Asia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia

6/29/2020 Asia -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
Asia
Asia, the world’s largest and most diverse continent. It occupies the
eastern four-fifths of the giant Eurasian landmass. Asia is more a TABLE OF CONTENTS
geographic term than a homogeneous continent, and the use of the term to
describe such a vast area always carries the potential of obscuring the Introduction
enormous diversity among the regions it encompasses. Asia has both the Geologic history
highest and the lowest points on the surface of Earth, has the longest Land
coastline of any continent, is subject overall to the world’s widest climatic
People
extremes, and, consequently, produces the most varied forms of vegetation
Economy
and animal life on Earth. In addition, the peoples of Asia have established
the broadest variety of human adaptation found on any of the continents.
The name Asia is ancient, and its origin has been variously
explained. The Greeks used it to designate the lands situated to the
east of their homeland. It is believed that the name may be derived
from the Assyrian word asu, meaning “east.” Another possible
explanation is that it was originally a local name given to the plains
of Ephesus, which ancient Greeks and Romans extended to refer
first to Anatolia (contemporary Asia Minor, which is the western
extreme of mainland Asia), and then to the known world east of the
Asia
Mediterranean Sea. When Western explorers reached South and
Asia.
East Asia in early modern times, they extended that label to the
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
whole of the immense landmass.
Asia is bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the east, the Indian Ocean to the south, the
Red Sea (as well as the inland seas of the Atlantic Ocean—the Mediterranean and the Black) to the southwest,
and Europe to the west. Asia is separated from North America to the northeast by the Bering Strait and from
Australia to the southeast by the seas and straits connecting the Indian and Pacific oceans. The Isthmus of Suez
unites Asia with Africa, and it is generally agreed that the Suez Canal forms the border between them. Two
narrow straits, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, separate Anatolia from the Balkan Peninsula.
The land boundary between Asia and Europe is a historical and

cultural construct that has been defined variously; only as a matter
of agreement is it tied to a specific borderline. The most convenient
geographic boundary—one that has been adopted by most
geographers—is a line that runs south from the Arctic Ocean along
the Ural Mountains and then turns southwest along the Emba River
to the northern shore of the Caspian Sea; west of the Caspian, the
https://www.britannica.com/print/article/38479 1/82
Çanakkale, Turkey, on the southern coast boundary follows the Kuma-Manych Depression to the Sea of Azov
of the Dardanelles.
and the Kerch Strait of the Black Sea. Thus, the isthmus between
© William J. Bowe
the Black and Caspian seas, which culminates in the Caucasus
mountain range to the south, is part of Asia.
The total area of Asia, including Asian Russia (with the Caucasian
isthmus) but excluding the island of New Guinea, amounts to some
17,226,200 square miles (44,614,000 square km), roughly one-third
of the land surface of Earth. The islands—including Taiwan, those
of Japan and Indonesia, Sakhalin and other islands of Asian Russia,
Sri Lanka, Cyprus, and numerous smaller islands—together
constitute 1,240,000 square miles (3,210,000 square km), about 7
percent of the total. (Although New Guinea is mentioned
Azov, Sea of occasionally in this article, it generally is not considered a part of
Sea of Azov. Asia.) The farthest terminal points of the Asian mainland are Cape
Sergey Sorokin Chelyuskin in north-central Siberia, Russia (77°43′ N), to the north;
the tip of the Malay Peninsula, Cape Piai, or Bulus (1°16′ N), to the
south; Cape Baba in Turkey (26°4′ E) to the west; and Cape Dezhnev (Dezhnyov), or East Cape (169°40′ W), in
northeastern Siberia, overlooking the Bering Strait, to the east.
Asia has the highest average elevation of the continents and contains the greatest relative relief. The tallest peak
in the world, Mount Everest, which reaches an elevation of 29,035 feet (8,850 metres; see Researcher’s Note:
Height of Mount Everest); the lowest place on Earth’s land surface, the Dead Sea, measured in the mid-2010s at
about 1,410 feet (430 metres) below sea level; and the world’s deepest continental trough, occupied by Lake
Baikal, which is 5,315 feet (1,620 metres) deep and whose bottom lies 3,822 feet (1,165 metres) below sea level,
are all located in Asia. Those physiographic extremes and the overall predominance of mountain belts and
plateaus are the result of the collision of tectonic plates. In geologic terms, Asia comprises several very ancient
continental platforms and other blocks of land that merged over the eons. Most of those units had coalesced as a
continental landmass by about 160 million years ago, when the core of the Indian subcontinent broke off from
Africa and began drifting northeastward to collide with the southern flank of Asia about 50 million to 40 million
years ago. The northeastward movement of the subcontinent continues at about 2.4 inches (6 cm) per year. The
impact and pressure continue to raise the Plateau of Tibet and the Himalayas.
Asia’s coastline—some 39,000 miles (62,800 km) in length—is,

variously, high and mountainous, low and alluvial, terraced as a
result of the land’s having been uplifted, or “drowned” where the
land has subsided. The specific features of the coastline in some
areas—especially in the east and southeast—are the result of active
volcanism; thermal abrasion of permafrost (caused by a
Himalayas
Mount Everest (left centre) in the combination of the action of breaking waves and thawing), as in
Himalayas, seen from the Plateau of
Tibet.
northeastern Siberia; and coral growth, as in the areas to the south
© QiangBa DanZhen/Fotolia and southeast. Accreting sandy beaches also occur in many areas,
such as along the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Thailand.
The mountain systems of Central Asia not only have provided the
continent’s great rivers with water from their melting snows but also
have formed a forbidding natural barrier that has influenced the
movement of peoples in the area. Migration across those barriers
has been possible only through mountain passes. A historical
movement of population from the arid zones of Central Asia has
followed the mountain passes into the Indian subcontinent. More
recent migrations have originated in China, with destinations
Thailand, Gulf of throughout Southeast Asia. The Korean and Japanese peoples and,
Island resort in the Gulf of Thailand off to a lesser extent, the Chinese have remained ethnically more
the coast of southern Thailand.
homogeneous than the populations of other Asian countries.
© thawizard/Fotolia
Asia’s population is unevenly distributed, mainly because of

