Geographical characteristics[edit]

Boundary[edit]
Main article: Definition and boundaries of Asia
The land mass of Asia is not the sum of the land masses of each of its regions, which have been
defined independently of the whole. For example, the borders of Central Asia and the Middle
East depend on who is defining them and for what purpose. These varying definitions are not
generally reflected in the map of Asia as a whole; for example, Egypt is typically included in the
Middle East, but not in Asia, even though the Middle East is a division of Asia.
The demarcation between Asia and Africa is the isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea. The border with
Europe starts with the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, even though Turkey in the Near
East extends partly into the Aegean Islands and includes Istanbul on the European side of
the Bosphorus. On the north the boundary between the continents of Asia and Europe is commonly
regarded as running through the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, the Black Sea,
the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, the Ural River to its source, and a long border generally
following the eastern side of the Ural Mountains to the Kara Sea, Russia. The Arctic Ocean is the
northern border. The Bering Straits divide Asia from North America.
On the southeast of Asia are the Malay Peninsula (the limit of mainland Asia) and Indonesia ("Isles
of India", the former East Indies), a vast nation among thousands of islands on the Sunda Shelf,
large and small, inhabited and uninhabited. Australia nearby is a different continent. The Pacific
islands northeast of Australia more remotely removed from Japan and Korea are Oceania rather
than Asia. From Indonesia the border runs along the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. Most of the
islands in the Indian Ocean are Asian.

Overall dimensions[edit]
Multiple sources give different estimates of the area enclosed by the imaginary border of Asia.
The New York Times Atlas of the World gives 43,608,000 km2 (16,837,000 sq mi).[1] Chambers World
Gazetteer rounds off to 44,000,000 km2 (17,000,000 sq mi),[2] while the Concise Columbia
Encyclopedia gives 44,390,000 km2 (17,140,000 sq mi).[3] The 2011 Pearson's has
44,030,000 km2 (17,000,000 sq mi).[4] The methods of obtaining these figures and exactly what areas
they include have not been divulged.
The map surface of mainland Asia is entirely contained within a Geodetic quadrangle formed from
segments of latitude going through its north and south extremes and segments of longitude passing
through the east and west extremes. Cape Chelyuskin is at 77° 43′ N; Cape Piai in the Malay
Peninsula is at 1° 16′ N; Cape Baba in Turkey is at 26° 4′ E; Cape Dezhnyov is at 169° 40′ W; that is,
mainland Asia ranges through about 77° of latitude and 195° of longitude, [5] distances of about
8,560 km (5,320 mi) long by 9,600 km (6,000 mi) wide according to Chambers, or 8,700 km
(5,400 mi) long by 9,700 km (6,000 mi) wide according to Pearson's.
Indonesia to the southeast, a nation consisting of thousands of islands, adds a significant amount of
territory to mainland Asia and extends the extreme Asian latitude further south. The geographic
nature of the country raises such questions as whether the sea and the seabed count as Asia.
The Australia–Indonesia border is still being negotiated. Currently, a 1997 treaty remains unratified.
As there are questions of fishing rights in the waters and mineral rights in the seabed, two different
boundaries are being negotiated, one for the water column and one for the seabed. The
southernmost seabed boundary is 10° 50' S, the latitude of Point A3, the Australia, Indonesia and
Papua New Guinea common tripoint. The southernmost water column boundary is still further south
at Point Z88, 13° 56' 31.8".