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East Asia

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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[1]
Population 1,555,784,500[2]
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 Japan Tokyo
China Beijing
North Korea Pyongyang
South Korea Seoul
Taiwan Taipei
Mongolia Ulan Bator
Other major cities Japan Osaka
China Guangzhou
 Hong Kong
Taiwan Kaohsiung
South Korea Busan
China Shanghai
Japan Yokohama.


East Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical[3] or cultural[4] 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.[5] 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,[citation needed] 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[6], 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:[3]

(Including the Special Administrative Regions of  Hong Kong and  Macau)
East Asia
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese東亞
Simplified Chinese东亚
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinDōngyà
Wade–GilesTung1-ya3
Gan
RomanizationTung1 nga3
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingdung1 aa3
Southern Min
Hokkien POJTang-a
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabetĐông Á
Korean name
Hangul동아시아/동아
Hanja東亞
Transcriptions
Revised RomanizationDong Asia/Dong-A
McCune–ReischauerTong Asia/Tong-A
Mongolian name
Mongolian CyrillicЗүүн 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 HepburnHigashi Ajia/Tō-A
Kunrei-shikiHigasi Azia/Tou-A
Russian name
RussianВосточная Азия
RomanizationVostochnaja Azija
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Category:East Asia.

The following peoples or societies are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia:[19][20][21][22]

Some consider the following countries or regions as part of East Asia, while others do not.[citation needed] 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:[citation needed]

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.[citation needed]

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) [8] 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).[29] 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'.[30][31][32]

Demographics

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

Ethnolinguistic groups of East Asia:


Altaic peoples


Austronesian peoples


Austro-Asiatic peoples


Japanese people


Chukotko-Kamchatkan peoples


Hmong-Mien peoples


Sino-Tibetan peoples


Ainu people

Nivkhs

Other subregions of Asia

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ The area figure is based on the combined areas of the People's Republic of China (including Hong Kong, Macau, Aksai Chin, and Trans-Karakoram Tract), Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) as listed at List of countries and outlying territories by total area.
  2. ^ The population figure is the combined populations of the People's Republic of China (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau), Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Republic of China (Taiwan) as listed at List of countries by population (last updated March 8, 2008).
  3. ^ a b c d e "East Asia". encarta. Micosoft. Retrieved 2008-01-12. East A·sia [ st áyə ] the countries, territories, and regions of China, Hong Kong, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Macau, Mongolia, parts of Russia, and Taiwan.
  4. ^ Columbia University - "East Asian cultural sphere" "The East Asian cultural sphere evolves when Japan, Korea, and what is today Vietnam all share adapted elements of Chinese civilization of this period (that of the Tang dynasty), in particular Buddhism, Confucian social and political values, and literary Chinese and its writing system."
  5. ^ See, List of countries by population density
  6. ^ "Far East". encarta. Micosoft. Retrieved 2008-01-12. Far East [ fr st ] a former term for the countries of East Asia, sometimes extended to include those of Southeast Asia (dated)
  7. ^ a b [1], Britannica Online Encyclopedia, saying: "The present political boundaries of China, which include Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Sinkiang, and the northeastern provinces formerly called Manchuria, embrace a far larger area of East Asia than will be discussed here...."
  8. ^ a b The Republic of China (ROC) is has limited recognition within the international community as a sovereign state, see Political status of Taiwan. Cite error: The named reference "ROC" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ MSN Encarta, East Asia
  10. ^ Plateaus, National Geographic Society
  11. ^ East Asian Region - Tibet
  12. ^ Department of East Asian Studies, University of Helsinki
  13. ^ Tibet is considered Central AsianTibet - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
  14. ^ http://ieas.berkeley.edu/events/2004.03.13.html "Xinjiang: Central Asia or China?"
  15. ^ http://www.ceibs.edu/ase/Documents/rethinking.htm Rethinking Central Asia
  16. ^ http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15095a.htm CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Turkestan
  17. ^ http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2008/05/22/china-reconnects-with-tajikistan.html China Invests in Central Asia Stability Through Tajikistan Xinjiang, a name meaning new territory in Mandarin, was militarily captured and annexed by China after World War II. Its 8 million residents are made up of mostly Muslim Turkic groups that include the Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tatars, Kazakhs, and the Tajiks that profess affinity with Central Asia than with the local Han Chinese. refers to the indigenous people as being Central Asian
  18. ^ 9789622177901 Tredinnick, Jeremy and Christoph Baumer and Judy Bonavia. Xinjiang: China's Central Asia, -: Odyssey Publications, 2008.
  19. ^ Columbia University East Asian Cultural Sphere [2]
  20. ^ R. Keith Schopper's East Asia: Identities and Change in the Modern World [3]
  21. ^ Joshua A. Fogel (UC Santa Barbara/University of Indiana) Nationalism, the Rise of the Vernacular, and the Conceptualization of Modernization in East Asian Comparative Perspective [4]
  22. ^ United Nations Environment Programme (mentions sinosphere countries) Approaches to Solution of Eutrophication [5]
  23. ^ Center for South Asia Studies: University of California, Berkeley [6]; Archive.org [7] (site under reconstruction)
  24. ^ Center for South Asia Outreach UW-Madison [8]
  25. ^ Department of South Asia Studies: University of Pennsylvania [9]
  26. ^ South Asia Language Resource Center: The University of Chicago [10]
  27. ^ AIIS Advanced Language Programs in India [11]
  28. ^ Tibet is located on the Tibetan Plateau which is in Central Asia.[12]
  29. ^ World Bank (1993), 'The making of the East Asian Miracle', World Bank Policy Research Bulletin, Vol.4, No.4, [13]
  30. ^ Discussed in Christopher M. Dent (2008), East Asian regionalism. London: Routledge, pp.1-8
  31. ^ Charles Harvie, Fukunari Kimura, and Hyun-Hoon Lee (2005), New East Asian regionalism. Cheltenham and Northamton: Edward Elgar, pp.3-6.
  32. ^ Peter J. Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi (2006), Beyond Japan: the dynamics of East Asian regionalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp.1-33
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