus 1,244,188 9,251 Nicosia
National emblem of East Timor Timor-Leste East Timor 1,320,942 14,874 Dili
Coat of arms of Egypt Egypt Egypt 109,262,178 1,001,449 Cairo
Coat of arms of Georgia (country) Georgia (country) Georgia 3,757,980 69,700 Tbilisi
Emblem Hong Kong Hong Kong 7,494,578 2,754 Hong Kong
Emblem India India 1,407,563,842 3,287,263 New Delhi
Emblem Indonesia Indonesia 273,753,191 1,904,569 Jakarta
Emblem Iran Iran 87,923,432 1,648,195 Tehran
Emblem of Iraq Iraq Iraq 43,533,592 438,317 Baghdad
Emblem of Israel Israel Israel 8,900,059 20,770 Jerusalem (disputed)
Seal Japan Japan 124,612,530 377,915 Tokyo
Coat of arms of Jordan Jordan Jordan 11,148,278 89,342 Amman
Emblem Kazakhstan Kazakhstan 19,196,465 2,724,900 Astana
Emblem of Kuwait Kuwait Kuwait 4,250,114 17,818 Kuwait City
Emblem Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan 6,527,743 199,951 Bishkek
Emblem Laos Laos 7,425,057 236,800 Vientiane
Lebanon Lebanon 5,592,631 10,400 Beirut
Emblem Macau Macau 686,607 32.9 Macau
Arms Malaysia Malaysia 33,573,874 329,847 Kuala Lumpur
Emblem Maldives Maldives 521,457 298 Malé
Emblem Mongolia Mongolia 3,347,782 1,564,116 Ulaanbaatar
Seal Myanmar Myanmar 53,798,084 676,578 Naypyidaw
Emblem Nepal Nepal 30,034,989 147,181 Kathmandu
Emblem North Korea North Korea 25,971,909 120,538 Pyongyang
Emblem Oman Oman 4,520,471 309,500 Muscat
State emblem of Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan 211,103,000 881,913 Islamabad
Arms State of Palestine Palestine 5,133,392 6,220
Coat of arms of the Philippines Philippines Philippines 113,880,328 343,448 Manila
Qatar Qatar 2,688,235 11,586 Doha
Coat of arms of Russia Russia Russia 145,102,755 17,098,242 Moscow
Emblem Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia 35,950,396 2,149,690 Riyadh
Arms Singapore Singapore 5,941,060 697 Singapore
Emblem South Korea South Korea 51,830,139 100,210 Seoul
Emblem Sri Lanka Sri Lanka 21,773,441 65,610 Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte
Emblem Syrian opposition Syria 21,324,367 185,180 Damascus
Emblem Tajikistan Tajikistan 9,750,064 143,100 Dushanbe
Emblem Thailand Thailand 71,601,103 513,120 Bangkok
Turkey Turkey 84,775,404 783,562 Ankara
Emblem Turkmenistan Turkmenistan 6,341,855 488,100 Ashgabat
Emblem United Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates 9,365,145 83,600 Abu Dhabi
Emblem Uzbekistan Uzbekistan 34,081,449 447,400 Tashkent
Emblem Vietnam Vietnam 97,468,029 331,212 Hanoi
Emblem Yemen Yemen 32,981,641 527,968
  • Sana'a (const.; SPCTooltip Supreme Political Council control)
  • Aden (prv. capital of PLCTooltip Presidential Leadership Council)

Within the above-mentioned states are several partially recognised countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN:

Symbol Flag Name Population
Area
(km)
Capital
Arms Abkhazia Abkhazia 242,862 8,660 Sukhumi
Arms Northern Cyprus Northern Cyprus 326,000 3,355 North Nicosia
Coat of arms of South Ossetia#Republic of South Ossetia–the State of Alania South Ossetia South Ossetia 51,547 3,900 Tskhinvali
Emblem Taiwan Taiwan (ROC) 23,859,912 36,193 Taipei
Map of 2023 V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index for Asia
  0.900–1.000   0.800–0.899   0.700–0.799   0.600–0.699   0.500–0.599   0.400–0.499   0.300–0.399   0.200–0.299   0.100–0.199   0.000–0.099   No data

The most democratic countries in Asia are Japan, Taiwan and Israel according to the V-Dem Democracy indices in 2024.

See also

Main articles: Outline of Asia and Index of Asia-related articles

Notes

  1. Asia is normally considered its own continent in the English speaking world, which uses the seven continent model. Other models consider Asia as part of a Eurasian or Afro-Eurasian continent (see Continent#Number for more information).
  2. 44,579,000 square kilometres (17,212,000 square miles)
  3. Siberia lies in Asia geographically, but is considered a part of Europe culturally and politically.
  4. ^ Transcontinental country
  5. Russia is a transcontinental country located in Eastern Europe and North Asia, but is considered European historically, culturally, ethnically, and politically, and the vast majority of its population (78%) lives within its European part.
  6. Moscow is located in Europe.
  7. Turkey is a transcontinental country located mainly in West Asia with a smaller portion in Southeastern Europe.

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Bibliography

  • Lewis, Martin W.; Wigen, Kären (1997). The myth of continents: a critique of metageography. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20743-1.
  • Ventris, Michael; Chadwick, John (1973). Documents in Mycenaean Greek (2nd ed.). Cambridge: University Press.

Further reading

  • Embree, Ainslie T., ed. Encyclopedia of Asian history (1988)
  • Higham, Charles. Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations. Facts on File library of world history. New York: Facts On File, 2004.
  • Kamal, Niraj. "Arise Asia: Respond to White Peril". New Delhi: Wordsmith, 2002, ISBN 978-81-87412-08-3
  • Kapadia, Feroz, and Mandira Mukherjee. Encyclopaedia of Asian Culture and Society. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1999.
  • Levinson, David, and Karen Christensen, eds. Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. (6 vol. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002).
  • Wang, Hui (31 March 2011). The Politics of Imagining Asia. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-05519-3.

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