Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres.

It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and comprises 30% of its land area. With approximately 4.3 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population. Asia has a high growth rate in the modern era. For instance, during the 20th century, Asia's population nearly quadrupled. Asia is defined as comprising the eastwards four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the KumaManych 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. Given its size and diversity, Asia a toponym dating back to classical antiquity "is more a cultural concept" incorporating diverse regions and peoples than a homogeneous physical entity.[6] Asia differs very widely among and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct

histories of several peripheral coastal regions: East Asia, South Asia, Southeast 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 Huanghe 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. Horse-mounted nomads who could reach all areas of Asia from the steppes had long inhabited the central steppe region. The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans, who spread their languages into the Middle East, 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 Silk Road connected many civilizations across Asia Mountains and deserts mostly kept the center and the peripheries separated. 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 grassland to support a large horse bound 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. The Islamic Caliphate took over the Middle East and Central Asia during the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. The Mongol Empire conquered a large part of Asia in the 13th century, an area extending from China to Europe. AsiaEurope boundary The Don River became unsatisfactory to northern Europeans when Peter the Great, king of the Tsardom of Russia, defeating rival claims of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to the eastern lands, and armed resistance by the tribes of Siberia, synthesized a new Russian extending to the Ural Mountains and beyond, founded in

1721. The major geographical theorist of the empire was actually a former Swedish prisoner-of-war, taken at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and assigned to Tobolsk, where he associated with Peter's Siberian official, Vasily Tatishchev, and was allowed freedom to conduct geographical and anthropological studies in preparation for a future book.[citation needed] In Sweden, five years after Peter's death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia. The Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography as well as other cultural heritage. 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 River prevailed in the mid19th century. The border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects.[8] In the maps of the period, Transcaucasia was counted as Asian. The incorporation of most of that region into the Soviet Union tended to push views of the border to the south.

North and South Korea: Korean Kuwait: Arabic Kyrgyzstan: Kyrgyz, Russian Laos: Lao Lebanon: Arabic, French Malaysia: Malay Maldives: Dhivehi Mongolia: Mongolian Nepal: Nepali Oman: Arabic Pakistan: Urdu, English Philippines: Tagalog Qatar: Arabic Russia: Russian Saudi Arabia: Arabic Singapore: English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil South Ossetia: Ossetic, Georgian, Russian Sri Lanka: Sinhala/Helabasa, Tamil Syria: Arabic Taiwan: Mandarin Tajikistan: Persian Thailand: Thai Turkey: Turkish Turkmenistan: Turkmen United Arab Emirates: Arabic Uzbekistan: Uzbek Vietnam: Vietnamese Yemen: Arabic UTC+2 to UTC+12

ASIA

Area Population

44,579,000 km2 (17,212,000 sq mi) 4,164,252,000 (1st)

Pop. Density 87/km2 (225/sq mi) Demonym Countries Languages

Asian 49

Abkhazia: Abkhaz, Russian Afghanistan: Persian, Pashto Armenia: Armenian Azerbaijan: Azerbaijani Bahrain: Arabic Bangladesh: Bengali Bhutan: Dzongkha Brunei: Malay Burma: Burmese Cambodia: Khmer China: Mandarin Cyprus: Greek, Turkish East Timor: Tetum, Portuguese Georgia: Georgian India: Hindi, English Indonesia: Indonesian Iran: Persian, Azerbaijani Iraq: Arabic, Kurdish Israel: Hebrew, Arabic Japan: Japanese Jordan: Arabic Kazakhstan: Kazakh, Russian

Time Zones

Internet TLD asia Largest cities List of metropolitan areas in Asia by population List

Tokyo Seoul Mumbai Delhi Karachi Jakarta Osaka Shanghai Manila Hong Kong Tehran Lahore Kolkata Beijing Guangzhou Taipei Bangkok Singapore Kuala Lumpur Ho Chi Minh City Dubai

