Asia

This article is about the continent. For other uses, see Asia (disambiguation).

Asia

Area	44,579,000 km2 (17,212,000 sq mi) (1st)
Population	4,835,000,000 (2025; 1st)
Population density	approximately 110/km2 (280/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	Int$110.23 trillion (2026 est.; 1st)
GDP (nominal)	US$44.85 trillion (2026 est.; 1st)
GDP per capita	US$9,544 (2026 est.; 5th)
Religions	2022 estimates Islam (28.0%) Hinduism (22.8%) No religion (13.9%) Buddhism (11.1%) Chinese folk religion (9.7%) Christianity (8.4%) Ethnic religions (3.5%) New religions (1.3%) Other (1.3%)
Demonym	Asian
Countries	49 UN members 1 UN observer 4 other states
Dependencies	List Akrotiri and Dhekelia British Indian Ocean Territory Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Hong Kong Macau
Non-UN states	List Abkhazia Northern Cyprus Palestine South Ossetia Taiwan
Languages	List of languages
Time zone	UTC+02:00 to UTC+12:00
Internet TLD	.asia
Largest cities	List of metropolitan areas Lists of cities
UN M49 codes	142 – Asia 001 – World

Asia (/ˈeɪʒə/ ^ⓘ AY-zhə, UK also /ˈeɪʃə/ AY-shə) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, 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, was the site of many of the first civilisations. Its estimated 4.8 billion people in 2025 constituted approximately 59% of the world's population.

Asia shares the landmass of Eurasia with Europe, and of 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. 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.

Since the concept of Asia derives from the term for the eastern region from a European perspective, Asia is the remaining vast area of Eurasia minus Europe. Therefore, Asia is a region where various independent cultures coexist rather than sharing a single culture, and its boundary with Europe is somewhat arbitrary and has moved since its first conception in classical antiquity. The division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East–West cultural differences, some of which vary on a spectrum.

China and India traded places as the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 CE. 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 as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, but overall population growth has since fallen. Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's mainstream religions including Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and many other religions.

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 deserts in parts of West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia and tropical jungles in Southeast Asia, temperate areas in the east and the continental centre to vast subarctic and polar areas in North Asia.

Etymology

Ptolemy's Asia

The term "Asia" is believed to originate in the Bronze Age toponym 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. Roughly contemporary Linear B documents contain the term aswia (Mycenaean Greek: 𐀀𐀯𐀹𐀊, romanized: a-si-wi-ja), seemingly in reference to captives from the same area.

The province of Asia within the Roman Empire

Herodotus used the term in reference to Anatolia and the territory of the Achaemenid 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. In Greek mythology, "Asia" (Ἀσία or Ἀσίη) was the name of a "Nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia". The Iliad (attributed by the ancient Greeks to Homer) mentions two Phrygians in the Trojan War named Asios (literally 'Asian'); and also a marsh or lowland containing a marsh in Lydia as ασιος.

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

Definition

Further information on Asian borders: Geography of Asia § Boundary, Boundaries between the continents, List of transcontinental countries § Asia and Europe, and Copenhagen criteria

Asia–Europe boundary

Definitions used for the boundary between Asia and Europe in different periods of history. Modern definitions mostly fit with lines B and F given.

The threefold division of the Old World into Africa, Asia, and Europe has been in use since the 6th century BCE, due to Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus. Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (now the Rioni) 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. During the Hellenistic period, 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, Strabo and Ptolemy.

The border between Asia and Europe was later redefined by European academics. In 1730, five years after the death of Peter the Great, Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published in Sweden a new atlas proposing the Ural Mountains as the border of Asia. Vasily Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg. The latter had suggested the Emba River as the southern part of this 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 (the Romans' definition) to the Caspian Sea into which the Emba and Ural rivers project. Between the Black Sea and the Caspian, the border is often placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, although it is sometimes placed further north, on the Kuma–Manych Depression.

Asia–Africa boundary

The boundary between Asia and Africa is the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea, and the Bab-el-Mandeb. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai Peninsula in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa.

