Asia

Asia

Area	44,579,000 km2 (17,212,000 sq mi) (1st)[1]
Population	4,694,576,167 (2021; 1st)[2][3]
Population density	100/km2 (260/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	$72.7 trillion (2022 est; 1st)[4]
GDP (nominal)	$39 trillion (2022 est; 1st)[5]
GDP per capita	$8,890 (2022 est; 4th)[6]
Religions	Islam (28.0%) Hinduism (22.8%) No religion (13.9%) Buddhism (11.1%) Chinese folk religion (9.7%) Christianity (8.4%) Ethnic religions (3.5%) New religions (1.3%) Other (1.3%)[7]
Demonym	Asian
Countries	49 UN members 1 UN observer 5 other states
Dependencies	List  Akrotiri and Dhekelia  British Indian Ocean Territory  Christmas Island  Cocos (Keeling) Islands  Hong Kong  Macau
Non-UN states	List  Abkhazia  Northern Cyprus  Palestine  South Ossetia  Taiwan
Languages	List of languages
Time zones	UTC+02:00 to UTC+12:00
Internet TLD	.asia
Largest cities	List of metropolitan areas Lists of cities
UN M49 code	142 – Asia 001 – World

Asia (/ˈeɪʒə/ ^ⓘ AY-zhə, UK also /ˈeɪʃə/ AY-shə) is the largest continent^{[note 1][10][11]} in the world by both land area and population.^[11] It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometers,^{[note 2]} 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,^[12] was the site of many of the first civilizations. Its 4.7 billion people^[13] constitute roughly 60% of the world's population.^[14]

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.^[15]

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.^[16][17][18] 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.^[19] 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.

The boundary between Asia and Africa is the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea, and the Bab-el-Mandeb.^[20] This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa.

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.^[21] 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.^[22] During the Hellenistic period,^[23] 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,^[24] Strabo^[25] and Ptolemy.^[26]

The border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics.^[27]

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.^[28] 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.^[27]

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.^[29] Wallacea's eastern boundary with Sahul is represented by the Lydekker's Line.^[30][31] 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.^[29] 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.^[32] 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."^[33]

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.^[34][35][36] This is extremely rare however, due to their non-tropical biogeography, as well as their inhabitants, who have historically been related to Indigenous Americans.^[37][38]

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).

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.^[39]

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.^[40] 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".^[41]

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.

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.^[42][43][44] 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.^[45][46]

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.^[47] In Greek mythology, "Asia" (Ἀσία or Ἀσίη) was the name of a "Nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia".^[48] The Iliad (attributed by the ancient Greeks to Homer) mentions two Phrygians in the Trojan War named Asios (an adjective meaning "Asian");^[49] and also a marsh or lowland containing a marsh in Lydia as ασιος.^[50]

The term was later adopted by the Romans, who used it in reference to the province of Asia, located in western Anatolia.^[51] One of the first writers to use Asia as a name of the whole continent was Pliny.^[52]

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 civilizations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Yellow River 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 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.

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.^[54][55] 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.^[56]

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.^[57]

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.^[58][59] 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)^[60] and the Hindu Maratha Empire controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively.^[61]

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.^[62] 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.^[63] 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.^[64][65]

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),^[66] 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.^[67][68] 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.^[69] 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.^[70]

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.^[71] 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;^[72] Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union strained relations between India and Pakistan and affected Asia more generally.^[73] The end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union by 1991 saw the independence of the five modern Central Asian countries.^[74]

Some Arab countries took economic advantage of massive oil deposits that were discovered in their territory, becoming globally influential,^[75] though stability in the Middle East has been affected since 1948 by the Arab–Israeli conflict and American-led interventions.^[76][77] East Asian nations (along with Singapore in Southeast Asia) became economically prosperous with high-growth "tiger economies";^[78] China, having undergone capitalistic reforms under Deng Xiaoping,^[79] regained its place among the top two economies of the world by the 21st century.^[80] India has also grown significantly because of economic liberalisation that started in the 1990s,^[81] with extreme poverty now below 20%;^[82] 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.^[83][84]

• 
  The threefold division of the Old World into Europe, Asia and Africa has been in use since the 6th century BCE, due to Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus.
• 
  1825 map of Asia by Sidney Edwards Morse
• 
  Map of western, southern, and central Asia in 1885^[85]
• 
  The map of Asia in 1796, which also included the continent of Australia (then known as New Holland)
• 
  1890 map of Asia

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.^[15][86] 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.

• 
  Siberian tundra
• 
  Rainforest in Borneo
• 
  Kerala backwaters
• 
  Mongolian steppe
• 
  South China Karst
• 
  Taman Negara, Peninsular Malaysia
• 
  Altai Mountains
• 
  Hunza Valley
• 
  Atolls of the Maldives
• 
  Wadi Rum in Jordan

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.^[87]

• North Asia (Siberia)^{[note 3]}
• Central Asia
• West Asia (The Middle East or Near East and part of the Caucasus)
• South Asia (Indian subcontinent)
• East Asia (Far East)
• Southeast Asia (East Indies and Indochina)

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.