climatic factors. There is a concentration of population in western
Asia as well as great concentrations in the Indian subcontinent and
the eastern half of China. There are also appreciable concentrations
in the Pacific borderlands and on the islands, but vast areas of
Central and North Asia—whose forbidding climates limit
agricultural productivity—have remained sparsely populated.
Nonetheless, Asia, the most populous of the continents, contains
High pass through the Himalayas, Tibet
some three-fifths of the world’s people.
Autonomous Region, China, part of the
historic caravan trail to the Central Asian
trade routes. Asia is the birthplace of all the world’s major religions—Buddhism,
© Holger Mette/Shutterstock.com Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism—and of many minor
ones. Of those, only Christianity developed primarily outside of
Asia; it exerts little influence on the continent, though many Asian countries have Christian minorities. Buddhism
has had a greater impact outside its birthplace in India and is prevalent in various forms in China, South Korea,
Japan, the Southeast Asian countries, and Sri Lanka. Islam has spread out of Arabia eastward to South and
Southeast Asia. Hinduism has been mostly confined to the Indian subcontinent.
This article surveys the physical and human geography of Asia. For in-depth treatment of Asia’s major
geographic features, see specific articles by name—e.g., Pamirs, Gobi, and Tigris and Euphrates rivers. For
discussion of individual countries of the continent, see specific articles by name—e.g., Kazakhstan, Mongolia,
India, and Thailand. For discussion of major cities of the continent, see specific articles by name—e.g., Bangkok,
Jerusalem, Beijing, and Seoul. The principal treatment of Asian historical and cultural development is contained
in the articles on Asian countries, regions, and cities and in the

articles Palestine, history of and Islamic world. Related topics are
discussed in articles on religion (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism, and
Islam) and arts and literature (e.g., Chinese literature, Japanese
literature, Central Asian arts, Southeast Asian arts, and South Asian
arts).
Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan Yury Konstantinovich Yefremov The

Bhutan: monastery
Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Taktshang (“Tiger's Nest”) Monastery,
near Paro, Bhutan. Geologic history
© nyiragongo/Fotolia
Asia is not only Earth’s largest continent but also its youngest and
structurally most-complicated one. Although Asia’s evolution began almost four billion years ago, more than half
of the continent remains seismically active, and new continental material is currently being produced in the island
arc systems that surround it to the east and southeast. In such places, new land is continuously emerging and is
added to the bulk of the continent by episodic collisions of the island arcs with the mainland. Asia also contains
the greatest mountain mass on Earth’s surface: the Plateau of Tibet and the bordering mountains of the
Himalayas, Karakoram Range, Hindu Kush, Pamirs, Kunlun Mountains, and Tien Shan. By virtue of its
enormous size and relative youth, Asia contains many of the morphological extremes of Earth’s land surface—
such as its highest and lowest points, longest coastline, and largest area of continental shelf. Asia’s immense
mountain ranges, varied coastline, and vast continental plains and basins have had a profound effect on the course
of human history. The fact that Asia produces vast quantities of fossil fuels—petroleum, natural gas, and coal—in
addition to being a significant contributor to the global production of many minerals (e.g., about three-fifths of
the world’s tin) heavily underlines the importance of its geology for the welfare of the world’s population.
General considerations
Tectonic framework
The morphology of Asia masks an extremely complex geologic
history that predates the active deformations largely responsible for
the existing landforms. Tectonic units (regions that once formed or
now form part of a single tectonic plate and whose structures derive
Kailas Range
from the formation and motion of that plate) that are defined on the
Northern side of Kangrinboqê Peak basis of active structures in Asia are not identical to those defined
(Mount Kailas), in the Kailas Range,
Trans-Himalayas, Tibet Autonomous
on the basis of its fossil (i.e., now inactive) structures. It is therefore
Region, China. convenient to discuss the tectonic framework of Asia in terms of
Ondřej Žváček two separate maps, one showing its paleotectonic (i.e., older
tectonic) units and the other displaying its neotectonic (new and
presently active) units.
According to the theory of plate tectonics, forces within Earth

