[15 FACTS ABOUT ASIA] July 13, 2010

15 FACTS ABOUT ASIA

By Marie Sachie Mitsui P. Turiano

1. THE WORD ASIA

 as a word is of Greek origin, and its meaning is "sunrise". It was also said to have been derived
from Assyrian"asu" meaning "east".

2. POPULATION
 Asia has a population of over 4 billion people or better than 60% of the world’s population. This
many people standing side by side holding hands would reach around the world at the equator
more than 100 times.
 2010 Population 3,879,000,000 based on 2010 Worldatlas.
 More than half of Asia’s population is in two countries in Asia – China (1.3 billion) and India (1.1
billion). India is guess-estimated to take over China in about 20 years or so.

3. LAND AREA
 Asia is the largest of the seven continents with a total land area of 44, 936,000 sq km, which is
1/3 of the world’s total land area and much larger than the land area of the moon having only
38,000, 000 sq km of total land area.
  Asia is 5,300 miles wide

4. BOUNDARIES
 Asia’s boundaries extend from the Suez Canal and Ural Mountains in the west, to the south of
the Caucasus Mountains and Caspian and Black Seas. Also to the South is the Indian Ocean, to
the North the Arctic Ocean and to the Far East the Pacific Ocean.
 Asia's border with Europe—which, geographically, may be regarded as a peninsula of the
Eurasian landmass—lies approximately along the Urals, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the
Caucasus, the Black Sea, the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, and the Aegean Sea. The
connection of Asia with Africa is broken only by the Suez Canal between the Mediterranean Sea
and the Red Sea. In the far northeast of Asia, Siberia is separated from North America by the
Bering Strait. The continent of Asia is washed on the S by the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, and
the Bay of Bengal; on the E by the South China Sea, East China Sea, Yellow Sea, Sea of Japan, Sea
of Okhotsk, and Bering Sea; and on the N by the Arctic Ocean.

5. GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS
 Central Asia – Kazakhstan Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
 East Asia – China, Japan, Mongolia, Taiwan, North and South Korea.
 North Asia – Russia.
 South Asia – India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.
 Southeast Asia – Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar [Burma],
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
 Southwest Asia – The Middle East including Turkey, Iran, Cyprus, Israel, and Lebanon.

by Marie Sachie Mitsui P. Turiano | AB Economics III 1

Introduction to Asian Civilization
 [15 FACTS ABOUT ASIA] July 13, 2010

6. WESTERN MOST POINT

 Asia’s western most point is Cape Baba in Northwestern Turkey.

7. EASTERNMOST POINT
 Asia’s eastern most point is Cape Chelyuskin in Siberia.

8. HIGHEST AND LOWEST POINTS

 Asia is home to the highest (Mount Everest 8,848m) and lowest Dead Sea (-395m) points on
Earth.

9. TEN LONGEST RIVERS

 If linked end to end would reach around the world at the equator.
ASIAN RIVER LENGTH

1. Yangtze (Chang Jiang) 6,300 km – 3,915 miles

2. Yellow River (Huang He) 5,464 km – 3,395 miles

3. Lena River 4,400 km – 2,734 miles

4. Mekong River 4,350 km – 2,703 miles

5. Irtysh River 4,248 km – 2,640 miles

6. Yenisei River 4,090 km – 2,540 miles

7. Ob River 3,650 km – 2,268 miles

8. Nizhnyaya Tunguska River 2,989 km – 1,857 miles

9. Indus River 2,900 km – 1,800 miles

10. Brahmaputra River 2,900 km – 1,800 miles

10. LONGEST RIVER

 Yangtze (Chang Jiang) – 6,300 km – 3,915 miles

11. TEN TALLEST MOUNTAINS

 if stacked one on top of the other would reach into space. By contrast Mount Fuji at 3.776 is less
than half as tall as the shortest in this list.
ASIAN MOUNTAIN HEIGHT COUNTRY

1. Everest  8,848 m Nepal, Tibet

2. K2 8,611 m Pakistan-China

3. Kangchenjunga 8,586 m Nepal-Sikkim, India

4. Lhotse 8,516 m Nepal-Tibet, China

5. Makalu 8,462 m Nepal-Tibet, China

6. Cho Oyu 8,201 m Nepal-Tibet, China

7. Dhaulagiri 8,167 m Nepal

by Marie Sachie Mitsui P. Turiano | AB Economics III 2

Introduction to Asian Civilization
 [15 FACTS ABOUT ASIA] July 13, 2010

8. Manaslu 8,156 m Nepal

9. Nanga Parbat 8,125 m Pakistan

10. Annapurna 8,091 m Nepal

12. TALLEST MOUNTAIN

 Everest (8,848 m), Nepal-Tibet

13. ECONOMIC PEAKS

 Asia’s three dominant financial centers are Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.
 Three of the top four economies in the world are in Asia – China, Japan and India. They are
numbers 2, 3 and 4 respectively. However, tiny Japan has less than 1/10th of the population of
China or India. Yet Asia’s economy as a continent trails North America and Europe.

14. RELIGION
 Asia’s dominant religions are Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucian/Taoism and Islam.
 Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's
mainstream religions including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, 
Sikhism, Taoism,Zoroastranism as well as many other beliefs.

15. MARKS TO HISTORY

 Asia is home to the birth of the human species and civilization. Somewhere near where the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers meet.
 Asia was the home of some of the world's oldest civilizations. The empires of Sumer, Babylonia,
Assyria, Media, and Persia and the civilizations of Islam flourished in SW Asia, while in the east
the ancient civilizations of India, China and Japan prospered. Later, nomadic tribes (Huns,
Mongols, and Turks) in N and central Asia established great empires and gave rise to great
westward migration. Their tribal, military-state organizations reached their highest form in the
13th–14th cent. under the Mongols, whose court was visited by early European travelers,
notably the Italian Marco Polo.

by Marie Sachie Mitsui P. Turiano | AB Economics III 3

Introduction to Asian Civilization