Asia comes from the word

When man expanded the territory he inhabited and discovered new regions, he needed to give them a name . Sometimes it designated them with some geographic characteristic or with the one of its settlers, and thus the denominations of continents or countries were born that lasted until today. In this article we will explain where the word Asia comes from, what is its origin and why it is called like that.

Where does the word Asia come from?

Asia is the largest of the continents and cradle of the first civilizations of humanity, such as the Sumerians, Hebrews, Chaldean Assyrians, Chinese, Indians, Phoenicians, etc. The word Asia derives from Aszu, an Assyrian voice meaning exit from the Sun, that is, the East, in opposition to Ereb, sunset or the West.

Asia according to mythology

According to the Greek mythology Asia was a nymph, daughter of the Ocean and the goddess Thetis.

Asia is the largest and the most densely populated continent in the world. According to studies, Asia has an area of 44,579,000 square kilometers, which roughly covers a large area of the world. Asia is known for its dense population; however, there are many regions in the continent that are barely populated.

Moreover, Asia has both the highest and lowest points on the surface of the Earth and has the longest coastline. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean on its northern side, the great Pacific Ocean on its eastern side, and the Indian Ocean on the southern side.

Asia has a very rich history and is indeed a very interesting continent. However, have you ever wondered where Asia got its name from? Keep on reading to discover how Asia got its name.

Etymology

The word Asia was originally a concept of the Greeks in 440 BC. It is believed that the name may have been driven from the word ‘asu,’ which means east. It was first referred to as Anatolia in Herodotus; however, it was in use long before that too, but not for the entire continent. Anatolia was the name of the land on the east side of the Aegean Sea. The English word comes from Latin literature, where it was referred to as Asia. The ultimate source of this word is, however, still uncertain. According to historical data, Asia, Europe, and Libya are all names of Greek queens.

Most Greeks thought that the name Asia came from Prometheus’s wife, who was the god of fire according to Greek mythology.

In Greek mythology, Asia was known as a nymph or a titan. This is a form of a female deity or a goddess. The concept of Asia originated from the Greeks about 200 years ago. It later spread to the Romans and then to the Europeans. From the Europeans, it spread all across Asia and to the rest of the world.

There is another interesting story about the name ‘Asia.’ Asia and Europe lie in the east and west of Mesopotamia. Thus, according to the Akkadian language of Mesopotamia, the land on the eastern side was named ‘Asia,’ which means sunrise, and the land on the western side was termed ‘Erebu,’ which means sunset. These names instantly gained popularity and spread all across the world.

There are many theories about the origins of the name Asia. There is still very little evidence available to validate the correct theory. The history of most of the continents is full of secrets and mysteries. It is quite fascinating to find out how the name ‘Asia’ was coined for such a massive piece of land.

Asia. / (ˈeɪʃə, ˈeɪʒə) / noun. the largest of the continents, bordering on the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean and Red Seas in the west.

What are 3 characteristics of Asia?

Asia is the largest of the world’s continents. It can be divided into five major physical regions: mountain systems; plateaus; plains, steppes, and deserts; freshwater environments; and saltwater environments.

What are 5 facts about Asia?

10 Surprising Facts About Asia

• Singapore has a building inspired by a Star Wars robot.
• There are over 1,600 temples in Kyoto, Japan.
• Hong Kong means ‘fragrant harbor’
• China produces 45 billion pairs of chopsticks each year.
• South Korea has a separate Valentine’s Day for single people.

What are 3 facts about Asia?

Fascinating Facts About Asia

• Asia is the most populated continent in the world, home to over 4.6 billion people.
• There are over 2,300 languages spoken across the continent of Asia.
• The Asian elephant is the largest land mammal on the Asian continent.

Why Asia is considered as a unique region?

Asia’s physical geography, environment and resources, and human geography can be considered separately. Asia is home to the world’s earliest civilizations. Its indigenous cultures pioneered many practices that have been integral to societies for centuries, such as agriculture, city planning, and religion.

Why is Asia considered as the continent of diversity?

the continent Asia is known as a continent of diversity because it has every people have different cultures regions different governments etc.

What are two facts about Asia?

The word “Asia” comes from Greek origins and is a female name and means sunrise. Asia is the most populous continent with a population of more than 4.6 billion people accounting for over 60% of the world’s population. China is the most populous country with a population of over 1.3 billion people.

Is Philippine in Asia?

Philippines, island country of Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. It is an archipelago consisting of more than 7,000 islands and islets lying about 500 miles (800 km) off the coast of Vietnam. Manila is the capital, but nearby Quezon City is the country’s most-populous city.

Why is Asia divided into 5 regions?

Given its large size, Asia has been subdivided on the basis of many factors including cultural, political, etc. Physiographically, there are five major regions of Asia. These are Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Western Asia.

Is Asia a culturally diverse region?

Particularly striking to the outside observer is the region’s ethnic and religious diversity. The majority of the countries in this region are home to dozens of different ethnic groups (and in some cases, hundreds), many with their own distinct languages, cultures, and styles of dress.

Is Asia a diverse area?

The peoples and countries of Asia are diverse in ethnic background, traditions, cultures, belief systems and religions. Interrelationships between humans and the diverse environments in Asia shape the region and have global implications.

What should you know about Asia?

General facts about Asia

• Total Population: 4,46 billion people.
• Demonym: Asian.
• Population density: 100/km2 (260/sq mi)
• Total countries: 49 UN members, 1 UN observer, 5 other not fully recognized states.
• Largest city: Tokyo.
• Land area: 44,579,000 km2 (17,212,000 sq mi)
• Largest Lake: Baikal Lake.

What race is Filipino considered?

Filipinos belong to the brown race, and they are proud of it.

What makes us a Filipino?

You are a Filipino if you are born in the country, most especially if your parents are of Filipino citizenship.

Are Filipinos considered Pacific Islanders?

Pacific Islanders are officially specified to be Native Hawaiians, Samoans, Guamanians, Chamorro, Fijian, Tongan, or Marshallese peoples, as well as people of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. A strict definition, none of which includes the Philippines or Filipinos.