propel sections of its crust on various courses, with the result that
continents are formed and oceans are opened and closed. Oceans
commonly open by rifting—by tearing a continent asunder—and
close along subduction zones, which are inclined planes along
which ocean floors sink beneath an adjacent tectonic plate and are
assimilated into Earth’s mantle. Ocean closure culminates in
Belukha, Mount continental collision and may involve the accretion of vast tectonic
Mount Belukha, Altai Mountains, collages, including small continental fragments, island arcs, large
southwestern Siberia, Russia. deposits of sediment, and occasional fragments of ocean-floor
© Maxim Toporskiy/Fotolia material. In defining the units to draw Asia’s paleotectonic map, it is
useful to outline such accreted objects and the lines, or sutures,
along which they are joined.
Continuing convergence following collision may further disrupt an already assembled tectonic collage along new,
secondary lines, especially by faulting. Postcollisional disruption also may reactivate some of the old tectonic
lines (sutures). Those secondary structures dominate and define the neotectonic units of Asia. It should be
mentioned, however, that most former continental collisions also have led to the generation of secondary
structures that add to the structural diversity of the continent.
The paleotectonic units of Asia are divided into two first-order classes: continental nuclei and orogenic
(mountain-building) zones. The continental nuclei consist of platforms that stabilized mostly in Precambrian time
(between roughly 4 billion and 541 million years ago) and have been covered largely by little-disturbed
sedimentary rocks; included in that designation are the Angaran (or East Siberian), Indian, and Arabian
platforms. There are also several smaller platforms that were deformed to a greater extent than the larger units
and are called paraplatforms; those include the North China (or Sino-Korean) and Yangtze paraplatforms, the
Kontum block (in Southeast Asia), and the North Tarim fragment (also called Serindia; in western China). The
orogenic zones consist of large tectonic collages that were accreted around the continental nuclei. Recognized
zones are the Altaids, the Tethysides (further subdivided into the Cimmerides and the Alpides), and the circum-
Pacific belt. The Alpides and circum-Pacific belt are currently undergoing tectonic deformation—i.e., they are
continuing to evolve—and so are the locations of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
The Precambrian continental nuclei were formed by essentially the same plate tectonic processes that constructed
the later orogenic zones, but it is best to treat them separately for three reasons. First, the nuclei occupy only
about one-fourth of the area of Asia, and less than one-third of that area (i.e., less than 10 percent of Asia’s total)
consists of exposed Precambrian rocks that enable geologists to study their development. Second, Precambrian
rocks are extremely poor in fossils, which makes global or even regional correlations difficult. Finally, during
most of Phanerozoic time (i.e., about the past 541 million years), the nuclei have remained stable and have acted
as hosts around which the tectonic collages have accumulated in the Phanerozoic orogenic zones.
The paleotectonic evolution of Asia terminated some 40 to 50 million years ago as a result of the collision of the
Indian subcontinent with Eurasia. Asia’s subsequent neotectonic development has largely disrupted the
continent’s preexisting fabric. The first-order neotectonic units of Asia are Stable Asia, the Arabian and Indian
cratons, the Alpide plate boundary zone (along which the Arabian and Indian platforms have collided with the
Eurasian continental plate), and the island arcs and marginal basins.
Chronological summary
The oldest rocks in Asia are found in the continental nuclei. Rocks more than 3 billion years old are in the
Precambrian outcrops of the Angaran and Indian platforms and in the North China paraplatform. They consist of
primitive island-arc magmatic and sparse sedimentary rocks sandwiched between younger basaltic and ultrabasic
rocks, exposed along what are called greenstone belts. The basement of the Angaran platform was largely formed
by about 1.5 billion years ago. The final consolidation of the Indian platform, however, lasted until about 600
million years ago and included various mountain-building episodes with peaks of activity between 2.4 and 2.3
billion years ago, at about 2 billion years ago, between 1.7 and 1.6 billion years ago, and between 1.1 billion and
600 million years ago. In the Arabian platform the formation of the present basement commenced by arc and
microcontinent accretion some 900 million years ago and ended about 600 million years ago, although some of
the accreted microcontinents had basements more than 2.5 billion years old and may be detached fragments of
Africa.
In the North China paraplatform, Chinese geologists have identified

a period of intense island-arc magmatism (a process by which
molten rock, often formed by the melting of subducted oceanic
crust, rises and solidifies to form igneous rock) between 3.5 and 3
billion years ago. Those arcs then coalesced into protonuclei by
collisions until the end of the Archean Eon (2.5 billion years ago).
Final consolidation of the North China paraplatform occurred
approximately 1.7 billion years ago. The Yangtze paraplatform is
Sakhalin Island
younger, the oldest identified orogenic event being 2.5 billion years
Coast of Sakhalin Island, eastern Russia.
old. Its final consolidation took place some 800 million years ago.
Tapilin Mihail Vasilievich
The Kontum block is poorly known. It contains Precambrian
metamorphic rocks with minimum ages of about 2.3 billion years,
although the oldest well-dated widespread thermal event falls into
the middle Cambrian Period (about 500 million years ago) and
indicates the time of its final consolidation. The North Tarim
fragment is really a thin sliver caught up in younger orogenic belts.
Its Precambrian history is not entirely dissimilar to that of the
Yangtze paraplatform, although not all major breaks in their
sedimentary and structural evolution or the details in their
Tarim Basin sedimentary successions correlate. The Tarim fragment was also
Satellite image of the Tarim Basin, Uygur stabilized some 800 million years ago.
Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, western
China.
While other Asian continental nuclei were completing their
Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team,
NASA/GSFC
consolidation, orogenic deformation recommenced along the present
southeast and southwest margins of the Angaran platform. That
renewed activity marked the beginning of a protracted period of subduction, the development of vast sedimentary
piles scraped off sinking segments of ocean floor in subduction zones and accumulated in the form of subduction-
accretion wedges at the leading edge of overriding plates, and subduction-related magmatism and numerous
collisions in what today is known as Altaid Asia (named for the Altai Mountains). Orogenic deformation in the
Altaids was essentially continuous from the late Proterozoic Eon (about 850 million years ago) into the early part
of the Mesozoic Era (about 220 million years ago), in some regions—such as Mongolia and Siberia—lasting
even to the end of the Jurassic Period (about 145 million years ago).
The construction of the Altaid collage was coeval with the late Paleozoic assembly of the Pangea (or Pangaea)
supercontinent (between about 320 and 250 million years ago). The Altaids lay to the north of the Paleo-Tethys
Ocean (also called Paleo-Tethys Sea), a giant triangular eastward-opening embayment of Pangea. A strip of
continental material was torn away from the southern margin of the Paleo-Tethys and migrated northward,
rotating around the western apex of the Tethyan triangle much like the action of a windshield wiper. That
continental strip, called the Cimmerian continent, was joined during its northward journey by a collage of
continental material that had gathered around the Yangtze paraplatform and the Kontum block, and, between
about 210 and 180 million years ago, all of that material collided with Altaid Asia to create the Cimmeride
orogenic belt.
While the Cimmerian continent was drifting northward, a new ocean, the Neo-Tethys, was opening behind it and
north of the Gondwanaland supercontinent. The new ocean began closing some 155 million years ago, shortly
after the beginning of the major disintegration of Gondwanaland. Two fragments of Gondwanaland, India and
Arabia, collided with the rest of Asia during the Eocene (i.e., about 56 to 34 million years ago) and the Miocene
(about 23 to 5.3 million years ago) epochs, respectively. The orogenic belts that arose from the destruction of the
Neo-Tethys and the resultant continental collisions are called the Alpides and form the present Alpine-Himalayan
mountain ranges. Both the Cimmerides and the Alpides resulted from the elimination of the Tethyan oceans, and
collectively they are called the Tethysides.
Most of the island arcs fringing Asia to the east came into being by subduction of the Pacific Ocean floor and the
opening of marginal basins behind those arcs during the Cenozoic Era (the past 66 million years). That activity
continues today and is the major source of tectonism (seismic and volcanic activity often resulting in uplift) in
South and Southeast Asia. In the south and in the southwest, India and Arabia are continuing their northward
march, moving at an average of about 2.4 and 1.6 inches (6 and 4 cm), respectively, per year. Those movements
have caused the massive distortion of the southern two-thirds of Asia and produced the nearly continuous chain
of mountain ranges between Turkey and Myanmar (Burma) that in places widen into high plateaus in Turkey,
Iran, and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Within and north of those plateaus, geologically young
mountains such as the Caucasus and the Tien Shan, large strike-slip faults such as the North Anatolian and the
Altun (Altyn Tagh), and rift valley basins such as Lake Baikal—all of which are associated with seismic activity
—bear witness to the widespread effects of the convergence of Arabia and India with Stable Asia, in which no
notable active tectonism is seen.
Stratigraphy and structure
The Precambrian
The recorded history of the Precambrian, which covers more than 80 percent of Earth’s geologic history, is
divided into two eons: the Archean, between roughly 4 and 2.5 billion years ago, and the Proterozoic, between
2.5 billion and 541 million years ago. In Asia rocks of Archean age are found in the Angaran and Indian
platforms, in the North China and the Yangtze paraplatforms, and in smaller fragments caught up in younger
orogenic belts such as the North Tarim fragment. In all those places especially, the early Archean evolution was
dominated by intrusions of granodiorite that largely represented subduction-related magmatism and by the
formation and deformation of greenstone belts that are probably relicts of old oceanic crust and mantle and
immature (i.e., basalt-rich) island arcs. In India the more than 3-billion-year-old mafic-ultramafic associations of
Kolar type with only subordinate sedimentary rocks represent the old greenstone belts that have either intrusive
or tectonic contacts with Peninsular gneiss of similar age. The so-called Sargur schist belts within the Peninsular
gneiss may be the oldest suture zones in the Indian subcontinent. In the Angaran platform the older (i.e., more
than 3 billion years) gneiss-granulite basement shows a progressive development in time from ophiolites (pieces
of former ocean floors) and immature basaltic island-arc volcanic rocks to more silicic (silicon-rich) rocks such
as andesites. In the North China paraplatform that early episode corresponds to the Qianxi Stage (3.5 to 3 billion
years ago), in which mafic-ultramafic rocks with silicic sediments developed concurrently with granitic gneisses
that were metamorphosed to a high degree.
After about 3 billion years ago the coalesced “granitic” island arcs,
with intervening greenstone sutures that included more immature
arc remnants, began forming the earliest continental nuclei: the
Fuping (Fupingian) Stage in the North China paraplatform (3 to 2.5
billion years ago); the earlier Dharwar-type greenstone belts in
south-central India; and the Olekma, Timpton-Dzheltula, Batomga,
Cupura, and Borsala gneiss-granulite series, in addition to the Chara
Aravalli Range complex of gneisses and greenstones in the Angaran platform.
Aravalli Range, northern India.