Asia–Oceania boundary

Definitions of the boundary between Asia and Oceania

The border between Asia and Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Indonesian Archipelago, specifically in Eastern Indonesia. The Wallace Line separates the Asian and Wallacea biogeographical realms, a transition zone of deep water straits between the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Weber's Line split the region in two with regard to the balance of fauna between Asian origin or Australo-Papuan origin. Wallacea's eastern boundary with Sahul is represented by the Lydekker's Line. The Maluku Islands (except the Aru Islands) are often considered to lie on the border of southeast Asia, with the Aru Islands and Western New Guinea, to the east of the Lydekker's Line, being wholly part of Oceania, as both lie on the Australian continental plate. Culturally, the Wallacea region denoted the transition between Austronesian and Melanesian people, with varying degrees of intermixing between the two. In general, the further west and coastal a region is, the stronger the Austronesian influences, and the further east and inland a region is, the stronger the Melanesian influences. 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."

Asia–North America boundary

See also: Northeast Asia

The United States–Russia border according to the USSR–USA Maritime Boundary Agreement

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 United States 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. This is extremely rare however, due to their non-tropical biogeography, as well as their inhabitants, who have historically been related to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

St. Lawrence Island in the northern Bering Sea belongs to the US state of 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

Afro-Eurasia

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.

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. 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".

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—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.

History

Main article: History of Asia

Prehistory

See also: Prehistoric Asia

Map of early human migrations based on the Out of Africa theory.

Early Indo-European migrations from the Pontic steppes and across Central Asia, and encounter with Ancient Northeast Asian populations.

About 1.8 million years ago, Homo erectus left the African continent. This species is believed to have lived in East and Southeast Asia from 1.8 million to 110,000 years ago."Homo erectus". The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. 3 January 2024. Retrieved 14 September 2026.

Researchers believe that the modern human, or Homo sapiens, migrated about 60,000 years ago to South Asia along the Indian Ocean. Modern humans interbred with an archaic human species called Denisovans in Southeast Asia. Before the arrival of modern humans, Flores was occupied by Homo floresiensis, a small archaic human.

Ancestors of East Eurasians split from Ancient West Eurasians about 46,000 years ago, migrating out of the hub in the Iranian Plateau. Evidence from full genomic studies suggests that the first people in the Americas diverged from Ancient East Asians about 36,000 years ago and expanded northwards into Siberia, where they encountered and interacted with a different Paleolithic Siberian population (known as Ancient North Eurasians), giving rise to both Paleosiberian peoples and Ancient Native Americans.

Modern South Asians are descendants of a combination of Western Eurasian ancestries (notably Neolithic Iranian and Western Steppe Herder components) with a proposed indigenous East Eurasian component (termed Ancient Ancestral South Indians) closest to the non–West Eurasian part extracted from South Asian samples; distantly related to the Andamanese peoples, East Asians and Aboriginal Australians.

Ancient era

See also: Sinosphere, Greater India, and Greater Iran

The Silk Road connected civilisations across Asia.

The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions: East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia. The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilisations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilisations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Yellow River shared many similarities. These civilisations 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 West Asia, 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 equestrian 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.

Medieval era

The Mongol Empire at its greatest extent. The gray area is the later Timurid Empire.

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; Islam also spread over centuries to the southern regions of India and Southeast Asia through trade along the Maritime Silk Road. 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.

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.

Modern era

See also: History of Eurasia § Modern era, and Afro-Asia § Modern era

European involvement in Asia became more significant from the Age of Discovery onward, with Iberian-sponsored sailors such as Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama paving the way for new routes from Atlantic Europe to Pacific Asia and the Indian Ocean respectively in the late 15th century. The Russian Empire also began to expand into northwestern 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.

Among non-European empires, the Ottoman Empire controlled Anatolia, most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the mid 16th century onward, while in the 17th century, the Manchu conquered China and established the Qing dynasty. The Islamic Mughal Empire (preceded by the Delhi Sultanate of the 13th to early 16th century) and the Hindu Maratha Empire controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively.