What is considered Central Asia?

The Central Asia region (CA) comprises the countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It is a diverse region with a mix of upper middle and low income countries with major strategic importance due to their geographic location and natural resource endowments.

Is Japan considered Southeast Asia?

East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Is Turkey considered in Europe or Asia?

Turkey is a transcontinental country located in both Asia and Europe. 97% of Turkey’s territory lies in Asia and only 3% of its territory lies in Europe.

What cultures are in Asia?

Asia is the birthplace of many religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Druze, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Mandaeism (Sabianism), Shintoism, Sikhism, Taoism, Yazdânism, and Zoroastrianism. All major religious traditions are practiced in the region and new forms are constantly emerging.

What is Asia literacy?

As defined in the White Paper of the Asia Education Foundation (AEF), being Asia literate means possessing knowledge, skills and understandings of the histories, geographies, arts, cultures and languages of the diverse Asian region.

Asia

Area	44,579,000 km2 (17,212,000 sq mi) (1st)[1]
Population	4,694,576,167 (2021; 1st)[2][3]
Population density	100/km2 (260/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	$72.7 trillion (2022 est; 1st)[4]
GDP (nominal)	$39 trillion (2022 est; 1st)[5]
GDP per capita	$8,890 (2022 est; 4th)[6]
Religions	Hinduism (26.1%) Islam (25.7%) No religion (20.0%) Buddhism (11.3%) Folk religions (8.6%) Christianity (7.2%) Others (1.2%)[7][a]
Demonym	Asian
Countries	49 UN members 1 UN observer 5 other states
Dependencies	List  Akrotiri and Dhekelia  British Indian Ocean Territory  Christmas Island  Cocos (Keeling) Islands  Hong Kong  Macau
Non-UN states	List  Abkhazia  Artsakh  Northern Cyprus  Palestine  South Ossetia  Taiwan
Languages	List of languages
Time zones	UTC+02:00 to UTC+12:00
Internet TLD	.asia
Largest cities	List of metropolitan areas Lists of cities
UN M49 code	142 – Asia 001 – World

Asia (, ) is the largest continent^[b][10][11] in the world by both land area and population.^[11] It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometers,^[c] about 30% of Earth’s total land area and 8% of Earth’s total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population,^[12] was the site of many of the first civilizations. Its 4.7 billion people^[13] constitute roughly 60% of the world’s population, having more people than all other continents combined.^[14]

Asia shares the landmass of Eurasia with Europe and Afro-Eurasia with both Europe and Africa. In general terms, 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. The border of Asia with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. It is somewhat arbitrary and has moved since its first conception in classical antiquity. The division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East–West cultural, linguistic, and ethnic differences, some of which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. A commonly accepted division places Asia to the east of the Suez Canal separating it from Africa; and to the east of the Turkish Straits, the Ural Mountains and Ural River, and to the south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black seas, separating it from Europe.^[15]

China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1,800 CE. China was a major economic power and attracted many to the east,^[16][17][18] and for many the legendary wealth and prosperity of the ancient culture of India personified Asia,^[19] attracting European commerce, exploration and colonialism. The accidental discovery of a trans-Atlantic route from Europe to America by Columbus while in search for a route to India demonstrates this deep fascination. The Silk Road became the main east–west trading route in the Asian hinterlands while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism (particularly East Asia) as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, but overall population growth has since fallen.^[20] Asia was the birthplace of most of the world’s mainstream religions including Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, as well as many other religions.

Given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography.^{[citation needed]} Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. It also has a mix of many different climates ranging from the equatorial south via the hot desert in the Middle East, temperate areas in the east and the continental centre to vast subarctic and polar areas in Siberia.

Definition and boundaries

Asia–Africa boundary

The boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal.^[21] This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa.

Asia–Europe boundary

The threefold division of the Old World into Europe, Asia and Africa has been in use since the 6th century BCE, due to Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus.^{[citation needed]} Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni river) in Georgia of Caucasus (from its mouth by Poti on the Black Sea coast, through the Surami Pass and along the Kura River to the Caspian Sea), a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE.^[22] During the Hellenistic period,^[23] this convention was revised, and the boundary between Europe and Asia was now considered to be the Tanais (the modern Don River). This is the convention used by Roman era authors such as Posidonius,^[24] Strabo^[25] and Ptolemy.^[26]

The border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics.^[27] The Don River became unsatisfactory to northern Europeans when Peter the Great, king of the Tsardom of Russia, defeating rival claims of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to the eastern lands, and armed resistance by the tribes of Siberia, synthesized a new Russian Empire extending to the Ural Mountains and beyond, founded in 1721.^{[citation needed]}

In Sweden, five years after Peter’s death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Ural Mountains as the border of Asia. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg. The latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century. The border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects.^[28] The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, although it is sometimes placed further north.^[27]

Asia–Oceania boundary

The border between Asia and the region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Indonesia Archipelago. The Maluku Islands are often considered to lie on the border of southeast Asia, with Indonesian New Guinea, to the east of the islands, being wholly part of Oceania. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several vastly different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Indonesian Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the colonial possessions of the various empires there (not all European). Lewis and Wigen assert, «The narrowing of ‘Southeast Asia’ to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process.»^[29]

Asia–North America boundary

The Bering Strait and Bering Sea separate the landmasses of Asia and North America, as well as forming the international boundary between Russia and the United States. This national and continental boundary separates the Diomede Islands in the Bering Strait, with Big Diomede in Russia and Little Diomede in the United States. The Aleutian Islands are an island chain extending westward from the Alaskan Peninsula toward Russia’s Komandorski Islands and Kamchatka Peninsula. Most of them are always associated with North America, except for the westernmost Near Islands group, which is on Asia’s continental shelf beyond the North Aleutians Basin and on rare occasions could be associated with Asia, which could then allow the U.S. state of Alaska as well as the United States itself to be considered a transcontinental state. The Aleutian Islands are sometimes associated with Oceania, owing to their status as remote Pacific islands, and their proximity to the Pacific Plate.^[30][31][32] This is extremely rare however, due to their non-tropical biogeography, as well as their inhabitants, who have historically been related to Indigenous Americans.^[33][34]

St. Lawrence Island in the northern Bering Sea belongs to Alaska and may be associated with either continent but is almost always considered part of North America, as with the Rat Islands in the Aleutian chain. At their nearest points, Alaska and Russia are separated by only 4 kilometres (2.5 miles).

