About Asia

The map shows the bulk of Asia without the Middle East. Asia is the largest of the world's continents, it constitutes nearly one-third of Earth's landmass and is lying entirely north of the equator, except for some Southeast Asian islands. Asia occupies the better part of Eurasia, the largest single landmass on the planet. For good measure, the Malay Archipelago was added to Asia, because it happens to be in the region. Asia borders Europe (which is part of the same landmass) in the west, along the Ural Mountains, and across the Caspian Sea. The continent is bounded by the Arctic Ocean in the north, the Pacific Ocean in the east, and the Indian Ocean in the south.

For the average Westerner point of view, Asia represents foremost the spices of India, Sushi and Kobe beef from Japan, silk and fine china from China. Zen, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism are the major religions and philosophies associated with Asia, even though Indonesia is currently the most populous country with a Muslim majority population.

 

More about Asia

Area: about 49,700,000 km² (19,189,277 sq mi) it covers about 30 percent of Earth's total land area.
Population: more than 4.6 billion people (in 2020), comprise about 60 percent of the world's population.

The highest point is Sagarmatha (or Chomolungma, also known as Mount Everest) at 8,848m (29,028 ft) on the China–Nepal border.
The largest lakes are the Caspian Sea (salt lake) 371,000 km² (143 250 sq mi), and Ozero Baykal, or Lake Baikal (31,500 km²) in Siberia, is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume.
The longest river is the Yangtze (Yángzî Jiang, or Chang Jiang (simplified Chinese: 长江) in China with a length of 6,380 km (3,964 mi).

The following Asian subregions are depicted on the map:

North Asia

North Asia, also Northern Asia, consists of the Russian Federation east of the Ural Mountains: the Ural region, Siberia, and the Russian Far East. North Asia covers an area of 13.1 million km², about 77% of Russia's territory. In the sparsely populated region, four times the size of India, live about 34 million people.

Central Asia

In the modern standard definition, the region is home to the 'stan-countries,' all former Soviet republics, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, some definitions also include Afghanistan. Central Asia has an area of 4 million km² and a population of 73 million. By far the largest country is Kazakhstan (2,724,900 km²). The most populous of all the nations in Central Asia is Uzbekistan (34.2 million inhabitants).
 

South Asia

The region of South Asia, or Southern Asia, includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. South Asia is among the world's most populated regions; 1.8 billion people live in an area of more than 5 million km². The country with the largest population is India, with nearly 1.4 billion people.

East Asia

The eastern region of Asia consists of the Asian nations of China (including the special administrative regions of Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet), Japan, Mongolia, North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea), South Korea (Republic of Korea), and Taiwan (Republic of China). East Asia covers an area of 11.8 million km² (4.5 million sq mi). 1.68 billion people live in East Asia. The most populous country is China, with 1.44 billion inhabitants.
 

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia consists of two geographic regions:

I. Mainland Southeast Asia, or the Indochinese peninsula, includes Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Peninsular Malaysia.


II. Maritime Southeast Asia, also known as the Malay Archipelago, includes the world's two largest island countries, Indonesia and the Philippines. There are an estimated 25,000 islands in Maritime Southeast Asia.


The largest islands in the Malay Archipelago by area are New Guinea, Borneo, Sumatra, Sulawesi (Celebes), Java, Luzon, and Mindanao.

The region is also home to India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Singapore, Brunei (surrounded by East Malaysia) on the island of Borneo, and East Timor (Timor-Leste) on the island of Timor. Indonesia shares the island of New Guinea with Papua New Guinea.
Southeast Asia has a land area of 4.5 million km²; an estimated 668 million people live in Southeast Asia (in 2020). ^[1]

Western Asia

(see the map of Western Asia and the Middle East)

West Asia, Western Asia, Southwest Asia, Middle East or Near East are all designations for Asia's southwestern territory. West Asia is home to several geographical and historical regions, including Asia Minor or Anatolia (peninsula), the Caucasus region, the Eastern Mediterranean or the Levant, the historical region of Mesopotamia, the Armenian Highlands, the historical region of Syria, the geographical and historical region of Palestine, the Sinai Peninsula, the Arabian Peninsula with the Arabian desert ecoregion, and the Iranian Highlands.
There are 20 independent countries in Western Asia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, the northeastern part of Egypt (Sinai), Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, the State of Palestine (Gaza Strip and West Bank), Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Western Asia has a land area of about six million km² and is home to 280 million people (in 2020).