Asia

The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in , the and the shared many similarities. These civilizations may well have exchanged technologies and ideas such as and the . 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 . The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the , who spread their languages into the Middle East, South Asia, and the borders of China, where the resided. The northernmost part of Asia, including much of , was largely inaccessible to the steppe nomads, owing to the dense forests, climate and . These areas remained very sparsely populated.

The center and the peripheries were mostly kept separated by mountains and deserts. The and mountains and the and 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 horsebound force; for this and other reasons, the who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East often found themselves adapting to the local, more affluent societies.

The Islamic '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 of the 7th century. The conquered a large part of Asia in the 13th century, an area extending from China to Europe. Before the Mongol invasion, reportedly had approximately 120 million citizens; the 1300 census which followed the invasion reported roughly 60 million people.[40]

The , one of the most devastating in human history, is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the .[41]

The began to expand into 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. The controlled Anatolia, most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the mid 16th century onwards. In the 17th century, the conquered China and established the . The Islamic and the Hindu controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively. controlled most of East Asia and much of Southeast Asia, New Guinea and the Pacific islands until the end of .

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 . It is located to the east of the and the , and south of the (or the ) and the and . 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 ( , , , and ) are and having part of their land in Europe.

Asia has extremely diverse climates and geographic 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. The is in and the stretches across much of the Middle East. The in China is the longest river in the continent. The between Nepal and China is the tallest mountain range in the world. Tropical rainforests stretch across much of southern Asia and coniferous and deciduous forests lie farther north.

  North Asia

  Central Asia

  Western Asia (Near East)

  South Asia

  East Asia (Far East)

  Southeast Asia

Main regions

There are various approaches to the regional division of Asia. The following subdivision into regions is used, among others, by the UN statistics agency . This division of Asia into regions by the United Nations is done solely for statistical reasons and does not imply any assumption about political or other affiliations of countries and territories. [45]

Climate change

A survey carried out in 2010 by global risk analysis farm identified 16 countries that are extremely vulnerable to climate change. Each nation's vulnerability was calculated using 42 socio, economic and environmental indicators, which identified the likely climate change impacts during the next 30 years. The Asian countries of , India, , Thailand, Pakistan and were among the 16 countries facing extreme risk from climate change. Some shifts are already occurring. For example, in tropical parts of India with a , the temperature increased by 0.4 °C between 1901 and 2003.
A 2013 study by the (ICRISAT) aimed to find science-based, pro-poor approaches and techniques that would enable Asia's agricultural systems to cope with climate change, while benefitting poor and vulnerable farmers. The study's recommendations ranged from improving the use of climate information in local planning and strengthening weather-based agro-advisory services, to stimulating diversification of rural household incomes and providing incentives to farmers to adopt natural resource conservation measures to enhance forest cover, replenish groundwater and use .[46]

Asia has the largest continental economy by both and in the world, and is the fastest growing economic region., the largest economies in Asia are China, Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia and Turkey based on GDP in both nominal and PPP., , and . Around 68 percent of international firms have office in Hong Kong.[49]

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economies of China, , , , , , and the , and mineral-rich nations such as , , , , the , , , , and .

According to in his book The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, India had the world's largest economy during 0 BCE and 1000 BCE. China was the on earth for much of recorded history. (measured in net material product) in 1986 and Germany in 1968. (NB: A number of supernational economies are larger, such as the (EU), the (NAFTA) or ). This ended in 2010 when China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP was almost as large (current exchange rate method) as that of the rest of Asia combined./US$. Economic growth in Asia since World War II to the 1990s had been concentrated in Japan as well as the four regions of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore located in the , known as the , which have now all received developed country status, having the highest in Asia.[57]

It is forecasted that India will overtake Japan in terms of nominal GDP by 2025., China will have the largest economy in the world. Several trade blocs exist, with the most developed being the .

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, , South Korea, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Singapore. Japan and South Korea continue to dominate in the area of , but increasingly the PRC 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.

According to 9 of 11 countries came from Asia driven by population and income growth. They are , China, India, Indonesia, , Mongolia, Philippines, and Vietnam. and (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly skilled, English-speaking workers. The increased use of outsourcing has assisted the rise of India and the China as financial centers. Due to its large and extremely competitive information technology industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.

In 2010, Asia had 3.3 million millionaires (people with net worth over US$1 million excluding their homes), slightly below North America with 3.4 million millionaires. Last year Asia had toppled Europe.[60]
Citigroup in The Wealth Report 2012 stated that Asian centa-millionaire overtook North America's wealth for the first time as the world's "economic center of gravity" continued moving east. At the end of 2011, there were 18,000 Asian people mainly in Southeast Asia, China and Japan who have at least $100 million in disposable assets, while North America with 17,000 people and Western Europe with 14,000 people.[61]