ASIA



Asia is a continent shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Many countries cultures are found on this large continent. Before you dive any deeper into Asia or any the countries that make up this continent. We invite you to learn more about this continent by exploring this page as it gives you a brief glimpse of Asia as a whole.

Asia is 44,614,000 sq km (7,226,000 sq mi) making it the largest continent in the world. Although its size as a whole is large, this continent ranks third in the number of countries that are within its borders. Asia has 44 countries, within its borders, which makes it rank third in this category, Africa coming in first with 53 countries (World Atlas).



Asia also is the largest continent in the way of population 3,879,659,000 people living in the countries that make up this large continent according to 2004 census (World Atlas).

Asia consists mainly of mountains and plateaus. The highest point of elevation is in Central Asia, which also happens to be the highest in the world. Mt. Everest with an elevation of 8,850 m (29,035ft) located in the Himalayas is the highest point in the world. The lowest natural point in Asia is the Dead Sea at 400m (1,312 ft) below sea level (Encyclopedia Britannica).

Asia has several deserts including the Gobi Desert located across Mongolia and southern regions of China and the Thar Desert located in Pakistan (Encyclopedia Britannica).



Asia also has some of the longest rivers in the world, including:

• Yangtze River, which is the world’s third longest river, at 6,300 km (3,915 mi) long. Rising in the Tanggula Mountains in west-central China, it flows southeast before turning northeast and then generally east across south central and east-central China to the East China Sea near Shanghai (Encyclopedia Britannica).

• Tigris-Euphrates river system, which is 2736 kilometers (1700 miles) long (Encyclopedia Britannica).

The Caspian (between Europe and Asia bordering Kazakhstan), the Aral (large salt lake between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) and the Dead Sea (between Israel and Jordan) are the major saltwater lakes (Encyclopedia Britannica).

Asia is bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the east, the Indian Ocean to the south, the inland seas of the Atlantic Ocean (the Mediterranean and the Black) to the southwest, and Europe to the west (Encyclopedia Britannica).

The largest country in Asia is Russia, which is 17,098,242 sq km and makes it the largest country in the world (CIA World Factbook).

The smallest country in Asia is Maldives, which is 298 sq km (CIA World Factbook).

Asia is a continent that is rich with language diversity. There are thousands of languages spoken by ethnic groups. Many of these have become functionally extinct, due to the impact politically and economically influential languages have on smaller, less cultural groups. The most dominant languages in Asia are Russian, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi. These are the more general language families, as several dialects and other languages have developed from and coexist with these three main language families (Encyclopedia Britannica).

Central Asian Union was proposed by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev on April 26, 2007, in order to create an economic and political union similar to that of the EU encompassing the five former Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. (IPS News)