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Asia

Largest of the continents, occupying one-third of the total land surface of the world. The origin of the name is unknown, though it seems probable that it was at first used with a restricted local application, gradually extended to the whole continent.

Area

44,000,000 sq km/17,000,000 sq mi

Largest cities

(population over 5 million) Bangkok, Beijing, Chennai (formerly Madras), Delhi, Dhaka, Hong Kong, Hyderabad, Istanbul, Jakarta, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), Karachi, Lahore, Manila, Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Osaka, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenyang, Tehran, Tianjin, Tokyo

Features

Mount Everest, at 8,872 m/29,118 ft is the world's highest mountain; the Dead Sea at −394 m/−1,293 ft is the world's lowest point below sea level; rivers (over 3,200 km/2,000 mi) include Chang Jiang (Yangtze), Huang He (Yellow River), Ob-Irtysh, Amur, Lena, Mekong, Yenisey; lakes (over 18,000 sq km/7,000 sq mi) include the Caspian Sea (the largest lake in the world), the Aral Sea, Lake Baikal (largest freshwater lake in Eurasia), Balkhash; deserts include the Gobi, Takla Makan, Syrian Desert, Arabian Desert, Negev

Physical

lying in the eastern hemisphere, Asia extends from the Arctic Circle to just over 10° south of the Equator. The Asian mainland, which forms the greater part of the Eurasian continent, lies entirely in the northern hemisphere and stretches from Cape Chelyubinsk at its northern extremity to Cape Piai at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. From Dezhneva Cape in the east, the mainland extends west over more than 165° longitude to Cape Baba in Turkey

Climate

showing great extremes and contrasts, the heart of the continent becomes bitterly cold in winter and extremely hot in summer. When the heated air over land rises, moisture-laden air from the surrounding seas flows in, bringing heavy monsoon rains to all Southeast Asia, China, and Japan between May and October

Industries

62% of the population are employed in agriculture; Asia produces 46% of the world's cereal crops (91% of the world's rice); other crops include mangoes (India), groundnuts (India, China), 84% of the world's copra (Philippines, Indonesia), 93% of the world's rubber (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand), tobacco (China), flax (China, Russia), 95% of the world's jute (India, Bangladesh, China), cotton (China, India, Pakistan), silk (China, India), fish (Japan, China, Korea, Thailand); China produces 55% of the world's tungsten; 45% of the world's tin is produced by Malaysia, China, and Indonesia; Saudi Arabia is the world's largest producer of oil

Population

(2000 est) 3,672 million; the world's largest population, amounting to more than half the total number of people in the world; between 1950 and 1990 the death rate and infant mortality were reduced by more than 60%; annual growth rate 1.6% (exceeded only by Africa)

Language

predominantly tonal languages (Chinese) and Japanese in the east, Indo-Iranian languages (Hindi, Urdu, Persian) in South Asia, Altaic languages (Mongolian, Turkish) in West and Central Asia, Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew) in the southwest

Religion

the major religions of the world had their origins in Asia - Judaism and Christianity in the Middle East; Islam in Arabia; Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism in India; Confucianism in China; and Shintoism in Japan

Containing the world's highest mountains and largest inland seas, Asia can be divided into five physical units:

1) at the heart of the continent, a central triangle of plateaux at varying altitudes (Tibetan Plateau, Tarim Basin, Gobi Desert), surrounded by huge mountain chains which spread in all directions (Himalayas, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Pamirs, Kunlun, Tien Shan, Altai);

2) the western plateaux and ranges (Elburz, Zagros, Taurus, Great Caucasus mountains) of Afghanistan, Iran, northern Iraq, Armenia, and Turkey;

3) the lowlands of Turkestan and Siberia which stretch north of the central mountains to the Arctic Ocean and include large areas in which the subsoil is permanently frozen (permafrost);

4) the fertile and densely populated eastern lowlands and river plains of Korea, China, and Indochina, and the islands of the East Indies and Japan;

5) the southern plateaux of Arabia, and the Deccan, with the fertile alluvial plains of the Euphrates, Tigris, Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Irrawaddy rivers.

In Asiatic Russia are the largest areas of coniferous forest (taiga) in the world.

Asian Asian fauna Asian geography Asian geology avens Central Asian Republics

elder (botany) Eurasia imperialism, 19th-century European Reischauer, Edwin O(ldfather) Southeast Asia Treaty Organization Turk