The aftermath of the 1757 Battle of Plassey, which eventually led to British India

An 1898 depiction of Western powers carving up China

A depiction of America building connections to the Pacific and its Filipino colony (left) after the 1898 Spanish–American War

Western imperialism in Asia from the 18th to 20th centuries coincided with the Industrial Revolution in the West and the dethroning of India and China as the world's foremost economies. The British Empire first became dominant in South Asia, with most of the region being conquered by British traders in the late 18th and early 19th centuries before falling under direct British rule after a failed 1857 revolt; the 1869 completion of the Suez Canal, which increased British access to India, went on to further European influence over Africa and Asia. Around this time, Western powers started to dominate China in what later became known as the century of humiliation, with the British-supported opium trade and later Opium Wars resulting in China being forced into an unprecedented situation of importing more than it exported.

Foreign domination of China was furthered by the Japanese colonial empire, which controlled some of East Asia and briefly much of Southeast Asia (which had earlier been taken over by the British, Dutch and French in the late 19th century), New Guinea and the Pacific islands; Japan's domination was enabled by its rapid rise that had taken place during the Meiji era of the late 19th century, in which it applied industrial knowledge learned from the West and thus overtook the rest of Asia. One significant influence on Japan had been the United States, which had begun projecting influence across the Pacific after its early-to-mid-19th century westward expansion. The breakup of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century led to the Middle East also being contested and partitioned by the British and French.

Asia was a major theatre of World War II. The Second Sino-Japanese War, which began in 1937, expanded into the wider Pacific War after Japan attacked American and British territories in December 1941 and occupied large parts of Southeast Asia. The conflict caused widespread destruction and civilian casualties, including mass killings during the Japanese occupation of China and other occupied territories. Japan's surrender in 1945 ended its overseas empire and helped accelerate movements against European colonial rule across Asia.

Contemporary era

The Soviet Union (in red) and China (yellow) controlled most of Asia in the late 20th century.

With the end of World War II in 1945 and the wartime ruination of Europe and imperial Japan, many countries in Asia were able to rapidly free themselves of colonial rule. The independence of India came along with the carving out of a separate nation for the majority of South Asian Muslims, which in 1971 further split into Pakistan and Bangladesh; The Cold War in Asia strained relations between India and Pakistan and affected Asia more generally. The end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union by 1991 saw the independence of the five modern Central Asian countries.

Postwar Asia was also reshaped by political revolutions and Cold War conflicts. Following the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Communist Party established the People's Republic of China in 1949, while the Republic of China government retreated to Taiwan. The Korean War (1950–1953) began when North Korea invaded South Korea, drawing in a United Nations-led force supporting the South and Chinese forces supporting the North. The war ended with an armistice that left the Korean Peninsula divided. In Southeast Asia, struggles against colonial rule and Cold War rivalries contributed to prolonged conflicts in Indochina. The Vietnam War ended in 1975 with the Fall of Saigon, followed by the formal reunification of Vietnam in 1976.

Some Arab countries took economic advantage of massive oil deposits that were discovered in their territory, becoming globally influential, though stability in the Middle East has been affected since 1948 by the Arab–Israeli conflict and American-led interventions. East Asian nations (along with Singapore in Southeast Asia) became economically prosperous with high-growth "tiger economies"; The 1997 Asian financial crisis began in July 1997 when Thailand abandoned the Thai baht's peg to the United States dollar. The crisis spread to other economies, including Indonesia and South Korea, causing severe economic contractions and prompting reforms to financial regulation and exchange-rate policies in affected countries. China, having undergone the reform and opening up under Deng Xiaoping, regained its place among the top two economies of the world by the 21st century. India has also grown significantly because of economic liberalisation that started in the 1990s, with extreme poverty now below 20%; India and China's rise has coincided with growing tensions between the two, with the Indo-Pacific now an actively contested area between China and counterbalancing forces.

