Asia is the world's largest and most populous
continent, located in the
eastern and
northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the
earth's total surface area (or 29.9% of its land area) and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current
human population.
Asia is traditionally defined as part of the
landmass of
Eurasia — with the western portion of the latter occupied by
Europe — located to the east of the
Suez Canal,
east of the
Ural Mountains and south of the
Caucasus Mountains (or the
Kuma-Manych Depression)
["". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.] and the
Caspian and
Black Seas.
[ "Europe" (pp. 68-9); "Asia" (pp. 90-1): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe ... is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea with its outlets, the Bosporus and Dardanelles."] 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 a number of
regions and peoples than a
homogeneous physical entity["". McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. 2006. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.] (see
Subregions of Asia,
Asian people).
The wealth of Asia differs very widely between and within each region. This is due to its vast size and huge range of different cultures, environments, historical ties and government systems. In terms of nominal GDP,
Japan has the largest economy on the continent and the second largest in the
world. In
purchasing power parity term, however, the
People's Republic of China has the largest economy in Asia and the second largest in the world.
Etymology
The term
Asia is originally a concept exclusively of
Western civilization.
The peoples of ancient
Asia (Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Persians, Arabs etc.) never conceived the idea of
Asia, simply because they did not see themselves collectively. In their perspective, they were vastly varied civilizations, contrary to ancient European belief.
The word
Asia originated from the
Greek word "Ἀσία", first attributed to
Herodotus (ca. 440 BC) in reference to
Anatolia or — in describing the Persian Wars — to the
Persian Empire, in contrast to
Greece and
Egypt. Herodotus comments that he is puzzled as to why three women's names are used to describe one enormous and substantial land mass (
Europa,
Asia, and
Libya, referring to Africa), stating that most Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of
Prometheus (i.e.
Hesione), but that the
Lydians say it was named after Asias, son of Cotys, who passed the name on to a tribe in
Sardis.
Even before Herodotus,
Homer knew of two figures in the
Trojan War named
Asios; and elsewhere he describes a marsh as ασιος (Iliad 2, 461). The Greek term may be derived from
Assuwa, a 14th century BC confederation of states in Western Anatolia. Hittite
assu-—"good" is probably an element in that name.
Usage of the term soon became common in ancient Greece, and subsequently by the
ancient Romans.
Ancient and medieval European maps depict the Asian continent as a "huge amorphous blob" extending eastward.
It was presumed in antiquity to end with
India — the
Macedonian king
Alexander the Great believing he would reach reach the "end of the world" upon his arrival in the East.
T.R. Reid notes that the ancient Greek name must have derived from
asu, meaning "east" in
Assyrian (
ereb for
Europe meaning west).
[Reid, T.R. Confucius Lives Next Door: What living in the East teaches us about living in the west Vintage Books(1999).] The terms/ideas of
occidental (form
Latin Occidens "setting") and
oriental (from Latin
Oriens for "rising") are also European invention, synonymous with
Western and
Eastern.
He further emphasizes that it explains the Western point of view of placing all the peoples and cultures of Asia into a single classification, almost as if there were a need for setting the distinction between Western and
Eastern civilizations on the
Eurasian continent.
Ogura Kazuo and Tenshin Okakura are two Japanese outspoken figures over the subject.
Other alternatives
Alternatively, the
etymology of the term may be from the
Akkadian word
, which means "to go outside" or "to ascend", referring to the direction of the
sun at sunrise in the
Middle East and also likely connected with the Phoenician word
asa meaning east. This may be contrasted to a similar etymology proposed for
Europe, as being from Akkadian
erēbu(m) "to enter" or "set" (of the sun). However, this etymology is considered doubtful, because it does not explain how the term "Asia" first came to be associated with Anatolia, which is
west of the Semitic-speaking areas, unless they refer to the viewpoint of a
Phoenician sailor sailing through the straits between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.
Some scholars also believe that the word Asia is derived from the
Xia Dynasty, which ruled China in the early 2nd millennium BC This would have required ancient contact between China and Greece, which is certainly possible as attested by archaeological finds such as the
Tarim mummies.
Definition and boundaries
Physical geography
thumb|left|[[Physical map (cartography)|Physical map of Asia, excluding
Southwest Asia.]]
thumb|left|Two-point equidistant projection of Asia.