The present-day continental nuclei largely formed during the
Nataraja
Proterozoic through the further agglomeration of the smaller
Archean assemblages. The basement structure of the Angaran
platform was formed for the most part between 2.1 and 1.8 billion years ago by repeated collisions along what
have been dubbed the “second-generation greenstone belts.” That interval also corresponds with the most intense
granitic intrusive activity in the history of the platform. Some 1.45 billion years ago, shortly after the Angaran
platform stabilized, it underwent a rifting event that created its southern and western continental margins and the
large grabens (elongated downthrown fault blocks between two higher-standing blocks) that extend into the
platform from those margins. The rifting may have separated Angara from the North American platform.
Orogenic activity, which initiated the evolution of the Altaids, started along that margin about 850 million years
ago and created the Baikal mountain belt.
In India the activity of the Dharwar greenstone belts lasted into the early Proterozoic, until about 2.3 billion years
ago. Farther to the northwest the Aravalli and the Bijawar groups of sedimentary rocks were deformed by the
Satpura orogeny some 2 billion years ago. The Bijawar Group contains the only piece of evidence in Asia for an
early Proterozoic ice age: the Gangan tillite (lithified glacial sediment), probable age about 1.8 billion years. The
Aravalli orogeny in the same place occurred between 1.7 and 1.6 billion years ago. In northeastern India, orogeny
began some 1.7 billion years ago and culminated in a continental collision 950 million years ago in the present
Singhbhum area. Widespread granitic magmatism in north-central India lasted until 600 million years ago, and it
continued well into the Middle Ordovician Period (about 470 million years ago) in what later became the
Himalayas.
In the Arabian platform, the youngest of the major continental nuclei in Asia, a hypothetical rifting event
sometime between 1.2 billion and 950 million years ago is thought to have created an ocean basin that clearly
existed 950 million years ago in the northeastern part of the platform. The same rifting event may have also
created some of the microcontinents with basements older than 2 billion years (such as that exposed at Mount
Khidāʿ in Saudi Arabia) that later participated in what is known as the Pan-African episode, a tectonic evolution
that also encompassed large parts of present-day Africa and other parts of the Gondwanaland supercontinent.
That tectonic evolution was the one that eventually formed the Arabian platform. Following the emergence of the
ocean, a variety of island arcs formed between 900 and 650 million years ago by intraoceanic subduction. Those
arcs and some of the preexisting microcontinents coalesced by collisions that occurred between 715 and 630
million years ago. Following that amalgamation, intracontinental deformation occurred between 630 and 550
million years ago, giving rise mainly to the northwest–southeast-oriented Najd fault belt in central Saudi Arabia
and the associated crustal extension along north-south–oriented faults that became especially prominent in the
present-day Persian Gulf and the surrounding areas. The Najd faults were predominantly of the strike-slip variety
that moved right-laterally during an initial interval of about 20 million years (between 640 and 620 million years
ago) but then acted as left-lateral faults until about 570 million years ago. The clastic sedimentary rocks of the
Jubaylah Group in Saudi Arabia were deposited in narrow elongate basins formed by the Najd strike-slip faults.
The north-south extensional structures have the same genetic relationship with the Najd faults as the present
Basin and Range extensional system does with the San Andreas Fault in North America; the Hormuz evaporites
(halite, anhydrite, dolomite) of latest Proterozoic to middle Cambrian age were deposited in the system.
The oldest rocks in the Yangtze paraplatform are exposed in the southwest in China’s eastern Yunnan province,
where those in a gneiss-greenstone association have ages ranging from 2.5 to 1.7 billion years. In the northern
part of the block, granites 2.1 billion years old are known from the Dabie Mountains. In the northwest, along the
easternmost edge of the Plateau of Tibet, the oldest rocks are granites known to be about 1 billion years old. A
widespread intermediate to silicic volcanism ended the tectonic evolution of the basement of the Yangtze
paraplatform between 800 and 650 million years ago.
Evidence is scant for the ice age at the beginning of the Proterozoic, but the occurrence of at least three ice ages
in the late Proterozoic is known from rocks in the North Tarim fragment and the Yangtze paraplatform and from
Kazakhstan, central India, and northern Korea. The record of those ice ages, plus the laterally consistent
stratigraphy of the late Proterozoic, has enabled geologists to construct a tentative correlation between the rock
layers of the continental nuclei in Asia. Another rock group that has aided in internuclei correlation has been the
evaporites, particularly halite, gypsum, and anhydrite. Evaporites from the late Proterozoic to early Cambrian
time (i.e., dating to about 590 to 530 million years ago) exist in the Arabian (Hormuz evaporites), northwestern
Indian (Punjab evaporites), and Angaran platforms. On the basis of their orogenic history and the presence of
evaporites, it is now thought that those nuclei may have coalesced at the end of the Pan-African episode and that
Angara may have pulled out later, perhaps in the Early Ordovician (about 490 million years ago).
The Paleozoic Era