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  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.
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  1825 map of Asia by Sidney Edwards Morse
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  Map of western, southern, and central Asia in 1885
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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

Main article: Geography of Asia

See also: Category:Biota of Asia

The Himalayan range is home to some of the planet's highest peaks.

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. 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.

Asia's physical landscape includes extensive plains, plateaus, deserts and mountain ranges. The West Siberian Plain occupies a large area of northern Asia, while the Tibetan Plateau is one of the world's highest and largest plateaus. The Himalayas extend across parts of Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan and China and contain Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain above sea level. The Yangtze in China is Asia's longest river; other major rivers include the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Tigris and Euphrates. Tropical rainforests stretch across much of southern Asia and coniferous and deciduous forests lie farther north. Between 1990 and 2000 the area of primary forest in Asia decreased by 1.06 million hectares per year, between 2000 and 2015 it decreased by 280 000 ha per year.

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  Siberian tundra
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  Rainforest in Borneo
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  Kerala backwaters
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  Mongolian steppe
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  South China Karst
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  Taman Negara, Peninsular Malaysia
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  Altai Mountains
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  Hunza Valley
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  Atolls of the Maldives
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  Wadi Rum in Jordan

Main regions

Detailed map of Asian regions

There are various approaches to the regional division of Asia. One geographical scheme divides the continent into six regions, including North Asia, which encompasses Siberia. The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), by contrast, uses five Asian subregions for statistical purposes: Central Asia, Eastern Asia, South-eastern Asia, Southern Asia and Western Asia. The UNSD does not recognize North Asia as a separate statistical subregion; instead, it classifies Russia, including Siberia, under Eastern Europe. The United Nations states that its regional groupings are for statistical convenience and do not imply any political or other affiliation.

The six geographical regions are:

• North Asia (Siberia)
• Central Asia
• West Asia (the Middle East or Near East and part of the Caucasus)
• South Asia (Indian subcontinent)
• East Asia (Far East)
• Southeast Asia (East Indies and Indochina)

Climate

Main article: Climate of Asia

Köppen-Geiger climate classification map for Asia

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

This section is an excerpt from Climate change in Asia.[edit]

The 2022 South Asian floods, including in Pakistan (pictured), are an example of a climate change impact.

Climate change is particularly important in Asia, as the continent accounts for the majority of the human population. Warming since the 20th century is increasing the threat of heatwaves across the entire continent. Heatwaves lead to increased mortality, and the demand for air conditioning is rapidly accelerating as the result. By 2080, around 1 billion people in the cities of South and Southeast Asia are expected to experience around a month of extreme heat every year. The impacts on water cycle are more complicated: already arid regions, primarily located in West Asia and Central Asia, will see more droughts, while areas of East, Southeast and South Asia which are already wet due to the monsoons will experience more flooding.

The waters around Asia are subjected to the same impacts as elsewhere, such as the increased warming and ocean acidification. There are many coral reefs in the region, and they are highly vulnerable to climate change, to the point practically all of them will be lost if the warming exceeds 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). Asia's distinctive mangrove ecosystems are also highly vulnerable to sea level rise. Asia also has more countries with large coastal populations than any other continent, which would cause large economic impacts from sea level rise. Water supplies in the Hindu Kush region will become more unstable as its enormous glaciers, known as the "Asian water towers", gradually melt. These changes to water cycle also affect vector-borne disease distribution, with malaria and dengue fever expected to become more prominent in the tropical and subtropical regions. Food security will become more uneven, and South Asian countries could experience significant impacts from global food price volatility.

Climate change is expected to exacerbate heat stress over at the North China Plain, which is particularly vulnerable as widespread irrigation results in very moist air. There is a risk that agricultural labourers will be physically unable to work outdoors on hot summer days at the end of the century, particularly under the scenario of greatest emissions and warming.

