Asia

Alternative meanings: Asia (mythology), Asia Minor, Asia (band).

File:AsiaSatelliteImageSmall.jpg

Satellite image of Asia (partial)

The continent of Asia is defined by subtracting Europe and Africa from the great land mass of Africa-Eurasia. The boundaries are vague, especially between Asia and Europe: Asia and Africa meet somewhere near the Suez Canal. The boundary between Asia and Europe runs via the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, the Hellespont, the Black Sea, the ridges of the Caucasus (according to others, through the Kuma-Manych Depression), the Caspian Sea, the Ural River (according to others, the Emba River) and the Ural Mountains to Novaya Zemlya. About 60% of the world's population live in Asia. See also Eurasia.

The region of Asia is the continent of Asia plus nearby islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Subregions

As already mentioned Asia can be considered itself a subregion of the greater Eurasian continent. For further subdivisions based on that term, see North Eurasia and Central Eurasia.

Asia itself is often divided in the following subregions:

North Asia

This term is rarely used by geographers, but usually it refers to the Asian part of Russia, also known as Siberia. Sometimes the northern parts of other Asian nations like Kazakhstan are also included in Northern Asia.

Central Asia

There is no absolute consensus in the usage of this term. Usually, Central Asia includes:

• the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.
• Afghanistan, Mongolia, and the western regions of China are also sometimes included.

East Asia

This term includes:

• The Pacific islands of Taiwan and Japan.
• North and South Korea on the Korean Peninsula.
• China, but sometimes only the eastern regions

Sometimes the nation of Mongolia is also included with East Asia.

Southeast Asia

This region contains the Malay Peninsula, Indochina and islands in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. The countries it contains are:

• In Mainland Southeast Asia, the countries of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

• In Maritime Southeast Asia, the countries of Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei and East Timor.

The country of Malaysia is divided in two by the South China Sea, and thus has both a mainland and island part.

South Asia

South Asia is also referred to as the Indian Subcontinent. It includes:

• the Himalayan States of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh
• the Indian Ocean nations of Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Southwest Asia

It can also be called the Middle East, although that term is occasionally used to also refer to countries in North Africa. Southwest Asia can be further divided into:

• Anatolia, which includes the nation of Turkey
• The island nation of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea.
• The Levant or Near East, which includes Syria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.
• The Arabian peninsula, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen and occasionally Kuwait.
• The Caucasus region, including the nations of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia.
• The Iranian Plateau, containing Iran and parts of other nations.

Also see Gulf States, for a different grouping involving several of the above countries.

Population density

This is a list of countries/dependencies by population density in inhabitants/km².

Unlike the figures in the country articles, the figures in this table are based on areas including inland water bodies (lakes, reservoirs, rivers) and may therefore be lower here.

The whole of Russia, Egypt, and Turkey are referred to in the table, although they are only partly in Asia. Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been included, although they can also be considered part of Europe.

West Bank and Gaza Strip are not listed separately, but combined as Palestinian territories.

country	pop. dens.	area	population
	(/km2)	(km2)	(2002-07-01 est.)
Macau (PRC)	18,000	25	461,833
Hong Kong (PRC)	6,688	1,092	7,303,334
Singapore	6,430	693	4,452,732
Maldives	1,070	300	320,165
Bahrain	987	665	656,397
Bangladesh	926	144,000	133,376,684
Republic of China (Taiwan, Quemoy, Matsu)	627	35,980	22,548,009
Palestinian territories	545	6,220	3,389,578
South Korea	491	98,480	48,324,000
Lebanon	354	10,400	3,677,780
Japan	336	377,835	126,974,628
India	318	3,287,590	1,045,845,226
Sri Lanka	298	65,610	19,576,783
Israel	290	20,770	6,029,529
Philippines	282	300,000	84,525,639
Vietnam	246	329,560	81,098,416
North Korea	184	120,540	22,224,195
Nepal	184	140,800	25,873,917
Pakistan	184	803,940	147,663,429
People's Republic of China (Mainland)	134	9,596,960	1,284,303,705
Thailand	121	514,000	62,354,402
Indonesia	121	1,919,440	231,328,092
Kuwait	118	17,820	2,111,561
Armenia	112	29,800	3,330,099
Syria	93	185,180	17,155,814
Azerbaijan	90	86,600	7,798,497
Turkey	86	780,580	67,308,928
Georgia	71	69,700	4,960,951
Cambodia	71	181,040	12,775,324
Egypt	71	1,001,450	70,712,345
Qatar	69	11,437	793,341
Malaysia	69	329,750	22,662,365
East Timor	63	15,007	952,618
Myanmar	62	678,500	42,238,224
Brunei	61	5,770	350,898
Jordan	58	92,300	5,307,470
Uzbekistan	57	447,400	25,563,441
Iraq	55	437,072	24,001,816
Tajikistan	47	143,100	6,719,567
Bhutan	45	47,000	2,094,176
Afghanistan	43	647,500	27,755,775
Iran	40	1,648,000	66,622,704
Yemen	35	527,970	18,701,257
United Arab Emirates	30	82,,880	2,445,989
Laos	24	236,800	5,777,180
Kyrgyzstan	24	198,500	4,822,166
Oman	13	212,460	2,713,462
Saudi Arabia	12	1,960,582	23,513,330
Turkmenistan	9.6	488,100	4,688,963
Russia	8.5	17,075,200	144,978,573
Kazakhstan	6.2	2,717,300	16,741,519
Mongolia	1.7	1,565,000	2,694,432