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Template:Asia from space region map Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent or region, depending on the definition. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area, or 29.4% of its land area, and it contains more than 60% of the world's human population.

Asia is traditionally defined as part of the landmass of Africa-Eurasia – with the western portion of the latter occupied by Europe – lying east of the Suez Canal, east of the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas.

Etymology

The word Asia entered English, via Latin, from Ancient Greek Ασία (Asia; see also List of traditional Greek place names). This name is first attested in Herodotus (about 440 BC), where it refers to Anatolia; or, for the purposes of describing the Persian Wars, to the Persian Empire, in contrast to Greece and Egypt. Herodotus comments that he is puzzled as to why three women's names are used to describe one land mass (Europa, Asia and Libya, referring to Africa), stating that most Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of Prometheus but that the Lydians say it was named after Asias, son of Cotys who passed the name on to a tribe in Sardis.

Even before Herodotus, Homer knew of a Trojan ally named Asios, son of Hyrtacus, a ruler over several towns, and elsewhere he describes a marsh as ασιος (Iliad 2, 461). The Greek term may be derived from Assuwa, a 14th century BC confederation of states in Western Anatolia. Hittite assu- = "good" is probably an element in that name.

Alternatively, the ultimate etymology of the term may be from the Akkadian word (w)aṣû(m), which means "to go out" or "to ascend", referring to the direction of the sun at sunrise in the Middle East, 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 Semitic erēbu "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 Phoenician sailor sailing through the straits between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.

When the Scandinavians later migrated from Asia to modern-day Scandinavia, the legend remained of Odin leading the Aesirs from Asaland (where Asgard exists), and the dream that fallen heroes would return to that motherland of Asgard, or Paradise, on their deaths. At the time of the migration, there is a heavy Mediterranean and Greek influence on the Scandinavian remains, and so the word "Asia" may have been the root for Aesirs, Asaland, and Asgard.

Definition and boundaries

Medieval Europeans considered Asia as a continent – a distinct landmass. The European concept of the three continents in the Old World goes back to Classical Antiquity, but during the Middle Ages was notably due to Isidore of Sevilla (see T and O map). The demarcation between Asia and Africa is the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea. The boundary between Asia and Europe is commonly considered to run through the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, the Ural River to its source, and the Ural Mountains to the Kara Sea 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 regions that would be considered distinct landmasses if these criteria were used (for example, Southern Asia and Eastern Asia).

Generally, geologists and physical geographers do not consider Asia and Europe to be separate continents. Physiographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of Eurasia – with Europe being a northwestern peninsula of the landmass – or of Africa-Eurasia: geologically, Asia, Europe, and Africa comprise a single continuous landmass (save the Suez Canal) and share a common continental shelf. Almost all of Europe and most of Asia sit atop the Eurasian Plate, adjoined on the south by the Arabian and Indian Plates, and with much of Siberia situated on the North American Plate.

In geography, there are two schools of thought. One school follows historical convention and treats Europe and Asia as different continents, categorizing subregions 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.

Given the scope and diversity of the landmass, it is sometimes not even clear exactly what "Asia" consists of. Some definitions exclude Turkey, the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia while only considering the Far East, Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent to compose Asia. The term is sometimes used more strictly in reference to the Asia-Pacific region, which does not include the Middle East or Russia, but does include islands in the Pacific Ocean — a number of which may also be considered part of Australasia or Oceania although Pacific Islanders are commonly not considered Asian.

'Asian' as a demonym

The demonym 'Asian' often refers to a category of people from a subregion of Asia instead of being used as a mere adjective for anyone from the (Asian) continent. In British English, 'Asian' usually refers to South Asian, but may also refer to other Asian groups. In the United States, 'Asian American' is usually taken to mean East Asian Americans due to the historical and cultural influences of China and Japan on the U.S. up to the 1960s and in preference to the terms 'Oriental' and 'Asiatic'; however, the term is increasingly taken to include Southeast Asian Americans, and South Asian Americans due to the increasing demographics of these groups.