Historical emissions from Asia are lower than those from Europe and North America. However, China has been the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the 21st century, while India is the third-largest. As a whole, Asia currently accounts for 36% of world's primary energy consumption, which is expected to increase to 48% by 2050. By 2040, it is also expected to account for 80% of the world's coal and 26% of the world's natural gas consumption. While the United States remains the world's largest oil consumer, by 2050 it is projected to move to third place, behind China and India. While nearly half of the world's new renewable energy capacity is built in Asia, this is not yet sufficient in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. They imply that the renewables would account for 35% of total energy consumption in Asia by 2030.

Climate change adaptation is already a reality for many Asian countries, with a wide range of strategies attempted across the continent. Important examples include the growing implementation of climate-smart agriculture in certain countries or the "sponge city" planning principles in China. While some countries have drawn up extensive frameworks such as the Bangladesh Delta Plan or Japan's Climate Adaptation Act, others still rely on localized actions that are not effectively scaled up.

Politics

Main article: Politics of Asia

See also: List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Asia

Map of 2026 V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index for Asia, higher values more democratic

  0.90–1.00

  0.80–0.89

  0.70–0.79

  0.60–0.69

  0.50–0.59

  0.40–0.49

  0.30–0.39

  0.20–0.29

  0.10–0.19

  0.00–0.09

  No data

The most democratic countries in Asia are Japan, Taiwan and South Korea according to the V-Dem Democracy indices.

Political systems across Asia include parliamentary republics, presidential republics, constitutional monarchies, absolute monarchies, one-party states and military-led governments. Countries differ substantially in their systems of government, levels of electoral competition and protection of political rights and civil liberties.

Regional organizations provide forums for political, economic and security cooperation among Asian countries. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) promotes political and security cooperation in Southeast Asia, while the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) supports economic, social and cultural cooperation in South Asia. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) facilitates cooperation on regional security, political and economic matters across Eurasia, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) coordinates policies and promotes integration among six Arab states of the Persian Gulf.

List of states and territories

For a more comprehensive list, see List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Asia.

Iran

China

Saudi
Arabia

Japan

Kazakhstan

India

Mongolia

Indonesia

Malaysia

Philippines

Vietnam

Singapore

South Korea

North Korea

Afghanistan

Pakistan

Thailand

Laos

Cambodia

Timor-Leste

Brunei

Myanmar

Bhutan

Bangladesh

Nepal

Taiwan

Uzbekistan

Kyrgyzstan

Tajikistan

Turkmenistan

Oman

Yemen

UAE

Qat.

Bah.

Kuw.

Iraq

Jordan

Israel

Pal.

Leb.

Syria

Turkey

Georgia

Azer.

Armenia

Cyp.

Egypt

Maldives

Sri Lanka

Russia

H.K.

Macau

The population and area figures in the following table refer to entire countries, including territory outside Asia in the case of transcontinental countries. For example, the figures for Russia include its European territory, while those for Egypt include its predominantly African territory. Consequently, the figures cannot be added together to calculate Asia's total population or area.

Emblem	Flag	Name	Population (2021)	Area (km2)	Capital
		Afghanistan	40,099,462	652,864	Kabul
		Armenia	2,790,974	29,743	Yerevan
		Azerbaijan	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
		Egypt	109,262,178	1,001,449	Cairo
		Georgia	3,757,980	69,700	Tbilisi
		India	1,407,563,842	3,287,263	New Delhi
		Indonesia	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 (limited recognition)
		Japan	124,612,530	377,915	Tokyo
		Jordan	11,148,278	89,342	Amman
		Kazakhstan	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
		Philippines	113,880,328	343,448	Manila
		Qatar	2,688,235	11,586	Doha
		Russia	145,102,755	17,098,242	Moscow
		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
		Tajikistan	9,750,064	143,100	Dushanbe
		Thailand	71,601,103	513,120	Bangkok
		Timor-Leste	1,320,942	14,874	Dili
		Turkey	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	Sanaa (const.; SPCTooltip Supreme Political Council control) Aden (prv. capital of PLCTooltip Presidential Leadership Council)

