ASIA – The continent of mix cultures

The largest and most populated continent is Asia. It has nearly 1/3 of the world’s total land area and is home to more than half of Earth’s people.

Land and Climate

Because it is so vast and varied, it is often discussed in terms of six main regions: Southwest, South, Southeast, East, North, and Central Asia. Southwest Asia consists mainly of countries on or near the Arabian Peninsula, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Israel

Most of Turkey is also included in this group. The countries of South West Asia are also part of a region known as the Middle East. Much of the land in Southwest Asia is desert.

Geography

Main Geographic features of South, Southeast and East Asia are great mountains, high plains, and islands. India and Pakistan are major countries in South Asia; Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam are Southeast Asia; and China, Japan, North Korea and South Korea are in East Asia.

Northern Asia, also called Siberia is part of Russia. Siberia has mostly frozen plains and swampy forest. Because of the extreme cold, few people live there. Most of Central Asia consists of desert, but in the north are vast grasslands.

♦ HIGHEST POINT: Mount Everest – 29035 Feet          ♦ LOWEST POINT: Dead Sea-  – 1312 Feet

Continent’s largest deserts are the Gobi and The Takla Makan Desert in East Asia and the Thar desert in South Asia. Many of the World’s highest peaks are found in the Himalayas of South Asia.

Continent Mountains

Continent’s other major mountain ranges include the Hindu Kush, the Tian Shan, and the Altai, all in central Asia. Major Asian rivers include the Yangtze and Huang He in China; the Mekong and Irrawaddy in Southeast Asia; the Ganges in India and the Ob in Russia.

Some of the world’s earliest civilizations developed along the Indus river in India and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Southwest Asia.

Its climate varies greatly. The continent has some of the hottest and coldest places on the Earth, as well as many areas in between. Cherrapunji, India is one of the world’s wettest places, averaging nearly 10160 mm of rain per year.

Southwest Asia has some of the world’s driest deserts. South and Southeast Asia are hot, wet regions with two distinctive seasons: a relatively cool and dry winter and a rainy and hot summer.

PLANTS AND ANIMALS

Because of the wide variety of climates and physical features, there are many types of plants. In the northern Siberia lichens, mosses and some wildflowers grow.

To the south are evergreen forests and grasslands. China has the most varied vegetation of any country in the world. Palm trees and bamboo grow in southern parts of China, South Korea and Japan.

In South and Southeast Asia rainforest is the main natural vegetation, though large areas of trees have been cut down to make room for farming. In the mountains of Southwest Asia, there are forests of beech trees, evergreens, hollies and creepers.

The continent’s animals are as varied as its plants. Northern Asia has polar bears, walruses, moose and reindeer, while the wild camels roam the Gobi.

Its reptiles include crocodiles, king cobras, and Komodo dragons. Animals only found in this continent are Orangutan, giant panda, Asian elephant, Siberian tiger, Bengal tiger, and Indian Rhinoceros.

PEOPLE

Many different groups of people live on this continent. Arabs, Jews, Iranians, and Turks are among the peoples of Southwest Asia. South Asia is home to Indian peoples. Southeast Asia’s wide variety of peoples and cultures has been influenced by India and China. The main peoples in East Asia are the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans.

LANGUAGE

Hundreds of different languages can be heard throughout the continent. More than 250 languages are spoken in Indonesia alone.

Some of the most widely used languages in this continent include Arabic, which is spoken in parts of Southwest Asia; Hindi, spoken in India and Mandarin, spoken in China. Russian, English and French are also spoken.

RELIGION

The world’s major religions – Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity – all started from this continent. Today many people in Southeast and East Asia follow Buddhism. Hinduism is the main religion in India and Nepal, while Islam is practised in much of Southwest Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Judaism is the main religion in Israel. The continent practices Christianity throughout.

 

ECONOMY

Agriculture is an important part of the Economy in many Asian countries. The main food crop of this continent is rice. Wheat is important in parts of Northern, Central, Southwest, and South Asia.

Crops grown for sale include tea, sugarcane coconuts and rubber. Sheep and goats are raised for meat and wool in most of the parts of this continent. China, Japan, Indonesia, India, and Russia catch large amounts of Fish.

It has large reserves of almost every important mineral. The continent has more than half the world’s reserves of coal, mostly in China, Siberia and India. Major deposits of oil are found in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, the United Arab of Emirates, and Qatar. It also produces large amounts of Iron ore, cast iron, tin tungsten, and refined zinc.

HISTORY

The continent was home to three of the world’s first civilizations, which developed written languages and built large cities. The first such society developed in Southwest Asia in a region called Mesopotamia in about 3500-3000BC. A civilization developed in the Indus River valley in what is now Pakistan by about 2500 BC. Historians believe that Chinese civilization began in about 2500 BC as well.

Indus Valley civilization

The Indus Valley civilization died out in about 1700 BC. At about this same time, a people known as Aryans invaded what is now India. Their religion eventually evolved into Hinduism. The Mauryan Empire united South Asia in about 300 BC, though others eventually took over from them. In the late AD 1100s, Muslim rulers took over part of the region.

European’s Control

In 1948 the country of Israel was created in the Middle East as a homeland for the Jewish people. To take control of Asia’s wealth, Europeans conquered many Asian countries and made them into colonies in the 1800s. By the End of World war II, the colonies began to seek independence. India became free of British rule in 1947.

In the last half of the 1900s, many Asian countries had to deal with problems left over from the period of European rule. The boundaries of the European colonies did not always match the natural divisions of peoples, cultures and physical regions.

When the colonies gained independence they kept those boundaries, but there were often tensions between the people who had been forced to live together. At the same time, however, many Asian countries worked hard to improve their economies.

Further References:

Books on Asia

1. A History of Southeast Asia By Arthur Cotterell
2. River Road to China By Milton Osborne
3. Singapore – A Biography By Yu-Mei Balasingamchow, Mark Ravinder Frost
4. Wild Swans By Jung Chang
5. River Town By Peter Hessler