See also: Geography of Asia, countries in both Asia and Europe, geographic criteria for the definition of Europe, orientalism.

Territories and regions

Template:Different conceptions of Asia maps Template:Nations of Asia table

Economy

In terms of gross domestic product (PPP), the largest national economy within Asia is that of China. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economies of China]] and India have been growing rapidly, both with an average annual growth rate of more than 7%. China has the world's second-largest economy after the United States, followed by Japan and India.

However, in terms of exchange rates (nominal GDP), Japan has 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 1986 and Germany in 1968. (NB: A number of supernational economies are larger, such as the EU, NAFTA or APEC). Economic growth in Asia since World War II to the 1990s had been concentrated in few countries of the Pacific Rim, and has spread more recently to other regions.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's economy was almost as large as that of the rest of the continent combined. In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equalled that of the USA to tie the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 yen. But since then, Japan's currency has corrected and China has grown to be the second-largest Asian economy, followed by India, in terms of exchange rates. It is expected that China will surpass Japan in currency terms to have the largest nominal GDP in Asia within a decade or two.

Trade blocs:

• Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
• Asia-Europe Economic Meeting
• Association of Southeast Asian Nations
• Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement
• Commonwealth of Independent States
• South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation

Natural resources

Asia is the largest continent in the world by a considerable margin, and it is rich in natural resources, such as petroleum and iron.

High productivity in agriculture, especially of rice, allows high population density of countries in the warm and humid area. Other main agricultural products include wheat and chicken.

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

Manufacturing

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

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

Financial and other services

Asia has three main financial centres: in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo. Call centres 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 rise of the business process outsourcing industry has seen the rise of India and China as other financial centres.

Early history

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

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 Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Yangtze shared many similarities. These civilizations 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 the Middle East, India, 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 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

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 600 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 415 languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces. Korea, however, is home to only one language, albeit one with high dialectal diversity.

Nobel prizes

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 also wrote the Indian anthem.

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

Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prizes include Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1966), Kenzaburo Oe (Japan, 1994), Gao Xingjian (China, 2000) and Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 2006) Also,Shirin Ebadi of Iran was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. She is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize.

In 2006 Dr. Mohammad Yunus from Bangladesh and Grameen Bank he established to lend money to poor people especially women in Bangladesh was awarded Nobel Peace prize. 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 specified period of time and the incidence of default is very low.

Beliefs

Mythology

The story of Great Floods find reference in most of the regions of Asia. The story is first found in Mesopotamian mythology, in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Hindu mythology tells about an avatar of God Vishnu in the form of a fish who warned Manu of a terrible flood. In ancient Chinese mythology, Shan Hai Jing, the Chinese ruler Da Yu, had to spend 10 years to control a deluge which swept out most of ancient China and was aided by the goddess Nüwa who "fixed" the "broken" sky through which huge rains were pouring. The story is also found in the Tanakh, Bible and Qur'an.

List of mythologies native to Asia:

• Arabian mythology
• Balinese mythology
• Buddhist mythology
• Chinese mythology
• Hindu mythology
  • Vedic mythology
• Japanese mythology
  • Shinto
  • Oomoto
• Korean mythology
• Mesopotamian mythology
  • Babylonian and Assyrian religion
  • Babylonian mythology
  • Chaldean mythology
• Canaanite mythology
  • Canaanite religion
  • Hittite mythology
  • Sumerian mythology
• Persian mythology
  • Yezidis (Modified indigenous Kurdish belief)
  • Zoroastrianism
• Philippine mythology
  • Anito
  • Gabâ
  • Kulam
• Turkic mythology
  • Tatar mythology
  • Tengriism (Indigenous Mongol, Tartar & Kazakh belief)

Philosophy

Asian philosophical traditions originated in India and China and 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, Carvaka, preached the enjoyment of material world.

Taoism was founded by Chinese philosopher Lao Zi, who lived 605-520 B.C. Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama, who lived 563-483 B.C.