Within the states mentioned above are several partially recognized countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN, however Palestine has observer state status:

Symbol	Flag	Name	Population	Area (km2)	Capital
		Abkhazia	242,862	8,660	Sokhumi
		Northern Cyprus	326,000	3,355	North Nicosia
		Palestine	5,133,392	6,025	Jerusalem (limited recognition)
		South Ossetia	51,547	3,900	Tskhinvali
		Taiwan (ROC)	23,859,912	36,193	Taipei

Economy

Main articles: Economy of Asia, List of Asian countries by GDP, List of countries in Asia-Pacific by GDP (nominal), and List of Asian and Pacific countries by GDP (PPP)

Singapore has one of the busiest container ports in the world and is the world's fourth-largest foreign exchange trading hub.

Asia is both the largest continental economy in the world by both GDP nominal and PPP values and the world's fastest growing economic region. As of 2026, China is by far the largest economy on the continent. Other major Asian economies include India, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economy of China had an average annual growth rate of more than 8%. According to economic historian Angus Maddison, India had the world's largest economy for much of the past three millennia prior to the 19th century, accounting for 25% of the world's industrial output. China was the largest and most advanced economy on Earth for much of recorded history and shared the mantle with India. For several decades in the late twentieth century, Japan was the largest economy in Asia and second-largest in the world, after surpassing the Soviet Union (measured in net material product) in 1990 and Germany in 1968. This ended in 2010, when China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy. In 2025, India overtook Japan in terms of nominal GDP to become the world's 4th largest and Asia's 2nd largest economy.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP by currency exchange rates was almost as large as that of the rest of Asia combined. 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 South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, known as the Four Asian Tigers, which are now all considered developed economies, having among the highest GDP per capita in Asia.

Mumbai is one of the most populous cities in Asia, as well as an economic and tourism hub.

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, though increasingly China 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.

Call centers and business process outsourcing firms (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly skilled, English-speaking workers. 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 via sea routes. The main route leads from the Chinese coast south via Hanoi to Jakarta, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur, through the Strait of Malacca via Colombo to the southern tip of India, then via Malé to Mombasa in East Africa (see also Indo-Pacific), from there to Djibouti, then through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean (see also: Indo-Mediterranean), then via Haifa, Istanbul, and Athens 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 northern European ports. A far smaller part of the goods traffic runs via South Africa to Europe. A particularly significant part of Asian goods traffic is carried out on the Pacific Rim, toward Los Angeles and Long Beach. The melting of the Arctic is also paving the way for new shipping routes from Northeast Asia to Europe and North America. The land route to Europe is also the subject of construction projects, comparatively smaller in scope. Intra-Asian trade, including sea trade, is growing rapidly.

Energy

Asia's electricity demand has quadrupled since 2000 (rising from 4,199 TWh to over 16,000 TWh in 2024). This growth, driven largely by China and increasingly by India, Indonesia, and Viet Nam, makes Asia the fastest-growing region for electricity demand globally, at about 5% per year. The region now accounts for about 36% of global primary energy consumption, a share projected to approach 50% by 2050.^: 1468 Fossil fuels remain central in Asia: 66% of its energy is generated from fossil fuels, and Asia makes up 83% of the world's coal generation. However, coal is slowly being phased out and natural gas is displacing oil and oil products in various sectors, supported by policies and regulations. Natural gas demand in emerging market and developing economies in Asia expanded by around 6% in 2024, accounting for nearly 40% of incremental global gas demand. By 2040, Asia is expected to account for the majority of global coal use and over a quarter of natural gas consumption.^: 1468

At the same time, Asia is the global leader in renewable energy expansion. It is currently the only region on track to meet the goal of tripling renewable capacity by 2030, largely due to China, the leading nation in renewable energy generation. China's wind and solar capacity has surged in recent years, together overtaking that of coal, while in 2024 India become the world's third largest generator of electricity from wind and solar. Nearly half of the world's new renewable energy capacity is built in Asia.^: 1470

Tourism

Wat Phra Kaew in the Grand Palace is among Bangkok's major tourist attractions.

