Asia

Asia is the largest and most populous continent on Earth. It covers about 44,580,000 km² (17.2 million square miles), almost a third of Earth’s total land area, and is home to roughly 4.7 billion people, which is around 60% of the world’s population. Asia contains 48 sovereign countries, including the world’s two most populous (China and India, each with over a billion people).

Where is Asia?

Asia stretches from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south, and from the Mediterranean and Red Seas in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It shares its land border with Europe along the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea, and with Africa at the Suez isthmus.

Asian geography

Asia contains some of the planet’s most extreme landscapes. The Himalayas hold the world’s 14 highest peaks, topped by Mount Everest at 8,848 m. The Tibetan Plateau is the highest large plateau on Earth (“the roof of the world”). The Gobi Desert stretches across Mongolia and China; the Arabian Desert covers the Arabian Peninsula. The Dead Sea on the Israel, Jordan border is Earth’s lowest land point (about −430 m). Great rivers shape Asia’s civilisations: the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in China, the Ganges and Indus in South Asia, the Mekong in Southeast Asia, the Tigris and Euphrates in the Middle East.

Regions of Asia

Asia is normally divided into five regions:

• East Asia, China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan.
• South Asia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Afghanistan.
• Southeast Asia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Brunei, East Timor.
• Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan.
• West Asia (the Middle East), Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Cyprus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia.

People, languages, and religions

Asia is the birthplace of every major world religion: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism all began on Asian soil. Major languages include Mandarin Chinese (the most-spoken first language on Earth), Hindi, Arabic, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Turkish, and Tamil. Asia’s cultures have been shaped by ancient civilisations including those of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China, and Persia.

Famous landmarks

Asia is studded with world-famous sites: the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal in India, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Mount Fuji in Japan, Petra in Jordan, the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (the world’s tallest building), the Terracotta Army near Xi’an, and the temples of Bagan, Kyoto, and Bangkok.

Explore Asian countries

Choose any of Asia’s 48 countries below for its full Factsmania fact file.