Ongoing definition

Geographical Asia is a cultural artifact of European conceptions of the world, beginning with the Ancient Greeks, being imposed onto other cultures, an imprecise concept causing endemic contention about what it means. Asia does not exactly correspond to the cultural borders of its various types of constituents.^[35]

From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system (Europe, Africa, Asia) on the grounds that there is no substantial physical separation between them.^[36] 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».^[37]

Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of Eurasia with Europe being a northwestern peninsula of the landmass. Asia, Europe and Africa make up a single continuous landmass—Afro-Eurasia (except for the Suez Canal)—and share a common continental shelf. Almost all of Europe and a major part 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 Chersky Range) on the North American Plate.

Etymology

The term «Asia» is believed to originate in the Bronze Age placename Assuwa (Hittite: 𒀸𒋗𒉿, romanized: aš-šu-wa) which originally referred only to a portion of northwestern Anatolia. The term appears in Hittite records recounting how a confederation of Assuwan states including Troy unsuccessfully rebelled against the Hittite king Tudhaliya I around 1400 BCE.^[38][39][40] Roughly contemporary Linear B documents contain the term asiwia (Mycenaean Greek: 𐀀𐀯𐀹𐀊, romanized: a-si-wi-ja), seemingly in reference to captives from the same area.^[41][42]

Herodotus used the term Ἀσία in reference to Anatolia and the territory of the Persian Empire, in contrast to Greece and Egypt. He reports that Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of Prometheus, but that Lydians say it was named after Asies, son of Cotys, who passed the name on to a tribe at Sardis.^[43] In Greek mythology, «Asia» (Ἀσία) or «Asie» (Ἀσίη) was the name of a «Nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia».^[44] The Iliad (attributed by the ancient Greeks to Homer) mentions two Phrygians in the Trojan War named Asios (an adjective meaning «Asian»);^[45] and also a marsh or lowland containing a marsh in Lydia as ασιος.^[46] According to many Muslims, the term came from Ancient Egypt’s Queen Asiya, the adoptive mother of Moses.^[47]

The term was later adopted by the Romans, who used it in reference to the province of Asia, located in western Anatolia.^[48] One of the first writers to use Asia as a name of the whole continent was Pliny.^[49]

History

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 Yellow River 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.

The Islamic Caliphate’s defeats of the Byzantine and Persian empires led to West Asia and southern parts of Central Asia and western parts of South Asia under its control during its conquests of the 7th century. The Mongol Empire conquered a large part of Asia in the 13th century, an area extending from China to Europe. Before the Mongol invasion, Song dynasty reportedly had approximately 120 million citizens; the 1300 census which followed the invasion reported roughly 60 million people.^[51]

The Black Death, one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road.^[52]

The Russian Empire began to expand into Asia from the 17th century, and would eventually take control of all of Siberia and most of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire controlled Anatolia, most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the mid 16th century onwards. In the 17th century, the Manchu conquered China and established the Qing dynasty. The Islamic Mughal Empire and the Hindu Maratha Empire controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively.^[53] The Empire of Japan controlled most of East Asia and much of Southeast Asia, New Guinea and the Pacific islands until the end of World War II.

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  Map of western, southern, and central Asia in 1885^[54]

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  The map of Asia in 1796, which also included the continent of Australia (then known as New Holland).

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  1890 map of Asia

Geography

Asia is the largest continent on Earth. It covers 9% of the Earth’s total surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has the longest coastline, at 62,800 kilometres (39,022 mi). Asia is generally defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma–Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas.^[15][55] 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. Asia is subdivided into 49 countries, five of them (Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey) are transcontinental countries lying partly in Europe. Geographically, Russia is partly in Asia, but is considered a European nation, both culturally and politically.

The Gobi Desert is in Mongolia and the Arabian Desert stretches across much of the Middle East. The Yangtze River in China is the longest river in the continent. The Himalayas between Nepal and China is the tallest mountain range in the world. Tropical rainforests stretch across much of southern Asia and coniferous and deciduous forests lie farther north.

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Main regions

There are various approaches to the regional division of Asia. The following subdivision into regions is used, among others, by the UN statistics agency UNSD. This division of Asia into regions by the United Nations is done solely for statistical reasons and does not imply any assumption about political or other affiliations of countries and territories.^[56]

• North Asia (Siberia)^[d]
• Central Asia (The ‘stans)
• Western Asia (The Middle East or Near East and the Caucasus)
• South Asia (Indian subcontinent)
• East Asia (Far East)
• Southeast Asia (East Indies and Indochina)

Climate

Asia has extremely diverse climate features. Climates range from arctic and subarctic in Siberia to tropical in southern India and Southeast Asia. It is moist across southeast sections, and dry across much of the interior. Some of the largest daily temperature ranges on Earth occur in western sections of Asia. The monsoon circulation dominates across southern and eastern sections, due to the presence of the Himalayas forcing the formation of a thermal low which draws in moisture during the summer. Southwestern sections of the continent are hot. Siberia is one of the coldest places in the Northern Hemisphere, and can act as a source of arctic air masses for North America. The most active place on Earth for tropical cyclone activity lies northeast of the Philippines and south of Japan.