During the 20th century, in the two most populous countries of Asia, two dramatically different political philosophies took shape. Gandhi gave a new meaning to Ahimsa, and redefined the concepts of nonviolence and nonresistance. During the same period, Mao Zedong’s communist philosophy was crystallized.

Religions

The Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith originated in West Asia. The Dharmic religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated in South Asia. In East Asia, particularly in China and Japan, Confucianism, Taoism, Zen Buddhism and Shinto took shape. Other religions of Asia include the Zoroastrianism, Shamanism practiced in Siberia, and Animism practiced in the eastern parts of the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia.

Today 30% of Muslims live in the South Asian regions of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The world's largest single Muslim community (within the bounds of one nation) is in Indonesia. There are also significant Muslim populations in China, Iran, Malaysia, the Philippines, Russia and most of West Asia and Central 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, Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion. Various Christian sects have adherents in portions of the Middle East, as well as China and India.

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

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

• Ahmadi: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan.
• Animism: Eastern India, Japan, tribal Philippines.
• Bahá'í Faith: slightly more than half of all adherents are in Asia.
• Bön: Tibet.

• Buddhism: Tibet, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, parts of India and parts of central and eastern Russia (Siberia).
  • Mahayana Buddhism: Bhutan, China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, parts of the Philippines.
  • Theravada Buddhism: Cambodia, parts of China, Chittagong Hill Tracts, West Bengal, Laos, mainly northern parts of Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, as well as parts of Vietnam.
  • Vajrayana Buddhism: Parts of China, Mongolia, Tibet, parts of northern and eastern India, parts of central, eastern Russia and Siberia.
• Daoism: China, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam.
• Hinduism: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia Bali, India, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore and South Asian immigrants in West Asia.
• Islam: Central Asia, South Asia, and Southwest Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia, Mindanao Philippines , Southern Thailand, Rakhine State Myanmar.
  • Shia Islam: largely to specific Iran, Azerbaijan, parts of Iraq, Bahrain, parts of Afghanistan, parts of India, parts of Pakistan.
  • Sunni Islam: dominant in the rest of the regions mentioned above.
• Jainism: India.
• Kejawen: Indonesia
• Shamanism: Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Siberia.
• Shinto: Japan.
• Sikhism: India, Malaysia, Hong Kong.
• Yezidi : Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey.
• Zikri: Pakistan, Iran.
• Zoroastrianism: Iran, India, Pakistan.

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

• Christianity: Armenia, East Timor, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestinian territories, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Syria.
• Judaism: slightly fewer than half of its adherents reside in Asia; Israel, India, Iran, Russia, Syria.

See also

• Far East
• Anatolia
• Assuwa
• Flags of Asia
• Geography of Asia
• Pan-Asianism
• Asian Century
• Asian Currency Unit
• Asian people
• Asian dance
• Asian furniture
• Eastern world

Notes

1. World University Service of Canada. Asia-WUSC WorldWide. 2006. October 7, 2006. <http://www.wusc.ca/expertise/worldwide/asia/>.
2. BBC News 2006. September 9, 2006. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/>.
3. American Heritage Book of English Usage. Asian. 1996. September 29, 2006. <http://www.bartleby.com/64/C006/007.html>.
4. Color Q World. Clarifying the Definition of Asian. 2005. October 1, 2006. <http://www.colorq.org/PetSins/article.asp?y=2005&m=5&x=5_7>.
5. Lee, Sharon M. Population Reference Bureau. Asian Americans Diverse and Growing. Accessed 2006-11-10.
6. Five Years of China’s WTO Membership. EU and US Perspectives on China’s Compliance with Transparency Commitments and the Transitional Review Mechanism, Legal Issues of Economic Integration, Kluwer Law International, Volume 33, Number 3, pp. 263-304, 2006. by Paolo Farah

References

• "Asia". The Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online. 2005. New York: Columbia University Press.
• World Conflicts: Asia and the Middle East . Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. New York: Salem Press.

External links

• Map Asia

• Asia
• Continents