The tectonic events in Asia of the Paleozoic Era (about 541 to 252 million years ago) may be summarized under
three categories: events in the Altaids, events in the Tethysides, and events in the continental nuclei. The
identification of Asian Paleozoic tectonic events with those associated with the Caledonian and Hercynian
orogenies of Europe, as was done in the older literature, largely has been abandoned owing to the recognition of
the haphazard nature of tectonic events whose temporal limits widely overlap.
Paleozoic events in the Altaids

The Altaids constitute a large and complex tectonic collage that accreted around the Angaran platform from late
in the Proterozoic to early in the Mesozoic Era. Its oldest part, the Baikalides, formed between about 850 and 570
million years ago along the southern periphery of the Angaran platform. A number of island arcs and
microcontinents were accreted onto Angara along a suture containing ophiolitic remnants of old ocean floor.
After the Baikalian collisions, rifting outboard of the accreted fragments opened a new oceanic area, the floor of
which had begun subducting under the enlarged continental nucleus in early Paleozoic time—perhaps during the
Ordovician Period (about 485 to 444 million years ago). That subduction accumulated a large accretionary prism
(wedge of deformed and partially metamorphosed sediments and rocks scraped from the ocean floor as it
subducted) consisting of deep-sea muds (now slates), sandstones (deposited by large submarine turbidity
currents), and siliceous sedimentary rocks (cherts) that were all structurally mixed with ophiolites (fragments of
oceanic crust). Those rocks now form the basement of much of the Altai Mountains. Much subduction-related
magmatism was associated with the growth of the Altai accretionary prism. Another accretionary prism was
growing at the same time in the ocean, far from the Altai, and that material now forms the basement of much of
Kazakhstan. It was consolidated and made into a small continent by repeated deformation and magmatism
throughout the early Paleozoic.
The later Paleozoic development of the Altaid tectonic collage included the convergence and final collision of the
Kazakhstan continental block with the enlarged Angaran nucleus during the middle of the Carboniferous Period
(about 320 million years ago). The collision occurred along the southwestern Altai suture, the northerly
continuation of which is now buried under the younger Mesozoic deposits of the West Siberian Plain. To the east
it continues into Mongolia and there unites with the circum-Altaid suture zone coming from the west—i.e., from
the Tien Shan. Another Carboniferous collision in the Tien Shan welded the North Tarim fragment to the Altaid
collage. Shortly afterward, in the early Permian Period (about 290 million years ago), north-plunging subduction
along the present-day Kunlun Mountains—which originally lay flush to the south of the North Tarim fragment—
rifted open the Junggar (Dzungarian) and Tarim basins. Those are analogous in their tectonic setting to the
present-day Sea of Japan (East Sea).
The Altaid evolution came to an end in the west when the Russian platform collided with Asia along the Ural
Mountains between the Arctic Ocean and the Aral Sea. That collision occurred during the Carboniferous Period
(about 359 to 299 million years ago) in the south but later—during the Permian Period (299 to 252 million years
ago)—in the north, creating the supercontinent of Laurasia. Later collisions in the south and southeast terminated
the Altaid evolution.
Paleozoic events in the Tethysides
Along the northern margin of the Tethysides, there was a continuous transition from the Altaid evolution into the
Tethyside or, more strictly speaking, into the Cimmeride evolution. In northern Tibet the Kunlun Mountains (a
part of the Cimmerides) may also be considered the southernmost representatives of the Altaid collage that was
described above. They are made up of a huge subduction-accretion complex and of arc-related magmatic rocks—
such as granites, granodiorites, and andesites, the ages of which range from the early Cambrian to Late Triassic
(i.e., from about 540 to 200 million years ago)—that had begun accumulating along the southern margin of the
North Tarim fragment, from which that subduction-accretion complex was later separated by the opening of the
Tarim Basin during the Permian. The accretionary complex continues westward into the Pamir and Hindu Kush
ranges in Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan and finally constitutes almost the entire pre-Triassic basement of
Turkmenistan. The North China block became a part of Asia during the late Paleozoic, although a small westerly
vanishing, wedge-shaped ocean between it and the rest of nuclear Asia remained open along a line roughly
following the present course of the Shilka River in southern Siberia.
Orogenic deformation, magmatism, and metamorphism during the