Climate change

Climate change is having major impacts on many countries in the continent.
A survey carried out in 2010 by global risk analysis farm Maplecroft identified 16 countries that are extremely vulnerable to climate change. Each nation’s vulnerability was calculated using 42 socio, economic and environmental indicators, which identified the likely climate change impacts during the next 30 years. The Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, China and Sri Lanka were among the 16 countries facing extreme risk from climate change.^[58][59][60] Some shifts are already occurring. For example, in tropical parts of India with a semi-arid climate, the temperature increased by 0.4 °C between 1901 and 2003.
A 2013 study by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) aimed to find science-based, pro-poor approaches and techniques that would enable Asia’s agricultural systems to cope with climate change, while benefitting poor and vulnerable farmers. The study’s recommendations ranged from improving the use of climate information in local planning and strengthening weather-based agro-advisory services, to stimulating diversification of rural household incomes and providing incentives to farmers to adopt natural resource conservation measures to enhance forest cover, replenish groundwater and use renewable energy.^[61]

The ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam – are among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the world, however, ASEAN’s climate mitigation efforts are not commensurate with the climate threats and risks it faces.^[62]

Economy

Asia has the largest continental economy by both GDP Nominal and PPP in the world, and is the fastest growing economic region.^[63] As of 2018, the largest economies in Asia are China, Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia and Turkey based on GDP in both nominal and PPP.^[64] Based on Global Office Locations 2011, Asia dominated the office locations with 4 of the top 5 being in Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul. Around 68 percent of international firms have an office in Hong Kong.^[65]

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economies of China^[66] and India grew rapidly, both with an average annual growth rate of more than 8%. Other recent very-high-growth nations in Asia include Israel, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, and mineral-rich nations such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Brunei, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman.

According to economic historian Angus Maddison in his book The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, India had the world’s largest economy during 0 BCE and 1000 BCE. Historically, India was the largest economy in the world for most of the two millennia from the 1st until 19th century, contributing 25% of the world’s industrial output.^{[67][68][69][70]} China was the largest and most advanced economy on earth for much of recorded history and shared the mantle with India.^[71][72][73] For several decades in the late twentieth century Japan was 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 1990 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). This ended in 2010 when China overtook Japan to become the world’s second largest economy.

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.^{[citation needed]} In 1995, Japan’s economy nearly equaled that of the US as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 yen/US$. 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.^[74]

It is forecasted that India will overtake Japan in terms of nominal GDP by 2025.^[75] By 2027, according to Goldman Sachs, China will have the largest economy in the world. Several trade blocs exist, with the most developed being the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

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 in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Singapore. Japan and South Korea continue to dominate in the area of multinational corporations, but increasingly the PRC 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.

According to Citigroup 9 of 11 Global Growth Generators countries came from Asia driven by population and income growth. They are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.^[76] Asia has three main financial centers: Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. Call centers and business process outsourcing (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India 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 centers. Due to its large and extremely competitive information technology industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.

Trade between Asian countries and countries on other continents is largely carried out on the sea routes that are important for Asia. Individual main routes have emerged from this. The main route leads from the Chinese coast south via Hanoi to Jakarta, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur through the Strait of Malacca via the Sri Lankan Colombo to the southern tip of India via Malé to East Africa Mombasa, from there to Djibouti, then through the Red Sea over the Suez Canal into Mediterranean, there via Haifa, Istanbul and Athens to the upper Adriatic to the northern Italian hub of Trieste with its rail connections to Central and Eastern Europe or further to Barcelona and around Spain and France to the European northern ports. A far smaller part of the goods traffic runs via South Africa to Europe. A particularly significant part of the Asian goods traffic is carried out across the Pacific towards Los Angeles and Long Beach. In contrast to the sea routes, the Silk Road via the land route to Europe is on the one hand still under construction and on the other hand is much smaller in terms of scope. Intra-Asian trade, including sea trade, is growing rapidly.^{[77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84]}

In 2010, Asia had 3.3 million millionaires (people with net worth over US$1 million excluding their homes), slightly below North America with 3.4 million millionaires. Last year Asia had toppled Europe.^[85]
Citigroup in The Wealth Report 2012 stated that Asian centa-millionaire overtook North America’s wealth for the first time as the world’s «economic center of gravity» continued moving east. At the end of 2011, there were 18,000 Asian people mainly in Southeast Asia, China and Japan who have at least $100 million in disposable assets, while North America with 17,000 people and Western Europe with 14,000 people.^[86]

Rank	Country	GDP (nominal, Peak Year) millions of USD	Peak Year
1	China	19,373,586	2023
2	Japan	6,272,362	2012
3	India	3,736,882	2023
4	Russia	2,288,428	2013
5	South Korea	1,810,966	2021
6	Indonesia	1,391,778	2023
7	Saudi Arabia	1,108,149	2022
8	Turkey	1,029,303	2023
9	Taiwan	790,728	2023
10	Iran	625,430	2011

Rank	Country	GDP (PPP, Peak Year) millions of USD	Peak Year
1	China	33,014,998	2023
2	India	13,033,443	2023
3	Japan	6,456,527	2023
4	Russia	4,988,829	2023
5	Indonesia	4,398,729	2023
6	Turkey	3,572,551	2023
7	South Korea	2,924,038	2023
8	Saudi Arabia	2,300,967	2023
9	Egypt	1,803,584	2023
10	Taiwan	1,710,399	2023

Tourism

With growing Regional Tourism with domination of Chinese visitors, MasterCard has released Global Destination Cities Index 2013 with 10 of 20 are dominated by Asia and Pacific Region Cities and also for the first time a city of a country from Asia (Bangkok) set in the top-ranked with 15.98 million international visitors.^[87]

Demographics

Historical populations

Year	Pop.	±% p.a.
1500	243,000,000	—
1700	436,000,000	+0.29%
1900	947,000,000	+0.39%
1950	1,402,000,000	+0.79%
1999	3,634,000,000	+1.96%
2016	4,462,676,731	+1.22%
Source: «UN report 2004 data» (PDF). The figure for 2021 is provided by the 2022 revision of the World Population Prospects[2][3].