Medieval
Europeans considered Asia as a continent a distinct landmass. The European concept of the three continents in the
Old World goes back to
Classical Antiquity, but during the Middle Ages was notably due to
Isidore of Sevilla (see
T and O map). The demarcation between Asia and Africa (to the southwest) is the
Isthmus of Suez and the
Red Sea. The boundary between Asia and Europe is conventionally considered to run through the
Dardanelles, the
Sea of Marmara, the
Bosporus, the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, the
Ural River to its source and the Ural Mountains to the
Kara Sea near Kara, Russia. While this interpretation of tripartite continents (i.e., of Asia, Europe and Africa) remains common in modernity, discovery of the extent of Africa and Asia have made this definition somewhat anachronistic. This is especially true in the case of Asia, which would have several
regions that would be considered distinct landmasses if these criteria were used (for example,
Southern Asia and
Eastern Asia).
In the far northeast of Asia,
Siberia is separated from North America by the
Bering Strait. Asia is bounded on the south by the
Indian Ocean (specifically, from west to east, the
Gulf of Aden,
Arabian Sea and
Bay of Bengal), on the east by the waters of the
Pacific Ocean (including, counterclockwise, the
South China Sea,
East China Sea,
Yellow Sea,
Sea of Japan,
Sea of Okhotsk and
Bering Sea) and on the north by the
Arctic Ocean. Australia (or
Oceania) is to the southeast.
Some geographers do not consider Asia and Europe to be separate continents, as there is no logical physical separation between them.
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.” Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of
Eurasia with Europe being a northwestern
peninsula of the landmass – or of
Afro-Eurasia: geologically, Asia, Europe and Africa comprise a single continuous landmass (save the Suez Canal) and share a common
continental shelf. Almost all of Europe and most 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
Cherskiy Range) on the
North American Plate.
In geography, there are two schools of thought. One school follows historical convention and treats Europe and Asia as different continents, categorizing
subregions within them for more detailed analysis. The other school equates the word "continent" with a geographical region when referring to Europe, and use the term "region" to describe Asia in terms of physiography. Since, in linguistic terms, "continent" implies a distinct landmass, it is becoming increasingly common to substitute the term "region" for "continent" to avoid the problem of disambiguation altogether.
Given the scope and diversity of the landmass, it is sometimes not even clear exactly what "Asia" consists of. Some definitions exclude
Turkey, the Middle East,
Central Asia and Russia while only considering the Far East, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent to compose Asia, especially in the
United States after
World War II. The term is sometimes used more strictly in reference to the
Asia-Pacific region, which does not include the Middle East or Russia, but does include islands in the Pacific Ocean—a number of which may also be considered part of
Australasia or
Oceania, although Pacific Islanders are not considered Asian.
Political geography
Territories and regions
left|thumb|right|[[Subregions of Asia:
]]
Country name changes
Various Asian countries have undergone name changes during the previous century as the result of consolidations,
secessions, territories gaining
sovereignty and
regime changes.
Economy
Asia has the third largest
nominal GDP of all continents, after North America and Europe, but the largest when measured in
PPP. As of 2007, the largest national economy within Asia, in terms of
gross domestic product (GDP), is that of
China followed by that of
Japan,
India,
South Korea and
Indonesia. However, in nominal (exchange value) terms, they rank as follows: Japan, China, India, South Korea,
Saudi Arabia,
Taiwan,
Indonesia. Since the 1960s, South Korea had maintained the highest economic growth rate in Asia, nicknamed as an
Asian tiger, becoming a
newly industrialized country in the 1980s and a
developed country by the 21st century. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economies of the PRC and India have been growing rapidly, both with an average annual growth rate of more than 8%. Other recent very high growth nations in Asia include
Malaysia, the
Philippines,
Pakistan,
Vietnam,
Mongolia,
Uzbekistan and mineral-rich nations such as
Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan,
Iran,
Brunei,
United Arab Emirates,
Qatar,
Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia,
Bahrain and
Oman.
During the
1st millennium, India had the largest GDP at approximately 30% of the global GDP. By 1500 China had surpassed India; however, over the next four centuries the two were to alternate between 1st and 2nd largest GDP, until the
British Empire (excluding
India) overtook them both in the mid 19th century. Japan has had for only several dacades after WW2 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 1986 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). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP was almost as large (current exchange rate method) as that of the rest of Asia combined. In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equalled that of the USA to tie as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79
yen/
dollar. 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 have now all received developed country status, having the highest
GDP per capita in Asia.
It is forecasted that the
People's Republic of China will surpass
Japan to have the largest nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP in Asia within a decade.
