Asia

Asia is the world’s largest continent, both in land area and population. It spans more than 44 million square kilometers, which accounts for roughly 30% of Earth’s total land and 8% of its entire surface. For much of history, most of the world’s people have lived here, and it was where many early civilizations first emerged. Today, its 4.7 billion residents make up about 60% of the global population. Asia is part of the larger landmass of Eurasia, which it shares with Europe, and of Afro-Eurasia, which also includes Africa. Its natural boundaries are the Pacific Ocean to the east, the Indian Ocean to the south, and the Arctic Ocean to the north. The line between Asia and Europe is not based on clear physical geography but on historical and cultural convention. A common division places Asia east of the Suez Canal (separating it from Africa), east of the Turkish Straits, the Ural Mountains and Ural River, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea. The idea of Asia originally came from a European perspective, referring to the eastern part of the known world. As a result, Asia is essentially the vast remainder of Eurasia after Europe is subtracted. This means it is not a single cultural zone but a region where many independent cultures coexist. Its border with Europe has shifted over time since the concept first emerged in classical antiquity, and the division of Eurasia into two continents reflects cultural differences between east and west, which often exist along a spectrum. From the year 1 to 1800 CE, China and India alternated as the world’s largest economies. China held a leading economic position for most of recorded history and had the highest GDP per capita until 1500. The Silk Road was the main east–west trade route across Asia’s interior, while the Straits of Malacca served as a key maritime passage. In the 20th century, Asia experienced strong economic growth and rapid population increase, though overall population growth has since slowed. The continent is the birthplace of most major world religions, including Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and many others. Asia is extremely diverse, both between and within its regions, in terms of ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economies, historical connections, and political systems. Its climates range widely, from equatorial conditions in the south, through hot deserts in parts of West, Central, South, and East Asia, to tropical jungles in Southeast Asia, temperate zones in the east and central areas, and vast subarctic and polar regions in the north. The name “Asia” likely comes from a Bronze Age place name that originally referred only to a part of northwestern Anatolia. It appears in Hittite records describing a rebellion around 1400 BCE by a confederation of Assuwan states, including Troy, against the Hittite king Tudhaliya I. Roughly contemporary Linear B documents contain a similar term, apparently referring to captives from the same area. Herodotus used “Asia” for Anatolia and the territory of the Achaemenid Empire, distinguishing it from Greece and Egypt. He reports that Greeks thought the name came from Prometheus’s wife, while Lydians said it came from Asies, son of Cotys, who gave his name to a tribe at Sardis. In Greek mythology, Asia was a nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia. The Iliad mentions two Phrygians named Asios (meaning “Asian”) and a marsh in Lydia called Asia. The Romans later adopted the term for their province of Asia in western Anatolia. One of the first writers to use Asia for the whole continent was Pliny. Definition Asia–Europe boundary The division of the Old World into Africa, Asia, and Europe dates back to the 6th century BCE, thanks to Greek geographers like Anaximander and Hecataeus. Anaximander set the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (now the Rioni in Georgia), from its mouth on the Black Sea through the Surami Pass and along the Kura River to the Caspian Sea—a convention Herodotus still followed in the 5th century BCE. During the Hellenistic period, the boundary was moved to the Tanais (the modern Don River), which Roman-era authors like Posidonius, Strabo, and Ptolemy used. Later, European academics redefined the border. In 1730, five years after Peter the Great’s death, Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published an atlas in Sweden proposing the Ural Mountains as the boundary. Vasily Tatishchev claimed he had suggested the idea to von Strahlenberg, who also proposed the Emba River as the southern part of the line. Over the next century, various proposals were made until the Ural River became the accepted southern boundary in the mid-19th century. The border thus shifted from the Black Sea (as the Romans had it) to the Caspian Sea, into which the Emba and Ural rivers flow. Between the Black and Caspian Seas, the border is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, though sometimes farther north at the Kuma–Manych Depression. Asia–Africa boundary The boundary between Asia and Africa runs along the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea, and the Bab-el-Mandeb. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai Peninsula in Asia and the rest of the country in Africa.