East Asia had by far the strongest overall Human Development Index (HDI) improvement of any region in the world, nearly doubling average HDI attainment over the past 40 years, according to the report’s analysis of health, education and income data. China, the second highest achiever in the world in terms of HDI improvement since
1970, is the only country on the «Top 10 Movers» list due to income rather than health or education achievements. Its per capita income increased a stunning 21-fold over the last four decades, also lifting hundreds of millions out of income poverty. Yet it was not among the region’s top performers in improving school enrollment and life expectancy.^[88]

Nepal, a South Asian country, emerges as one of the world’s fastest movers since 1970 mainly due to health and education achievements. Its present life expectancy is 25 years longer than in the 1970s. More than four of every five children of school age in Nepal now attend primary school, compared to just one in five 40 years ago.^[88]

Hong Kong ranked highest among the countries grouped on the HDI (number 7 in the world, which is in the «very high human development» category), followed by Singapore (9), Japan (19) and South Korea (22). Afghanistan (155) ranked lowest amongst Asian countries out of the 169 countries assessed.^[88]

Languages

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 700 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 400 languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces.

Religions

Many of the world’s major religions have their origins in Asia, including the five most practiced in the world (excluding irreligion), which are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Chinese folk religion (classified as Confucianism and Taoism), and Buddhism respectively. Asian mythology is complex and diverse. The story of the Great Flood for example, as presented to Jews in the Hebrew Bible in the narrative of Noah—and later to Christians in the Old Testament, and to Muslims in the Quran—is earliest found in Mesopotamian mythology, in the Enûma Eliš and Epic of Gilgamesh. Hindu mythology similarly tells about an avatar of Vishnu in the form of a fish who warned Manu of a terrible flood. Ancient Chinese mythology also tells of a Great Flood spanning generations, one that required the combined efforts of emperors and divinities to control.

Abrahamic

The Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druze faith,^[89] and Baháʼí Faith originated in West Asia.^[90][91]

Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in Israel, the indigenous homeland and historical birthplace of the Hebrew nation: which today consists both of those Jews who remained in the Middle East and those who returned from diaspora in Europe, North America, and other regions;^[92] though various diaspora communities persist worldwide. Jews are the predominant ethnic group in Israel (75.6%) numbering at about 6.1 million,^[93] although the levels of adherence to Jewish religion vary. Outside of Israel there are small ancient Jewish communities in Turkey (17,400),^[94] Azerbaijan (9,100),^[95] Iran (8,756),^[96] India (5,000) and Uzbekistan (4,000),^[97] among many other places. In total, there are 14.4–17.5 million (2016, est.)^[98] Jews alive in the world today, making them one of the smallest Asian minorities, at roughly 0.3 to 0.4 percent of the total population of the continent.

Christianity is a widespread religion in Asia with more than 286 million adherents according to Pew Research Center in 2010,^[99] and nearly 364 million according to Britannica Book of the Year 2014.^[100] Constituting around 12.6% of the total population of Asia. In the Philippines and East Timor, Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion;^[101] it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In Armenia and Georgia, Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion.^[101] In the Middle East, such as in the Levant, Anatolia and Fars, Syriac Christianity (Church of the East) and Oriental Orthodoxy are prevalent minority denominations,^[102] which are both Eastern Christian sects mainly adhered to Assyrian people or Syriac Christians. Vibrant indigenous minorities in Western Asia are adhering to the Eastern Catholic Churches and Eastern Orthodoxy.^[101] Saint Thomas Christians in India trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century.^[103] Significant Christian communities also found in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia.^[101]

Islam, which originated in the Hejaz located in modern-day Saudi Arabia, is the second largest and most widely-spread religion in Asia with at least 1 billion Muslims constituting around 23.8% of the total population of Asia.^[104] With 12.7% of the world Muslim population, the country currently with the largest Muslim population in the world is Indonesia, followed by Pakistan (11.5%), India (10%), Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey. Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are the three holiest cities for Islam in all the world. The Hajj and Umrah attract large numbers of Muslim devotees from all over the world to Mecca and Medina. Iran is the largest Shi’a country.

The Druze Faith or Druzism originated in Western Asia, is a monotheistic religion based on the teachings of figures like Hamza ibn-‘Ali ibn-Ahmad and Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, and Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. The number of Druze people worldwide is around one million, with about 45% to 50% live in Syria, 35% to 40% live in Lebanon, and less than 10% live in Israel, with recently there has been a growing Druze diaspora.^[105]

The Baháʼí Faith originated in Asia, in Iran (Persia), and spread from there to the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, India, and Burma during the lifetime of Bahá’u’lláh. Since the middle of the 20th century, growth has particularly occurred in other Asian countries, because Baháʼí activities in many Muslim countries has been severely suppressed by authorities. Lotus Temple is a big Baháʼí Temple in India.

Indian and East Asian religions

Almost all Asian religions have philosophical character and 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 the material world. 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.

As of 2012, Hinduism has around 1.1 billion adherents. The faith represents around 25% of Asia’s population and is the largest religion in Asia. However, it is mostly concentrated in South Asia. Over 80% of the populations of both India and Nepal adhere to Hinduism, alongside significant communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bali, Indonesia. Many overseas Indians in countries such as Burma, Singapore and Malaysia also adhere to Hinduism.

Buddhism has a great following in mainland Southeast Asia and East Asia. Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the populations of Cambodia (96%),^[107] Thailand (95%),^[108] Burma (80–89%),^[109] Japan (36–96%),^[110] Bhutan (75–84%),^[111] Sri Lanka (70%),^[112] Laos (60–67%)^[113] and Mongolia (53–93%).^[114] Taiwan (35–93%),^{[115][116][117][118]} South Korea (23–50%),^[119] Malaysia (19–21%),^[120] Nepal (9–11%),^[121] Vietnam (10–75%),^[122] China (20–50%),^[123] North Korea (2–14%),^{[124][125][126]} and small communities in India and Bangladesh. The Communist-governed countries of China, Vietnam and North Korea are officially atheist, thus the number of Buddhists and other religious adherents may be under-reported.