See also the categories Tourism in Asia and Transport in Asia

Tourism in Asia encompasses travel to cultural and religious sites, major cities, coastal destinations and natural landscapes. Domestic tourism also contributes to the economies of many Asian countries, alongside international travel. According to UN Tourism, its Asia and the Pacific region recorded approximately 331 million international tourist arrivals in 2025, an increase of 6% from 2024, although arrivals remained 9% below their 2019 level. Northeast Asia recorded particularly strong growth, with arrivals increasing by 13% from 2024. UN Tourism's Asia and the Pacific region includes Oceania and does not cover all of geographical Asia; its statistics therefore should not be interpreted as totals for the Asian continent.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Asia

See also: List of Asian countries by population and List of Asian countries by life expectancy

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

Demographic trends vary considerably across Asia. According to the United Nations' World Population Prospects 2024, the populations of China and Japan had already peaked by 2024, while those of Iran and Vietnam were projected to peak between 2025 and 2054. By contrast, the populations of India, Indonesia and Pakistan were projected to continue growing through at least 2054. Population ageing and declining fertility rates are particularly prominent in parts of East Asia and Southeast Asia, although demographic conditions differ substantially between countries. Levels of human development also vary across the continent. The Human Development Index (HDI), published by the United Nations Development Programme, measures countries' achievements in life expectancy, education and gross national income per capita.

World population

Languages

Main article: Languages of Asia

Asia has considerable linguistic diversity, with languages belonging to numerous distinct language families. Major families include Indo-European, represented by languages such as Hindi, Bengali, Persian and Russian, and Sino-Tibetan, which includes Chinese, Tibetic languages and Burmese. The Dravidian languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, are concentrated in southern India and neighbouring regions. Turkic languages, such as Turkish, Uzbek and Kazakh, are spoken across much of Central Asia and parts of Western and Northern Asia. Arabic and Hebrew belong to the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic family.

Southeast Asia contains several major language families, including Austronesian, represented by Indonesian, Malay, Javanese and Tagalog; Austroasiatic, which includes Vietnamese and Khmer; and Kra–Dai, which includes Thai and Lao. Japanese and Korean belong to the separate Japonic and Koreanic families, respectively.

Linguistic diversity also exists within individual countries. Indonesia has more than 700 living languages, while India has more than 400, according to figures compiled by Ethnologue and reported in a UNESCO regional review.

Religions

See also: Eastern philosophy, Religion in Asia, and List of Asian mythologies

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. Asian mythology is complex and diverse. Flood narratives appear in several Asian religious traditions. In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, they are found in the Atrahasis epic and the Epic of Gilgamesh, which share significant similarities with the biblical account of Noah in the Book of Genesis. The Quran also recounts the story of Noah and the flood. 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

See also: Christianity in Asia and Islam in Asia

The Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

Pilgrims in the annual Hajj at the Kaabah in Mecca

The Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druze faith, and Baháʼí Faith originated in West Asia.

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 the diaspora in Europe, North America, Ethiopia, India, and other regions, though various Israelite diaspora communities still exist worldwide. Jews are the predominant ethnic group in Israel (75.6%) numbering at about 6.1 million. Levels of Jewish religious observance vary within the Jewish State. Outside of Israel, there are small ancient Jewish communities in Turkey (17,400), Azerbaijan (9,100), Iran (8,756), India (5,000) and Uzbekistan (4,000), among many other places.

Christianity is practiced throughout Asia, with substantial Christian communities in the Philippines, China, India and South Korea. In the Philippines and Timor-Leste, Catholicism is the predominant religion; it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In Armenia and Georgia, Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion. 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, which are both Eastern Christian sects mainly adhered to Assyrian people or Syriac Christians. Vibrant indigenous minorities in West Asia are adhering to the Eastern Catholic Churches and Eastern Orthodoxy. Saint Thomas Christians in India trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. Significant Christian communities also found in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia.