Satellite image of a river's large alluvial
fan between the Kunlun and Altun Carboniferous and Permian periods have become known in parts of
Asia that then either belonged to Gondwanaland or had just
ranges, Uygur Autonomous Region of separated from it as a result of the rifting of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean
Xinjiang, western China.
behind the separating Cimmerian continent. In northern and eastern
Image provided by the USGS EROS Data
Center Turkey, southwestern Iran, and Oman, folding and thrust faulting
were in places accompanied by granitic and andesitic magmatism
and high-temperature, low-pressure metamorphism, all collectively suggesting the activity of a subduction zone
dipping under Gondwanaland. The same subduction zone may have been responsible for the rifting of the Neo-
Tethys in the middle Permian as a back-arc basin similar to the present-day Sea of Japan.
Late Permian andesitic volcanics in the Hoh Xil Mountains in northern Tibet and late Paleozoic granites in
western and peninsular Thailand, accompanied by compressional deformation and metamorphism, also suggest
that a subduction zone existed along the northern margin of the Cimmerian continent. In those parts of Asia, the
separation of parts of the Cimmerian continent from northern Gondwanaland may have already been under way
during the Carboniferous, as shown by the deposition of the Phuket Group—a formation of glacially modified
clastic sedimentary rocks in western Thailand some 3,600 feet (1,100 metres) thick—and of correlative rocks in
adjacent Myanmar, Malaysia, and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
The Yangtze paraplatform and the Kontum block are believed to have been parts of Gondwanaland during the
early Paleozoic, but they rifted away from it sometime in the Devonian Period (about 419 to 359 million years
ago). Two other fragments in southeastern China, the Huan’an and Dongnanya, have basements that had been
consolidated mainly in the late Proterozoic and that also may have rifted from Gondwanaland sometime during
the middle Paleozoic.
At least two island arcs collided with the Kontum block along its northeastern margin during the Paleozoic to
enlarge it to what is called the Annamia block. The earlier island arc docked along a suture that now coincides
with the Annamese Cordillera in northern Vietnam in the Devonian or slightly earlier. The later one collided
along a suture zone farther to the north, along the present-day Ma River, during the early Carboniferous and
caused a major south-directed deformation that included considerable thrusting.
Subduction during Carboniferous to Permian times was active along the present-day western margin of the
Annamia block, giving rise to much arc-related magmatism and mineralization. That same magmatic zone
extended down into the eastern half of the Malay Peninsula. Subduction was probably also active along the
present western margins of the Huan’an and Dongnanya blocks, although late Paleozoic magmatism there was
much sparser than in Southeast Asia.
Paleozoic events in the continental nuclei

Only three major nuclei underwent Paleozoic tectonic events not obviously related to their flanking orogenic
belts. The Arabian platform underwent a major extensional tectonic event from the late Proterozoic to the middle
Cambrian that created large north-south (“Arabian-trend”) and northwest-southeast (“Najd-trend”) rift basins in
which clastics and evaporites (Jubaylah and Hormuz) were deposited. Those extensional basins were reactivated
repeatedly until the early Carboniferous and then again in the late Permian. Active normal faulting in central
Saudi Arabia late in the Ordovician (between about 460 and 444 million years ago) was coeval with sediment
deposition caused by the Saharan glaciation (the Raʾan shales with striated sandstone boulders). A major marine
invasion from the east in the late Permian covered more than half of the Arabian platform. The submergence of
the platform coincided with the opening of the Neo-Tethys along its eastern margin and with a global rise in sea
level following the late Carboniferous–early Permian glaciation in Gondwanaland. Striated pavements and glacial
sedimentary deposits in the southern part of the Arabian platform (e.g., the Al-Khlata Formation in Oman)
provide evidence of that glaciation.
A prolonged period of emergence up to the late Carboniferous characterized the Paleozoic history of the Indian
platform, except for its northern margin, which was involved in the later Himalayan deformation. Late in the
Carboniferous, glacially influenced terrestrial sedimentation commenced with the Talcher tillite formation in
erosional bedrock depressions. In the early Permian a number of rift valleys oriented east-west and northwest-
southeast originated, possibly related to extensions that farther north led to the opening of the Neo-Tethys.
Terrestrial deposition continued in those rifts and in the surrounding areas, with local interruptions, until early in
the Cretaceous Period (about 145 million years ago), forming the Gondwanan deposits. Farther north in what
later became the Himalayas, there was continuous marine sedimentation, with only local interruptions related to
global changes in sea level and gentle oscillations of the platform.
After the early Cambrian deposition of evaporites in extensional basins, the Angaran platform remained
geologically calm, and shallow marine clastic and carbonate rocks were deposited on it. In the late Devonian (385
to 359 million years ago), however, the platform’s present northeastern margin was rifted; in addition to creating
a major ocean, that activity produced two large rift valleys that now extend into the Angaran platform (the
Vilyuy, or Viliui, and Chatanga rifts). Extensive basaltic volcanism accompanied that rifting event, followed by a
period of heavy sedimentation along a northeast-facing continental margin.
The Mesozoic Era

The events in Asia of the Mesozoic Era (about 252 to 66 million years ago) may be summarized as follows:
events in the Tethysides, events in the Altaids, events in the continental nuclei, and events in the circum-Pacific
orogenic belts.
Mesozoic events in the Tethysides

As the Cimmerian continent was moving across the Tethyan realm—eliminating the Paleo-Tethys Ocean in front
of itself while enlarging the Neo-Tethys behind it—it also began falling apart internally. Thus, a northern
fragment (consisting of the Farāh block in Afghanistan, the central Pamirs, and the western Qiangtang block in
Tibet) became separated from a southern fragment (including the Helmand block in Afghanistan, the southern
Pamirs, and the Lhasa block in southern Tibet) by an ocean whose ophiolitic remnants are today encountered in
the mountain ranges of eastern Iran, along the Farāh River in Afghanistan, and in the Tanggula Mountains in
Tibet continuing to the city of Mandalay in Myanmar. That ocean opened in the Permian and closed early in the
Cretaceous (i.e., earlier than about 125 million years ago).
The northern fragment of the Cimmerian continent, including much of