Ang Timog

Silangang Asya ay

isang subrehiyon ng kontinenteng Asya, na binubuo ng mga bansang nasa katimugang Tsina, silangan ng Indya at hilaga ng Australya. Ang Timog Silangang Asya ay binubuo ng dalawang rehiyong heograpikal: Ang kalupaang Asyano, at ang mga arkong pulo at mga kapuluan sa silangan at timog silangan. Ang mga bansang nasa kalupaang Asyano ay kinabibilangan ng Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, at ang Vietnam; ang populasyon ay pangunahing binubuo ng mga TibetoBurmano, mga Tai, at mga Austroasiatiko; ang pinakamalaking relihiyon ay Budhismo, na sinundan ng Islam, at Kristiyanismo. Ang mga bansang nasa karagatan ay binubuo ng Brunei, Silangang Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pilipinas, at angSingapore. Ang ibang paglalarawan sa rehiyon ay sinasama ang Taiwan sa hilaga. Ang mga Austronesiano ang dominante sa rehiyon; ang pangunahing relihiyon ay Islam, na sinundan ng Kristiyanismo.

Ang paghahati sa "Timog Silangang Asya" ay nag-iiba-iba, subalit karamihan sa mga ito ay kinabibilangan ng mga bansang ito:

Brunei Cambodia Indonesia

Laos Malaysia Myanmar Pilipinas Singapore Thailand Vietnam Silangang Timor

Ang Kanlurang

Asya (tinatawag ding

"Gitnang Silangan" dati; Ingles: Western Asia, West Asia, Southwest Asia, Southwestern Asia) ay ang timogkanlurang bahagi ng Asya. Ang katawagang Kanlurang Asya ay kadalasang ginagamit sa mga kasulatan tungkol sa arkeolohiya ang huling bahagi ng prehistory ng rehiyon. Ang Kanlurang Asya ang rehiyong pinagtatagpuan ng hangganan ng tatlong mahahalagang kontinente sa daigdig ang Africa, Asya at Europa. Ito ay binubuo ng mga bansang Arabo tulad ng Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, at Kuwait. Kasama rin sa rehiyong ito ang tinatawag naman na Gulf States ng Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, at Bahrain. Kasama rin sa Kanlurang Asya ang Iran, Israel, Cyprus, at Turkey. Pangunahing pinagkukunan ng langis ang rehiyong ito. Nanggaling din dito ang mga pangunahing relihiyon sa daigdig gaya ng Judaism, Kristiyanismo, at Islam. Ang Kanlurang Asya ay itinuturing na Moslem World at ikinakategorya bilang Arid Asya o bahagi ng Asya kung saan matatagpuan ang malalawak na disyerto at tuyong lugar mula Jordan tungong Arabia hanggang sa Iraq, Iran, at Afghanistan. Umaabot hanggang Pakistan at bahagi ng dating Gitnang Asya at Mongolia ang tinatawag na Arid Asia. Ang Kanlurang Asya ay bumubuo sa sangkatlo (1/3) ng Asya, may sukatna nasa pagitan ng 6.5 at 9.8 milyong milya kwadrado.

Kinabibilangan ng mga bansa at teritoryo sa Timog-kanlurang Asya ang mga sumusunod:

Afghanistan Armenia Azerbaijan Bahrain Cyprus Gaza Strip Georgia Iran Iraq Israel Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia Syria Turkey United Arab Emirates West Bank Yemen

Ang Anatolia, Arabia, Levant, at Mesopotamia ay mga subrehiyon ng Timog-kanlurang Asya.

Ang Hilagang

Asya ay isang rehiyon

ng Asya. Ang Siberia lamang ang bumubuo nito na nasa bahaging Asya ng bansang Rusya. Kabilang sa rehiyon na ito ang mga dating kabahagi ng Soviet Union tulad ng mga bansang Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Tajikistan, T urkmenistan, at Uzbekistan.