Islam originated in the Hejaz region of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century and is widely practiced across West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. According to estimates published by the Pew Research Center in 2025, Indonesia had approximately 240 million Muslims in 2020, the largest Muslim population of any country. Indonesia, Pakistan and India together accounted for approximately one-third of the world's Muslim population. 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 Shia country.

The Druze originated in West Asia, is a monotheistic religion based on the teachings of figures like Hamza ibn Ali and al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, and Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. The number of Druze people worldwide is around one million. Around 45–50% live in Syria, 35% to 40% live in Lebanon, and less than 10% live in Israel. Recently there has been a growing Druze diaspora.

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

See also: Eastern religions

The Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in Delhi, according to the Guinness World Records, is the World's Largest Comprehensive Hindu Temple.

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.

According to estimates published by the Pew Research Center in 2025, approximately 1.2 billion people worldwide identified as Hindus in 2020, with about 95% living in India. Hinduism is concentrated primarily in South Asia, where it is the majority religion in India and Nepal. Hindus accounted for approximately 79% of India's population and 81% of Nepal's population in 2020. Hindu communities are also present in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and parts of Southeast Asia, including Bali, Indonesia.

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 syncretised with Mahayana Buddhism, thus exact religious statistics are difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated.

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  Japanese wedding at the Meiji Shrine
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  Hindu festival celebrated by Singapore's Tamil community
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  Bar mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem
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  Catholic procession of the Black Nazarene in Manila
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  Druze dignitaries celebrating the Ziyarat al-Nabi Shu'ayb festival at the tomb of the prophet in Hittin
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  Christian Armenians praying at the Etchmiadzin Cathedral in Vagharshapat
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  Muslim men praying at the Ortaköy Mosque in Istanbul
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  Buddhist monks in Laos collecting alms

Culture

Main article: Culture of Asia

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. 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 civilisations of the Fertile Crescent and Mesopotamia, which gave rise to the Persian, Arab, Ottoman empires, as well as the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These civilisations, which are located in the Hilly flanks, are among the oldest in the world, with evidence of farming dating back to around 9000 BCE. 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.

Asian societies have developed diverse traditions of literature, visual arts, music, theatre and storytelling. Examples of practices recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage include Chinese calligraphy, Arabic calligraphy, Kutiyattam, a Sanskrit theatre tradition practiced in Kerala, India, and Wayang, a form of puppet theatre originating in Java, Indonesia.

Cultural traditions have also been shaped by exchanges between different parts of Asia and neighbouring regions. The overland and maritime Silk Roads facilitated the transmission of artistic practices, literature, religious beliefs and technologies between societies. Asian literary traditions have also gained international recognition in the modern era; the Bengali poet and writer Rabindranath Tagore received the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature.

See also

Main articles: Outline of Asia and Index of Asia-related articles

• Asian Century – Projected dominance of Asian politics and culture during the 21st century
• Asian cuisine – Culinary traditions of Asia
• Asian furniture – Type of furniture that originated in the continent of Asia
• Asian Games – Asian multi-sport event
• Asian Highway Network – International road network connecting Asia and parts of Europe
• Asian Monetary Unit
• Asian Para Games – Multi-sport event
• Eastern Mediterranean – Countries that are geographically located to the east of the Mediterranean Sea
• Eastern world – Countries predominantly situated in Asia
• Fauna of Asia – Native animals of Asia
• Flags of Asia
• List of cities in Asia
• List of metropolitan areas in Asia by population
• Trans-Asian Railway – Proposed railway across Europe and Asia

Sources

 This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (license statement/permission). Text taken from Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025​, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Bibliography

• Lewis, Martin W.; Wigen, Kären (1997). The myth of continents: a critique of metageography. Berkeley: 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).
• Wang, Hui (31 March 2011). The Politics of Imagining Asia. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-05519-3.

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
• 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.