East Asia

This article is about the geographical region. For the Miyuki Nakajima album, see East Asia (album). For the fictional superstate, see Eastasia (Nineteen Eighty-Four).

East Asia

Area	11,839,074 km²
Population	1,555,784,500
Density	131 per km²
Countries and Territories	Mainland China Hong Kong Japan Macau Mongolia North Korea South Korea Taiwan
Languages and language families	Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, and many others
Time zones	UTC +7:00 (Western Mongolia) to UTC +9:00 (Japan and Korean Peninsula)
Capital cities	Tokyo Beijing Pyongyang Seoul Taipei Ulan Bator
Other major cities	Osaka Guangzhou Hong Kong Kaohsiung Busan Shanghai Yokohama.

East Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. Geographically and geopolitically, it covers about 12,000,000 km², or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia as Central Asia. In some contexts, Vietnam is considered part of East Asia because of the significant Chinese cultural influence it has experienced. More than 1.5 billion people, about 38 percent of the population of Asia or 22 percent of all the people in the world, live in geographic East Asia, which is about twice the population of Europe. The region is one of the world's most populated places, with the population density of East Asia, 131 per km², being about three times the world average of 45 per km². Using the UN subregion definitions, it ranks second in population only to South Asia.

Historically, many societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, and East Asian vocabulary and scripts are often derived from Classical Chinese and Chinese script. Major religions include Buddhism (mostly Mahayana), Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, Shamanism in Korea and other indigenous populations of northern East Asia, Chinese folk religion in China, and Shinto in Japan. East Asian calendars are often derived from Chinese Calendar.

This combination of language, political philosophy, and religion (as well as art, architecture, holidays and festivals, etc.) overlaps with the geographical designation of East Asia for the most part, with a few exceptions, such as the overseas Chinese (including those in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, and the West).

East Asia and Eastern Asia (the latter form preferred by the United Nations) are both more modern terms for the traditional name the Far East, which describes the region's geographical position in relation to Europe rather than its location within Asia. However, in contrast to the United Nations definition, East Asia commonly is used to refer to the eastern part of Asia, as the term implies.

The term East Asia is sometimes used to refer to a larger region including Southeast Asia and even South Asia. Observers who use East Asia in this expanded meaning sometimes refer to the Chinese cultural world as Northeast Asia, but this usage is confusing as that term has other, more established meanings.

Other uses of the term East Asia

The following political entities are consistently seen as located in geographical East Asia:

• People's Republic of China (PRC)

(Including the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau)

• Republic of China (ROC)
• Japan
• South Korea (Republic of Korea)
• North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)
• Mongolia
• Siberia, Russia (considered either East Asia or North Asia)

East Asia
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	東亞
Simplified Chinese	东亚
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Dōngyà Wade–Giles Tung1-ya3 Gan Romanization Tung1 nga3 Yue: Cantonese Jyutping dung1 aa3 Southern Min Hokkien POJ Tang-a
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	Đông Á
Korean name
Hangul	동아시아/동아
Hanja	東亞
Transcriptions Revised Romanization Dong Asia/Dong-A McCune–Reischauer Tong Asia/Tong-A
Mongolian name
Mongolian Cyrillic	Зүүн Ази ᠵᠤᠨ ᠠᠵᠢ Züün Azi
Japanese name
Kanji	東亜細亜/東亜
Kana	ひがしアジア/とうあ
Transcriptions Revised Hepburn Higashi Ajia/Tō-A Kunrei-shiki Higasi Azia/Tou-A
Russian name
Russian	Восточная Азия
Romanization	Vostochnaja Azija

The following peoples or societies are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia:

• Chinese society (including the predominantly Chinese regions outside China proper, such as Singapore and Taiwan)
• Japanese society
• Korean society
• Vietnamese society

Some consider the following countries or regions as part of East Asia, while others do not. Disagreements hinge on the difference between the cultural and geographic definitions of the term. Political perspective is also an important factor. In descending order in terms of the frequency with which they are described as East Asian:

• The parts of China that are not historically dominated by Han Chinese: Qinghai, Tibet, Xinjiang (considered either East Asia or Central Asia or South Asia in the case of Tibet—here the primary question is cultural, with geography also at issue)
• Mongolia (considered either East Asia or Central Asia—here culture and/or geography may be at issue)
• Vietnam (considered either East Asia or Southeast Asia—here the primary question is geographic)
• Russian Far East (considered either East Asia or North Asia—here the primary question is political, with culture and geography also at issue)

In many circumstances, the term East Asia is purposefully used to include all countries in Southeast Asia, especially when used in dualism with the term West Asia, the latter of which is then used to include those regions commonly considered West Asia, Central Asia and Southwest Asia.

Recently, East Asia has been used to refer to a wide geographical area covering ten countries in ASEAN, P.R.China, Japan, South Korea, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) as part of economic and political regionalism and integration. The tendency of this usage, perhaps, started especially since the publication of World Bank on The East Asian Miracle in 1993 explaining the economic success of the Asian Tiger and emerging Southeast Asian economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand). In addition, this usage has also been driven by Asia-wide economic interconnectedness since the co-operation between ASEAN and its three dialogue partners was institutionalised under the ASEAN Plus Three Process (ASEAN+3 or APT) in 1997. The idea of East Asian Community arising from ASEAN+3 framework is also gradually shaping the term East Asia to cover more than greater China, Korea, and Japan. This usage however, is unstable: the East Asian Summit, for instance, includes India and Australia. Observers preferring one or other broader definition of 'East Asia' often use the term Northeast Asia to refer to the greater China area, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan, with Southeast Asia covering the ten ASEAN countries. This usage, which is increasingly widespread in economic and diplomatic discussion, is at odds with the historical meanings of both 'East Asia' and 'Northeast Asia'.

Demographics

Main articles: Ethnic groups of East Asia and Demographics of Asia

Ethnolinguistic groups of East Asia:

Altaic peoples

• Mongol peoples
• Tungusic peoples
• Turkic peoples
• Koreans

Austronesian peoples

• Taiwanese aborigines

Austro-Asiatic peoples

• Vietnamese people
• Mon-Khmer peoples

Japanese people

• Yamato people
• Ryukyuan people

Chukotko-Kamchatkan peoples

• Chukchi people
• Itelmen people
• Koryaks

Hmong-Mien peoples

• Hmong people
• She people
• Yao people

Sino-Tibetan peoples

• Han-Chinese
• Tibeto-Burman peoples

Ainu people

Nivkhs

Other subregions of Asia

• Southeast Asia
• South Asia
• Central Asia
• Southwest Asia or West Asia (One definition of the Middle East is synonymous with Southwest Asia)
• North Asia (Siberia)
• Northern Eurasia (Extends into part of Europe)
• Central Eurasia (Extends into part of Europe)

See also

• Cities of East Asia
• East Asian studies
• Asian Network of Major Cities 21
• East Asian languages
• East Asian calligraphy
• Four Asian Tigers – a label pertinent to the recent economic history of the region.
• East Asia Summit
• History of East Asia
• Sinosphere
• East Asian Community
• Russian Far East (East Asia north of this area)

External links

• High resolution map of East Asian region