Subregions of Asia

Central Asia

 Kazakhstan
 Kyrgyzstan
 Tajikistan
 Turkmenistan
 Uzbekistan
Eastern Asia

 China - the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan)

 Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China
 Macao Special Administrative Region of China
 Japan
 Mongolia
 North Korea
 South Korea
Southern Asia

 Afghanistan
 Bangladesh
 Bhutan
 India
 Iran
 Maldives
 Nepal
 Pakistan
 Sri Lanka
 Southeastern Asia

 Brunei Darussalam
 Cambodia
 Indonesia
 Lao People's Democratic Republic
 Malaysia
 Myanmar
 Philippines
 Singapore
 Thailand
 Timor-Leste
 Vietnam
Western Asia

 Armenia
 Azerbaijan
 Bahrain
 Cyprus
 Georgia
 Iraq
 Israel
 Jordan
 Kuwait
 Lebanon
 Oman
 Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip)
 Qatar
 Saudi Arabia
 Syrian Arab Republic
 Turkey
 United Arab Emirates
 Yemen

The largest of the world's continents. With its peninsular extension, commonly called the
continent of Europe, it is the major portion of the broad east-west extent of the Northern
Hemisphere land masses. In many ways Asia is more a cultural concept than a physical entity.
There is no logical physical separation between Asia and Europe, and even Africa is separated
from Asia merely by the width of the Suez Canal. For convenience, however, the Eurasian land
mass is considered to be divided by the Ural Mountains into Europe in the west and Asia in the
east. Thus restricted, Asia has an area of about 17,700,000 mi 2 (45,800,000 km2), about one-
third of the land area of the Earth. In the north, Siberia reaches past the 80th latitude.
Southward, India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) reach nearer than 10°N of the Equator, while the
Indonesian islands extend more than 10°S of the Equator. The continental heart of Asia is
more than 2000 mi (3200 km) from the nearest ocean. See also Continent; Europe.
The answer is to be found in the vision of the world of the Europeans through history. As the
Catholic and Orthodox churches separated, two spheres of influence originated on each side of
the Bosporus. One was the occidental part, controlled by Rome and the Pope, and the other was
the oriental one, controlled by Constantinople. When the orient became mostly Muslim, it was
even a greater reason to divide the Eurasian continent in two parts.

Note that during the middle-age most maps were drawn with the orient up. Probably because the
sun rises at the east. This is why we still use the word: orientation; coming from the orient as
being the reference. Later, and mostly due to the seafarers that used the northern star as a
reference in navigation, the north became the up side of the maps.

If the Ural mountains made, later, the division between orient and occident, it is most certainly
because they make a natural barrier of a mountain range.
Europe and Asia aren't on the same tectonic plate. As Asia is a raft composed of dozens of
different tectonic plates, not even all of Asia shares the same tectonic plate. The Ural Mountains
marks the border where the two continents collided with each other to, temporarilly, form a single
landmass. With only two exceptions, most the continents of the world happen to be joined by land
to other continents.