Jinsha River
modern-day Iran and the mountains of northern Turkey along the Black
Jinsha River, Yunnan province, China.
Sea, collided with the Altaid collage along a suture zone that passes
© Meiqianbao/Shutterstock.com
north of the Elburz Mountains and south of the Kopet-Dag Range in
northern Iran, through the Hindu Kush range in Afghanistan, south of
the northern Pamirs and the Kunlun Mountains in northern Tibet, and then follows the Jinsha River (major source
stream of the Yangtze River [Chang Jiang]) and continues through western Thailand and into the Malay
Peninsula. The collision occurred late in the Triassic in Iran and Southeast Asia (about 220 million years ago) and
early in the Jurassic (about 200 million years ago) between Iran and peninsular Southeast Asia. That collision
created a massive wall of mountains along the southern border of Asia, called the Cimmeride Mountains (the
name taken from the ancient people the Cimmerians, in whose homeland north of the Black Sea the first pieces of
evidence for the chain were found at the beginning of the 20th century). Those mountains extended from Turkey
well into Southeast Asia. The large, rich tin-bearing granite belt of western Thailand and Malaysia was formed
during the collision.
The southern fragment of the Cimmerian continent soon caught up with the northern fragment, and, following the
emplacement in the Late Jurassic (about 160 to 145 million years ago) of a part of the floor of the intervening
ocean onto the Lhasa block in the form of a giant ophiolite sheet, the southern fragment also collided with Asia,
eliminating the entire Paleo-Tethys and its marginal basins. Widespread aridity in much of Central Asia during
the Late Jurassic was probably a result of the rain shadow that formed behind the wall of the Cimmeride
Mountains to the south.
The interval from the Late Triassic through the Late Jurassic (about 230 to 145 million years ago) was also the
time when the Yangtze paraplatform and the Huan’an, Dongnanya, and Annamia blocks collided with one
another and also with the eastern end of the Cimmerian continent and the rest of Asia. That action created the
multibranched Cimmeride mountain ranges of eastern and southeastern Asia, including the Qin (Tsinling)
Mountains that separate northern China from southern China. Some of the metamorphic rocks in the Dabie
Mountains were buried to depths reaching 60 miles (100 km) during the collision of the Yangtze and the North
China paraplatforms. Those collisions formed another vast tin-bearing granite province in southern China.
In the Middle East the rifting of the Cimmerian continent opened the eastern Mediterranean Sea in the Late
Triassic (between about 230 and 201 million years ago), with Turkey moving away from Africa. In the Early
Jurassic (201 to 175 million years ago) the Turkish part of the Cimmerian continent continued to disintegrate and
to open a number of new Tethyan branches.
The fragmentation of the southern supercontinent Gondwanaland accelerated in the middle Mesozoic. That
fragmentation led to the opening of the central and the southern Atlantic and Indian oceans that was partially
compensated by the beginning closure of the Neo-Tethys. In Asia the main subduction zones consuming the Neo-
Tethyan ocean floor began forming in the Late Jurassic along the northern margin of the ocean in Iran and in
what later became the Himalayas. A unified subduction zone—extending from northern Turkey, south of the
Pontic Mountains, through southwestern Iran (the present northern slope of the Zagros Mountains) and the
Makran region, north of the Salt Range in Pakistan to the present-day Himalayan suture zone along the valleys of
the Indus and Brahmaputra rivers, and from there to Myanmar and Sumatra—came into being during the Early
Cretaceous (about 145 to 100 million years ago). The vast Late Cretaceous granitic intrusions of the Trans-
Himalayas and the Karakoram mountain ranges and the andesitic volcanics that occupy a thin strip from northern
Turkey through Iran and Pakistan to the Karakorams and extend beyond the Himalayas into Myanmar, Sumatra,
and Borneo are the result of the rapid destruction of the Neo-Tethyan ocean floor.
In the Early Cretaceous other entirely intraoceanic subduction zones also formed just north of the former
Gondwanan continental margins in Turkey, Iran, and Oman. The attempted subduction of those margins resulted
in the emplacement of vast portions of the Neo-Tethyan ocean floor on top of those margins in the form of giant
ophiolite sheets, such as the Semail Nappe in Oman. The ophiolite nappes (i.e., thrust sheets) are major sources
of chromite deposits. Also in the Early Cretaceous a small sliver of continental crust that now forms much of
southwestern Sumatra rifted from northwestern Australia. That sliver eventually collided with the rest of Sumatra
in the Late Cretaceous, resulting in the opening of the northeastern segment of the Indian Ocean.
Mesozoic events in the Altaids

Most of the Mesozoic events in the Altaids were the echoes of the Cimmeride collisions farther south. In places
the collisions split the old Altaid edifice at high angles to the collision front, creating extensional basins such as
the Turgay (Torghay) Valley of Kazakhstan, just north of the Aral Sea, and the West Siberian Plain, which
contains little-deformed Jurassic and younger shallow-water and continental sedimentary rocks with significant
hydrocarbon reserves. In other places closer to the collision front, the basement was uplifted along major thrust
faults, creating mountain ridges (e.g., in the Tupqaraghan Peninsula on the east coast of the Caspian Sea and the
Kyzylkum Desert of southern Kazakhstan). Between those, large compressional basins formed (e.g., the
Turkmenian basins) or older ones became accentuated (the Tarim and Junggar), within which large sedimentary
thicknesses and important hydrocarbon reserves accumulated. The compressional structures were connected in
places with extensional structures through large strike-slip fault systems, the best-known of which runs through
the Fergana Valley in southern Central Asia.
Mesozoic events in the continental nuclei