This section is an excerpt from Climate change in Asia.[edit]

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.^[91]: 1459 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.^[91]: 1460 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.^[91]: 1459

The waters around Asia are subjected to the same impacts as elsewhere, such as the increased warming and ocean acidification.^[91]: 1465 There are many coral reefs in the region, and they are highly vulnerable to climate change,^[91]: 1459 to the point practically all of them will be lost if the warming exceeds 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).^[92][93] Asia's distinctive mangrove ecosystems are also highly vulnerable to sea level rise.^[91]: 1459 Asia also has more countries with large coastal populations than any other continent, which would cause large economic impacts from sea level rise.^[91]: 1459 Water supplies in the Hindu Kush region will become more unstable as its enormous glaciers, known as the "Asian water towers", gradually melt.^[91]: 1459 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.^[91]: 1459 Food security will become more uneven, and South Asian countries could experience significant impacts from global food price volatility.^[91]: 1494

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.^[91]: 1468 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.^[91]: 1470 While nearly half of the world's new renewable energy capacity is built in Asia,^[91]: 1470 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.^[91]: 1471

Climate change adaptation is already a reality for many Asian countries, with a wide range of strategies attempted across the continent.^[91]: 1534 Important examples include the growing implementation of climate-smart agriculture in certain countries or the "sponge city" planning principles in China.^[91]: 1534 While some countries have drawn up extensive frameworks such as the Bangladesh Delta Plan or Japan's Climate Adaptation Act,^[91]: 1508 others still rely on localized actions that are not effectively scaled up.^[91]: 1534

Asia has the largest continental economy in the world by both GDP nominal and PPP values, and is the fastest growing economic region.^[95] As of 2023^[update], 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.^[96] 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.^[97]

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economy of China^[98] 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.^{[99][100][101][102]} China was the largest and most advanced economy on earth for much of recorded history and shared the mantle with India.^{[103][17][104]} 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.^[95]

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.^[95] 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.^[105][95]

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.^[106][107]

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.^[108] 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.^[109]

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.^[110] 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.^{[111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118]}

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.^[119] 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.^[120]

Rank	Country	GDP (nominal, Peak Year) millions of USD	Peak Year
1	China	18,273,357	2024
2	Japan[121]	6,272,363	2012
3	India	3,889,130	2024
4	Russia[122]	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[123]	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[124]	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

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.^[125]

Historical populations

Year	Pop.	±% p.a.
1500	243,000,000	—
1700	436,000,000	+0.29%
1900	947,000,000	+0.39%
1950	1,402,000,000	+0.79%
1999	3,634,000,000	+1.96%
2016	4,462,676,731	+1.22%
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info 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[2][3]

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.^[126]
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.^[126]
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.^[126]

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.

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.

The Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druze faith,^[127] and Baháʼí Faith originated in West Asia.^[128][129]

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;^[130] though various diaspora communities persist worldwide. Jews are the predominant ethnic group in Israel (75.6%) numbering at about 6.1 million,^[131] although the levels of adherence to Jewish religion vary. Outside of Israel there are small ancient Jewish communities in Turkey (17,400),^[132] Azerbaijan (9,100),^[133] Iran (8,756),^[134] India (5,000) and Uzbekistan (4,000),^[135] among many other places. In total, there are 14.4–17.5 million (2016, est.)^[136] 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,^[137] and nearly 364 million according to Britannica Book of the Year 2014.^[138] Christians constitute around 12.6% of the total population of Asia. In the Philippines and East Timor, Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion;^[139] it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In Armenia and Georgia, Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion.^[139] 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,^[140] 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.^[139] Saint Thomas Christians in India trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century.^[141] Significant Christian communities also found in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia.^[139]

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.^[142] 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.^[143]

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.

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^[update], 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.

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%),^[145] Thailand (95%),^[146] Burma (80–89%),^[147] Japan (36–96%),^[148] Bhutan (75–84%),^[149] Sri Lanka (70%),^[150] Laos (60–67%)^[151] and Mongolia (53–93%).^[152] Taiwan (35–93%),^{[153][154][155][156]} South Korea (23–50%),^[157] Malaysia (19–21%),^[158] Nepal (9–11%),^[159] Vietnam (10–75%),^[160] China (20–50%),^[161] North Korea (2–14%),^{[162][163][164]} 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 syncretized with Mahayana Buddhism, thus exact religious statistics are difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated.

• 
  Japanese wedding at the Meiji Shrine
• 
  Hindu festival celebrated by Singapore's Tamil community
• 
  Bar mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem
• 
  Catholic procession of the Black Nazarene in Manila
• 
  Druze dignitaries celebrating the Ziyarat al-Nabi Shu'ayb festival at the tomb of the prophet in Hittin
• 
  Christian Armenians praying at the Etchmiadzin Cathedral in Vagharshapat
• 
  Muslim men praying at the Ortaköy Mosque in Istanbul
• 
  Buddhist Monks performing traditional Sand mandala made from coloured sand

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

• The Partition of India (1947):

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

• The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948:

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

• The Chinese Civil War (1927–1949):

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

• The Korean War (1950–1953):

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

• The First Indochina War (1946–1954):

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

• The Vietnam War (1955–1975):

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

• The Bangladesh Liberation War (1971):

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

• The Sino-Vietnamese War (1979):

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

• The Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975–1999):

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

• The Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989):

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

• The Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988):

Long-lasting conflict with regional and international implications.