Jainism is found mainly in India and in overseas Indian communities such as the United States and Malaysia. Sikhism is found in Northern India and amongst overseas Indian communities in other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia. Confucianism is found predominantly in Mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan and in overseas Chinese populations. Taoism is found mainly in Mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. In many Chinese communities, Taoism is easily syncretized with Mahayana Buddhism, thus exact religious statistics are difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated.

• 

• 

  Hindu festival celebrated by Singapore’s Tamil community

• 

  Buddhist Monks performing traditional Sand mandala made from coloured sand

Modern conflicts

Some of the events pivotal in the Asia territory related to the relationship with the outside world in the post-Second World War were:

• The Partition of India
• The Chinese Civil War
• The Kashmir conflict
• The Balochistan Conflict
• The Naxalite–Maoist insurgency in India
• The Korean War
• The French Indochina War
• The Vietnam War
• The Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation
• The 1959 Tibetan uprising
• The Sino-Vietnamese War
• The Bangladesh Liberation War
• The Yom Kippur War
• The Xinjiang conflict
• The Iranian Revolution
• The Soviet–Afghan War
• The Iran–Iraq War
• The Cambodian Killing Fields
• The Insurgency in Laos
• The Lebanese Civil War
• The Sri Lankan Civil War
• The 1988 Maldives coup d’état
• The Dissolution of the Soviet Union
• The Gulf War
• The Nepalese Civil War
• The Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts
• The West Papua conflict
• The First Nagorno-Karabakh War
• The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests
• The Indonesian occupation of East Timor
• The 1999 Pakistani coup d’état
• The War in Afghanistan
• The Iraq War
• The South Thailand insurgency
• The 2006 Thai coup d’état
• The Burmese Civil War
• The Saffron Revolution
• The Kurdish–Turkish conflict
• The Arab Spring
• The Israeli–Palestinian conflict
• The Arab–Israeli conflict
• The Syrian Civil War
• The Sino-Indian War
• The 2014 Thai coup d’état
• The Moro conflict in the Philippines
• The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
• The Turkish invasion of Syria
• The Rohingya crisis in Myanmar
• The Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
• The Hong Kong protests
• The 2020 China–India skirmishes

Culture

The culture of Asia is a diverse blend of customs and traditions that have been practiced by the various ethnic groups of the continent for centuries. The continent is divided into six geographic sub-regions: Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and West Asia.^[127] These regions are defined by their cultural similarities, including common religions, languages, and ethnicities. West Asia, also known as Southwest Asia or the Middle East, has cultural roots in the ancient civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and Mesopotamia, which gave rise to the Persian, Arab, Ottoman empires, as well as the Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Islam.^[128] These civilizations, which are located in the Hilly flanks, are among the oldest in the world, with evidence of farming dating back to around 9000 BCE.^[129] Despite the challenges posed by the vast size of the continent and the presence of natural barriers such as deserts and mountain ranges, trade and commerce have helped to create a Pan-Asian culture that is shared across the region.^[130]

Nobel prizes

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.

Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prize for literature include Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1968), Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994), Gao Xingjian (China, 2000), Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 2006), and Mo Yan (China, 2012). Some may consider the American writer, Pearl S. Buck, an honorary Asian Nobel laureate, having spent considerable time in China as the daughter of missionaries, and based many of her novels, namely The Good Earth (1931) and The Mother (1933), as well as the biographies of her parents for their time in China, The Exile and Fighting Angel, all of which earned her the Literature prize in 1938.

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. Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for «his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China» on 8 October 2010. He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. In 2014, Kailash Satyarthi from India and Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize «for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education».

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».

Japan has won the most Nobel Prizes of any Asian nation with 24 followed by India which has won 13.

Amartya Sen, (born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society’s poorest members.

Other Asian Nobel Prize winners include Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Abdus Salam, Malala Yousafzai, Robert Aumann, Menachem Begin, Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Daniel Kahneman, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ada Yonath, Yasser Arafat, José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of Timor Leste, Kim Dae-jung, and 13 Japanese scientists. Most of the said awardees are from Japan and Israel except for Chandrasekhar and Raman (India), Abdus Salam and Malala Yousafzai, (Pakistan), Arafat (Palestinian Territories), Kim (South Korea), and Horta and Belo (Timor Leste).

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 PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University, United States. He is internationally known for the concept of micro credit which allows poor and destitute people 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 approximately eighty-four awards over his spiritual and political career.^[131] 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, Norway on 10 December 1989.

Political geography

Symbol	Flag	Name	Population[2][3] (2021)	Area (km2)	Capital
		Afghanistan	40,099,462	652,864	Kabul
		Armenia	2,790,974	29,743	Yerevan
		Azerbaijan[note 1]	10,312,992	86,600	Baku
		Bahrain	1,463,265	760	Manama
		Bangladesh	169,356,251	147,570	Dhaka
		Bhutan	777,486	38,394	Thimphu
		Brunei	445,373	5,765	Bandar Seri Begawan
		Cambodia	16,589,023	181,035	Phnom Penh
		China (PRC)	1,425,893,465	9,596,961	Beijing
		Cyprus	1,244,188	9,251	Nicosia
		East Timor	1,320,942	14,874	Dili
		Egypt[note 1]	109,262,178	1,001,449	Cairo
		Georgia[note 1]	3,757,980	69,700	Tbilisi
		India	1,407,563,842	3,287,263	New Delhi
		Indonesia[note 1]	273,753,191	1,904,569	Jakarta
		Iran	87,923,432	1,648,195	Tehran
		Iraq	43,533,592	438,317	Baghdad
		Israel	8,900,059	20,770	Jerusalem (disputed)
		Japan	124,612,530	377,915	Tokyo
		Jordan	11,148,278	89,342	Amman
		Kazakhstan[note 1]	19,196,465	2,724,900	Astana
		Kuwait	4,250,114	17,818	Kuwait City
		Kyrgyzstan	6,527,743	199,951	Bishkek
		Laos	7,425,057	236,800	Vientiane
		Lebanon	5,592,631	10,400	Beirut
		Malaysia	33,573,874	329,847	Kuala Lumpur
		Maldives	521,457	298	Malé
		Mongolia	3,347,782	1,564,116	Ulaanbaatar
		Myanmar	53,798,084	676,578	Naypyidaw
		Nepal	30,034,989	147,181	Kathmandu
		North Korea	25,971,909	120,538	Pyongyang
		Oman	4,520,471	309,500	Muscat
		Pakistan	211,103,000	881,913	Islamabad
		Palestine	5,133,392	6,220	Jerusalem (proclaimed) Ramallah (adm. center)
		Philippines	113,880,328	343,448	Manila
		Qatar	2,688,235	11,586	Doha
		Russia[note 2]	145,102,755	17,098,242	Moscow[note 3]
		Saudi Arabia	35,950,396	2,149,690	Riyadh
		Singapore	5,941,060	697	Singapore
		South Korea	51,830,139	100,210	Seoul
		Sri Lanka	21,773,441	65,610	Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte
		Syria	21,324,367	185,180	Damascus
		Taiwan	23,859,912	36,193	Taipei
		Tajikistan	9,750,064	143,100	Dushanbe
		Thailand	71,601,103	513,120	Bangkok
		Turkey[note 4]	84,775,404	783,562	Ankara
		Turkmenistan	6,341,855	488,100	Ashgabat
		United Arab Emirates	9,365,145	83,600	Abu Dhabi
		Uzbekistan	34,081,449	447,400	Tashkent
		Vietnam	97,468,029	331,212	Hanoi
		Yemen	32,981,641	527,968	Sana’a (const.; SPC control) Aden (prv. capital of PLC)