India is also forecast to overtake Japan in terms of Nominal GDP by 2020. In terms of GDP per capita, both nominal and PPP-adjusted, South Korea will become the second wealthiest country in Asia by 2025, overtaking Germany, the United Kingdom and France. By 2050, according to a 2006 report by Price Waterhouse Cooper, China will have the largest economy in the world (43% greater than the United States when PPP adjusted, although perhaps smaller than the United States in nominal terms).
Trade blocs
Natural resources
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
Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in mainland
China,
Taiwan,
South Korea,
Japan,
India ,
Philippines and
Singapore.
Japan and
South Korea continue to dominate in the area of
multinational corporations, but increasingly mainland
China, 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.
Financial and other services
Asia has four main financial centres:
Tokyo,
Hong Kong,
Singapore and
Shanghai.
Call centres and
business process outsourcing (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India, Pakistan 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 centres. Due to its large and extremely competitive
information technology industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.
Early history
thumb|left|Map of Asia in 1890.
thumb|right|Map of Asia, 1892.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.
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 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 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 horsebound 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.
Languages and literature
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 600 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 800 languages spoken in India and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces.
Nobel prizes
thumb|Rabindranath Tagore|Nobel laureate./" class="wiki">Rabindranath Tagore, of India, the first Asian
Nobel laureate.
thumb|Sir C.V.Raman|Nobel laureate in Sciences./" class="wiki">C. V. Raman, the first Asian
Nobel laureate in Sciences.
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.
Tagore is said to have named another Bengali Indian Nobel prize winner, the 1998 laureate in Economics,
Amartya Sen. Sen's work has centered around global issues including famine, welfare, and third-world development. Amartya Sen was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK, from 1998-2004, becoming the first Asian to head an 'Oxbridge' College.
Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prizes include
Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1966),
Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994),
Gao Xingjian (People's Republic of China, 2000) and
Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 2006).
Also,
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.
Sir
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".
Other Asian Nobel Prize winners include
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar,
Abdus Salam,
Shmuel Yosef Agnon,
Robert Aumann,
Menachem Begin,
Aaron Ciechanover,
Avram Hershko,
Daniel Kahneman,
Shimon Peres,
Yitzhak Rabin,
Yaser Arafat,
Jose Ramos Horta and Bishop
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of
Timor Leste,
Kim Dae-jung, and thirteen
Japanese scientists. Most of the said awardees are from
Japan and
Israel except for Chandrasekhar and Raman (India), Salam (Pakistan), Arafat (Palestinian Territories) and Kim (South Korea).
In 2006, Dr.
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 in Bangladesh. Dr. Yunus received his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt University, United States. He is internationally known for the concept of micro credit which allows poor and destitutes with little or no collateral to borrow money. The borrowers typically pay back money within the specified period and the incidence of default is very low.
The Dalai Lama has received numerous awards over his spiritual and political career.[129] On 22 June 2006, he became one of only four people ever to be recognized with Honorary Citizenship by the Governor General of Canada. On 28 May 2005, he received the Christmas Humphreys Award from the Buddhist Society in the United Kingdom. Most notable was the Nobel Peace Prize, presented in Oslo on 10 December 1989
Beliefs
Mythology
Asian mythology is diverse. The story of the Great Flood for example, as presented to Christians in the Old Testament, is first found in
Mesopotamian mythology, in the
Epic of Gilgamesh''.
Hindu mythology tells about an
avatar of the
God Vishnu in the form of a
fish who warned
Manu of a terrible flood. In ancient
Chinese mythology,
Shan Hai Jing, the Chinese ruler
Da Yu, had to spend 10 years to control a deluge which swept out most of ancient China and was aided by the goddess
Nüwa who literally fixed the broken sky through which huge rains were pouring.
Religions
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 material world.
Christianity is also present in most Asian countries.
Abrahamic
thumb|right|A Chinese styled Mosque in [[Indonesia, the nation with the highest population of
Muslims.]]
The
Abrahamic religions of
Judaism,
Christianity and
Islam originated in
West Asia. Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in Israel (which has the world's largest
Jewish population), though small communities exist in other countries, such as the
Bene Israel in India. In the Philippines and
East Timor,
Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion; it was introduced by the
Spaniards and the
Portuguese, respectively. In
Armenia,
Georgia and
Russia Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion. Various
Christian denominations have adherents in portions of the Middle East, as well as China and India. The world's largest Muslim community (within the bounds of one nation) is in Indonesia.
South Asia (mainly
Pakistan, India and
Bangladesh) holds 30% of Muslims. There are also significant Muslim populations in China,
Iran,
Malaysia, southern
Philippines (
Mindanao), Russia and most of West Asia and
Central Asia.
Dharmic & Taoist
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.
See also