• The Gulf War (1990–1991):

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

• The Dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991):

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

• The War in Afghanistan (2001–2021):

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

• The Iraq War (2003–2011):

Led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and subsequent instability.

• The Arab Spring (2010–2012):

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

• The Syrian Civil War (2011–present):

Ongoing conflict with widespread humanitarian implications.

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.^[165] 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 civilizations 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.^[166] These civilizations, which are located in the Hilly flanks, are among the oldest in the world, with evidence of farming dating back to around 9000 BCE.^[167] 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.^[168]

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 honorary 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.^[169] The Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize, in Oslo, Norway in 1989.^[170]

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[2][3] (2021)	Area (km2)	Capital
		Afghanistan	40,099,462	652,864	Kabul
		Armenia	2,790,974	29,743	Yerevan
		Azerbaijan[note 4]	10,312,992	86,600	Baku
		Bahrain	1,463,265	760	Manama
		Bangladesh	169,356,251	147,570	Dhaka
		Bhutan	777,486	38,394	Thimphu
		Brunei	445,373	5,765	Bandar Seri Begawan
		Cambodia	16,589,023	181,035	Phnom Penh
		China (PRC)	1,425,893,465	9,596,961	Beijing
		Cyprus	1,244,188	9,251	Nicosia
		East Timor	1,320,942	14,874	Dili
		Egypt[note 4]	109,262,178	1,001,449	Cairo
		Georgia[note 4]	3,757,980	69,700	Tbilisi
		Hong Kong	7,494,578	2,754	Hong Kong
		India	1,407,563,842	3,287,263	New Delhi
		Indonesia[note 4]	273,753,191	1,904,569	Jakarta
		Iran	87,923,432	1,648,195	Tehran
		Iraq	43,533,592	438,317	Baghdad
		Israel	8,900,059	20,770	Jerusalem (disputed)
		Japan	124,612,530	377,915	Tokyo
		Jordan	11,148,278	89,342	Amman
		Kazakhstan[note 4]	19,196,465	2,724,900	Astana
		Kuwait	4,250,114	17,818	Kuwait City
		Kyrgyzstan	6,527,743	199,951	Bishkek
		Laos	7,425,057	236,800	Vientiane
		Lebanon	5,592,631	10,400	Beirut
		Macau	686,607	32.9	Macau
		Malaysia	33,573,874	329,847	Kuala Lumpur
		Maldives	521,457	298	Malé
		Mongolia	3,347,782	1,564,116	Ulaanbaatar
		Myanmar	53,798,084	676,578	Naypyidaw
		Nepal	30,034,989	147,181	Kathmandu
		North Korea	25,971,909	120,538	Pyongyang
		Oman	4,520,471	309,500	Muscat
		Pakistan	211,103,000	881,913	Islamabad
		Palestine	5,133,392	6,220	Jerusalem (proclaimed) Ramallah (adm. center)
		Philippines	113,880,328	343,448	Manila
		Qatar	2,688,235	11,586	Doha
		Russia[note 5]	145,102,755	17,098,242	Moscow[note 6]
		Saudi Arabia	35,950,396	2,149,690	Riyadh
		Singapore	5,941,060	697	Singapore
		South Korea	51,830,139	100,210	Seoul
		Sri Lanka	21,773,441	65,610	Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte
		Syria	21,324,367	185,180	Damascus
		Tajikistan	9,750,064	143,100	Dushanbe
		Thailand	71,601,103	513,120	Bangkok
		Turkey[note 7]	84,775,404	783,562	Ankara
		Turkmenistan	6,341,855	488,100	Ashgabat
		United Arab Emirates	9,365,145	83,600	Abu Dhabi
		Uzbekistan	34,081,449	447,400	Tashkent
		Vietnam	97,468,029	331,212	Hanoi
		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 recognized countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN:

Symbol	Flag	Name	Population	Area (km2)	Capital
		Abkhazia	242,862	8,660	Sukhumi
		Northern Cyprus	326,000	3,355	North Nicosia
		South Ossetia	51,547	3,900	Tskhinvali
		Taiwan (ROC)	23,859,912	36,193	Taipei

The most democratic countries in Asia are Japan, Taiwan and Israel according to the V-Dem Democracy indices in 2024.^[171]

• Asian Century
• Asian Games
• Asian Highway Network
• Asian Monetary Unit
• Asian Para Games
• List of cities in Asia
• Asian cuisine
• Asian furniture
• Eastern Mediterranean
• Eastern world
• Fauna of Asia
• Flags of Asia
• List of metropolitan areas in Asia by population
• Trans-Asian Railway

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• Asia: Human Geography at the National Geographic Society
• Asian Reading Room from the United States Library of Congress
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