Within the above-mentioned states are several partially recognized countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN:

Symbol	Flag	Name	Population	Area (km2)	Capital
		Abkhazia	242,862	8,660	Sukhumi
		Artsakh	146,573	11,458	Stepanakert
		Northern Cyprus	326,000	3,355	North Nicosia
		South Ossetia	51,547	3,900	Tskhinvali

See also

References to articles:

• Subregions of Asia

Special topics:

• Asian Century
• Asian cuisine
• Asian furniture
• Asian Games
• Asia-Pacific
• Asian Para Games
• Asian Monetary Unit
• Asian people
• Eastern world
• Eurasia
• Far East
• East Asia
• Southeast Asia
• South Asia
• Central Asia
• Western Asia
• North Asia
• Fauna of Asia
• Flags of Asia
• Middle East
  • Eastern Mediterranean
  • Levant
  • Near East
• Pan-Asianism

Lists:

• List of cities in Asia
• List of metropolitan areas in Asia by population
• List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Asia

Projects

• Asian Highway Network
• Trans-Asian Railway

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Lewis, Martin W.; Wigen, Kären (1997). The myth of continents: a critique of metageography. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20743-1.
• Ventris, Michael; Chadwick, John (1973). Documents in Mycenaean Greek (2nd ed.). Cambridge: University Press.

Further reading

• Embree, Ainslie T., ed. Encyclopedia of Asian history (1988)
  • vol. 1 online; vol 2 online; vol 3 online; vol 4 online
• Higham, Charles. Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations. Facts on File library of world history. New York: Facts On File, 2004.
• Kamal, Niraj. «Arise Asia: Respond to White Peril». New Delhi: Wordsmith, 2002, ISBN 978-81-87412-08-3
• Kapadia, Feroz, and Mandira Mukherjee. Encyclopaedia of Asian Culture and Society. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1999.
• Levinson, David, and Karen Christensen, eds. Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. (6 vol. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2002).

External links

• Asia web resources provided by GovPubs at the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries
• Asia at the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Asia: Human Geography at the National Geographic Society
• Asia at Curlie
• Asian Reading Room from the United States Library of Congress
• «Asia» . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 320–358.
• «Display Maps». The Soil Maps of Asia. European Digital Archive of Soil Maps – EuDASM. Archived from the original on 12 August 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
• «Asia Maps». Perry–Castañeda Library Map Collection. University of Texas Libraries. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2011.
• «Asia». Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library. Archived from the original on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
• Bowring, Philip (12 February 1987). «What is Asia?». Eastern Economic Review. 135 (7). Archived from the original on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 22 April 2009.

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English Asia, Asie, from Old French Asie and Latin Asia, from Ancient Greek Ᾰ̓σῐ́ᾱ (Asíā), from Mycenaean Greek 𐀀𐀯𐀹𐀊 (a-si-wi-ja /aswijaː/), in turn probably from Hittite 𒀸𒋗𒉿 (aš-šu-wa /Aššuwa/, “northwest Anatolia”) of uncertain origin. Potentially from a Aegean language family substrate or Akkadian. Possibly a doublet of Assuwa.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈeɪ.ʒə/, /ˈeɪ.ʃə/
• (Indian English) IPA^(key): /ˈeː.ʃja/, /ˈeɪ.ʃja/
• Rhymes: -eɪʒə, -eɪʃə

Proper noun[edit]

Asia

2. A continent located east of Europe (typically delimited by the Urals), west of the Pacific Ocean, north of Oceania and south of the Arctic Ocean.
3. (Greek mythology) A daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, the wife of the Titan, Iapetus, and mother of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menoetius.
4. (astronomy) 67 Asia, a main belt asteroid.
5. A female given name transferred from the place name, of modern usage.

   • 1994, Blake Nelson, Girl: A Novel, Simon&Schuster, →ISBN, page 81:

     And Scott Haskell started going out with this sophomore girl called Asia, who was this rich girl from Weston Heights.

