Asia

With growing Regional Tourism with domination of Chinese visitors, has released Global Destination Cities Index 2013 with 10 of 20 are dominated by Asia and Pacific Region Cities and also for the first time a city of a country from Asia (Bangkok) set in the top-ranked with 15.98 international visitors.[62]

East Asia had by far the strongest overall (HDI) improvement of any region in the world, nearly doubling average HDI attainment over the past 40 years, according to the report's analysis of health, education and income data. China, the second highest achiever in the world in terms of HDI improvement since
1970, is the only country on the "Top 10 Movers" list due to income rather than health or education achievements. Its per capita income increased a stunning 21-fold over the last four decades, also lifting hundreds of millions out of income poverty. Yet it was not among the region's top performers in improving school enrollment and life expectancy.[63]

, a South Asian country, emerges as one of the world's fastest movers since 1970 mainly due to health and education achievements. Its present is 25 years longer than in the 1970s. More than four of every five children of school age in Nepal now attend primary school, compared to just one in five 40 years ago.[63]

Hong Kong ranked highest among the countries grouped on the HDI (number 7 in the world, which is in the "very high human development" category), followed by Singapore (9), Japan (19) and South Korea (22). (155) ranked lowest amongst Asian countries out of the 169 countries assessed.[63]

Languages

Asia is home to several and many . Most Asian countries have more than one language that is natively spoken. For instance, according to , more than 600 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 800 languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces.

Religions

Many of the world's have their origins in Asia, including the five most practiced in the world (excluding ), which are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Chinese folk religion (classified as Confucianism and Taoism), and Buddhism respectively. Asian mythology is complex and diverse. The story of the for example, as presented to Jews in the in the narrative of —and later to Christians in the , and to in the —is earliest found in , in the and . similarly tells about an of in the form of a who warned of a terrible flood. Ancient also tells of a spanning generations, one that required the combined efforts of emperors and divinities to control.

Abrahamic

The including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and originated in West Asia.

Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in , the homeland and historical birthplace of the : which today consists both of those who remained in and those who returned from in , , and other regions; (75.6%) numbering at about 6.1 million, (17,400), (9,100), India (5,000) and (4,000), Jews alive in the world today, making them one of the smallest Asian minorities, at roughly 0.3 to 0.4 percent of the total population of the continent.

Christianity is a widespread religion in Asia with more than 286 million adherents according to in 2010, Book of the Year 2014., Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion; it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In , Georgia and Asian Russia, is the predominant religion. In the Middle East, such as in the , () and are prevalent minority denominations, which are both sects mainly adhered to or Syriac Christians. in India trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of in the 1st century.[73]

Islam, which originated in the located in modern-day Saudi Arabia, is the second largest and most widely-spread religion in Asia with at least 1 billion Muslims constituting around 23.8% of the total population of Asia., Iran and . , and are the three holiest cities for Islam in all the world. The and attract large numbers of Muslim devotees from all over the world to Mecca and Medina. Iran is the largest country.

The 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 Bahá'í activities in many Muslim countries has been severely by authorities. is a big Baha'i Temple in India.

Indian and East Asian religions

Almost all Asian religions have philosophical character and Asian philosophical traditions cover a large spectrum of philosophical thoughts and writings. includes and . They include elements of nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India, , preached the enjoyment of the material world. The religions of , , and originated in India, South Asia. In East Asia, particularly in China and Japan, , and took shape.

As of 2012, Hinduism has around 1.1 billion adherents. The faith represents around 25% of Asia's population and is the largest religion in Asia. However, it is mostly concentrated in South Asia. Over 80% of the populations of both India and Nepal adhere to Hinduism, alongside significant communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and , Indonesia. Many overseas Indians in countries such as Burma, Singapore and Malaysia also adhere to Hinduism.

Buddhism has a great following in mainland Southeast Asia and East Asia. Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the populations of (96%), (95%), (80–89%), (75–84%), (70%), (60–67%) (53–93%). (35–93%), South Korea (23–50%), (19–21%), (9–11%), (10–75%), (2–14%),. In many Chinese communities, Mahayana Buddhism is easily syncretized with Taoism, thus exact religious statistics is difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated. The Communist-governed countries of China, Vietnam and North Korea are officially atheist, thus the number of Buddhists and other religious adherents may be under-reported.