6. An ancient province of the Roman Empire, in modern western Turkey.

Synonyms[edit]

• (continent) Asia Major; Chinkland (chiefly US, racist, offensive, inexact)
• (Roman province) Phrygia, Roman Asia

Meronyms[edit]

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

Holonyms[edit]

• (continent): Eurasia, Afro-Eurasia, Earth

[edit]

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

• (continents) continent; Africa, America (North America, South America), Antarctica, Asia, Europe, Oceania ^{(Category: en:Continents)}

Anagrams[edit]

• AIAs, IaaS, Saia, aias

Asturian[edit]

Proper noun[edit]

Asia f

1. Asia (a continent)

Corsican[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin Asia, from Ancient Greek Ἀσία (Asía). Compare Italian Asia and Spanish Asia.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈazja/

Proper noun[edit]

Asia f

1. Asia (a continent)

Galician[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Proper noun[edit]

Asia f

1. Asia (a continent)

[edit]

• asiático

See also[edit]

• (continents) continente; África, América (Norteamérica/América do Norte, Suramérica/América do Sur), Antártida, Asia, Europa, Oceanía ^{(Category: gl:Continents)}

German[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from Latin Āsia.

Proper noun[edit]

Asia n (proper noun, strong, genitive Asias or Asia)

1. (historical) Asia (province of the Roman Empire, in the western part of modern-day Turkey, later called Phrygia in the Byzantine era)

[edit]

• Asien

Indonesian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Malay Asija, from Dutch Azië, ultimately from Latin Asia, from Ancient Greek Ᾰ̓σῐ́ᾱ (Asíā).

Proper noun[edit]

Asia

1. Asia (a continent)

See also[edit]

• (continents) benua-benua; Afrika, Amerika (Amerika Utara, Amerika Selatan), Antarktika, Asia, Eropa, Oseania ^{(Category: id:Continents)}

Further reading[edit]

• “Asia” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Language Development and Fostering Agency — Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic Indonesia, 2016.
• Morel, Casparus Johannus (1875), “Asia”, in Nieuw Laagmaleisch-Nederlandsch woordenbooekje: bevattende de meest in gebruik zijnde woorden en spraakwendingen, ten dienste van hen, die zich op de beoefening van het Laagmaleisch, en der Maleisch-sprekenden, die zich op het Nederlandsch willen toeleggen, H. M. van Dorp

Italian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin Ā̆sia, from Ancient Greek Ᾰ̓σῐ́ᾱ (Asíā).

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈa.zja/
• Rhymes: -azja
• Hyphenation: À‧sia

Proper noun[edit]

Asia f

1. Asia (a continent)

   • 1348, Giovanni Villani, “Libro primo [First book]”, in Nuova Cronica [New Chronicle]‎^[1], published 1991, III Come si dipartì il mondo in tre parti, e della prima detta Asia.:

     La prima e maggiore parte si chiamò Asia, la quale contiene quasi la metade e più di tutta la terra abitata

     The first and largest part [of the world] was named Asia, which comprises nearly more than a half of all inhabited land

2. a female given name

Derived terms[edit]

• Asia Minore
• asiatico

See also[edit]

• (continents) continente; Africa, America (America meridionale, America settentrionale), Antartide, Asia, Europa, Oceania ^{(Category: it:Continents)}

Anagrams[edit]

• saia

Latin[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Ancient Greek Ᾰ̓σῐ́ᾱ (Asíā).

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈaː.si.a/, [ˈäːs̠iä] or IPA^(key): /ˈa.si.a/, [ˈäs̠iä]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈa.si.a/, [ˈäːs̬iä]

Proper noun[edit]

Ā̆sia f sg (genitive Ā̆siae); first declension

1. Asia (a continent)
2. Asia (Roman province)

Declension[edit]

First-declension noun, singular only.

Case	Singular
Nominative	Ā̆sia
Genitive	Ā̆siae
Dative	Ā̆siae
Accusative	Ā̆siam
Ablative	Ā̆siā
Vocative	Ā̆sia

[edit]

• āsiānus
• āsiāticus
• āsius

Descendants[edit]

• → Middle English: Asia, Asie (also via Old French)
  • English: Asia
• Old French: Asie
  • French: Asie

References[edit]

• Asia in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Asia in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

Proper noun[edit]

Asia

1. Asia (a continent)

Derived terms[edit]

• Sørøst-Asia

See also[edit]

• Template:list:continents/nb

Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]

Proper noun[edit]

Asia

1. Asia (a continent)

Derived terms[edit]

• Søraust-Asia, Sudaust-Asia

See also[edit]

• (continents) verdsdelar; Afrika, Amerika, Antarktis, Asia, Europa, Nord-Amerika, Oseania, Sør-Amerika/Sud-Amerika ^{(Category: nn:Continents)}

Occitan[edit]

Proper noun[edit]

Asia f

1. Asia (a continent)

[edit]

• asiatic

Polish[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈa.ɕa/
• Rhymes: -aɕa
• Syllabification: A‧sia

Proper noun[edit]

Asia f

1. a diminutive of the female given name Joanna

Declension[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Asia in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese[edit]

Proper noun[edit]

Asia f

1. Obsolete spelling of Ásia

Romanian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Ἀσία (Asía).

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): [ˈa.si.a]

Proper noun[edit]

Asia f

1. Asia (a continent)

Declension[edit]

See also[edit]

• (continents) continent; Africa, America (America de Nord, America de Sud), Antarctica, Asia, Europa, Oceania ^{(Category: ro:Continents)}

Romansch[edit]

Proper noun[edit]

Asia f

1. Asia (a continent)

Spanish[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈasja/ [ˈa.sja]
• Rhymes: -asja
• Syllabification: A‧sia
• Homophone: (Latin America) hacia

Proper noun[edit]

Asia f

1. Asia (a continent)

Derived terms[edit]

[edit]

See also[edit]

• (continents) continente; África, América (Norteamérica/América del Norte, Sudamérica/Suramérica/América del Sur), Antártida, Asia, Europa, Oceanía ^{(Category: es:Continents)}

Swahili[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Proper noun[edit]

Asia

1. Asia (a continent)

See also[edit]

• (continents) mabara; Afrika (“Africa”), Amerika (“America”), Antaktika (“Antarctica”) or Antaktiki, Asia (“Asia”), Ulaya (“Europe”) or Uropa, Amerika ya Kaskazini (“North America”), Australia (“Oceania”), Amerika ya Kusini (“South America”) ^{(Category: sw:Continents) [edit]}