The Angaran platform was also affected by the Cimmeride collisions but reacted more mildly than the Altaids.
The vast Tunguska trap basalts erupted in the transition between the Permian and Triassic periods, and the
eruptions lasted well into the Triassic. They were related to the rifting of the West Siberian Plain and were coeval
with basaltic eruptions in the Turgay Valley. The old Proterozoic rifts on the Angaran platform were compressed
at the end of the Jurassic, probably in response to the ongoing shortening of the Cimmeride continent.
Major Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous extension and basaltic volcanism affected especially the northern part of
the Arabian platform. That extensional event was part of a much wider extensional province in north-central
Africa. Yet another such event occurred in the northern and eastern parts of the platform in the Late Cretaceous,
creating deep shelf basins.
During the Mesozoic, the Indian subcontinent separated from Gondwanaland. Its eastern margin formed early in
the Cretaceous (about 145 million years ago), when India separated from Australia. The Early Cretaceous rifting
event that affected the eastern margin of the Indian platform also led to some rejuvenation of the older
Gondwanan rifts. India separated from Madagascar some 80 to 90 million years ago. Another rifting along that
margin, about 65 million years ago, removed the Seychelles and Saya de Malha banks in the present western
Indian Ocean from India and also gave rise to the huge Deccan trap basalt eruptions, which involved about 50
distinct flows in probably less than a million years.
Mesozoic events in the circum-Pacific orogenic belts

The subduction of the floor of the Pacific Ocean dominated the evolution of the Pacific margin of Asia,
especially during the second half of the Mesozoic Era. Large subduction-accretion complexes formed in Japan
and in Borneo, and the Kolyma block—forming present-day northeastern Asia—collided with the Angaran
platform during the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous interval. That collision produced the 375-mile- (600-km-)
wide Verkhoyansk fold-and-thrust belt, in the front of which coal was deposited in postcollisional molasse basins.
A major magmatic arc flanked Asia between Japan and peninsular Southeast Asia in the Late Jurassic to Late
Cretaceous interval and joined the Neo-Tethyan arc system in Borneo. Late Cretaceous to Paleogene (about 80 to
55 million years ago) extensional tectonics along the arc formed many of the offshore basins along the Chinese
continental margin.
The Cenozoic Era

The Cenozoic (i.e., the past 66 million years) was the time when Asia acquired its present appearance.
Cenozoic events in the Alpide plate boundary zone and in the Arabian and
Indian cratons
The most important tectonic event in the Cenozoic history of Asia was its collision with India some 40 to 50
million years ago. That collision took place about 1,250 miles (2,000 km) south of the present location of the line
of collision along the Indus-Brahmaputra suture behind the main range of the Himalayas. Since the collision,
India has “bulldozed” the southern margin of Asia, crumpling both Asia and its own northern margin. A
horizontal shortening of some 500 miles (800 km) has accompanied that action, much of the distance taken up by
massive thrust sheets in the Himalayas. The Plateau of Tibet, the largest and thickest concentration of continental
crust on Earth, is a consequence of considerable compression of the Asian continental lithosphere. The plateau
has a crustal thickness of some 43 miles (69 km), and widespread volcanicity results from the melting of the
lower parts of the thickened continental crust. Extensional basins oriented north-south in Tibet indicate that the
massive plateau is spreading under its own weight like a piece of Silly Putty. India still moves northward with
respect to Asia at a speed of about 2.4 inches (6 cm) per year, maintaining the high elevations of both the
Himalayas and the Plateau of Tibet.
The effects of the convergence reach farther north to Lake Baikal. The
Zagros Mountains
old Cimmeride compressional basins of Tarim, Dzungaria, and the other
Zagros Mountains, southwestern Iran.
smaller ones have been all rejuvenated, as have the intervening
© gaelj/Fotolia
mountain ridges such as the Tien Shan. Large strike-slip faults such as
the Altun and the Karakoram have redistributed continental material in
front of the moving indenter. In the south the collision created the large Ganges basin south of the Himalayas and
may have led to a shortening of the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent in the vicinity of Anai Peak.
The Arabian platform, which collided with Asia in the middle Miocene Epoch (about 13 million years ago), has
continued to converge with it at a rate of some 1.6 inches (4 cm) per year, in the process uplifting both the Zagros
Mountains and the entire high-plateau system of Turkey and Iran, which resembles the Plateau of Tibet. A part of
eastern Turkey has been pushed out of the way of the indenting Arabian platform along the North Anatolian
Fault.
The widespread and complicated deformation caused or influenced by the two major Alpide collisions
characterizes the Alpide plate boundary zone, the major neotectonic province in Asia. The vast salt steppes and
deserts of Asia are located in that province, behind the rain shadow of the Alpide ranges.
Subduction under Asia continues in the Tethysides and contributes to tectonism in the Alpide plate boundary
zone. Subduction has been consuming the floor of the eastern Mediterranean to the south of Asia Minor, the floor
of the Arabian Sea off the coast of the Makran region, and the floor of the Indian Ocean around Southeast Asia.
The Banda arc of mainly volcanic islands in Indonesia collided with Australia in the Pliocene Epoch (i.e., about
5.3 to 2.6 million years ago), and arc-related magmatism has not yet ceased.
Cenozoic events in Stable Asia

North of the Alpide plate boundary zone are the vast expanses of Siberia, where the absence of seismic activity
and the subdued relief indicate an absence of active tectonism. The only exception to that is where the Gakkel
spreading centre of the Arctic Ocean is propagating into Asia along the Sadko Trough and the Chersky Range.
Cenozoic events in the island arcs and the marginal basins

The subduction zone that was active along the eastern margin of Asia late in the Mesozoic started migrating away
from the continent in the Late Cretaceous in China. That action led to crustal extension that created a number of
the present-day offshore basins along the Chinese continental margin. The South China Sea opened as an ocean-
floored marginal basin in the Oligocene Epoch (34 to 23 million years ago). Earlier, a midoceanic subduction
zone had come into being along the Kyushu-Palau Ridge, and above it the West Mariana Basin opened in the
Oligocene-Miocene interval. Some 5 million years ago the East Mariana Basin began opening behind the present
Mariana Island arc. Japan moved away from mainland Asia in the Middle Miocene, opening behind it the Sea of
Japan. The Kuril Basin behind the Kuril Islands arc has a similar age.
The Cenozoic history of the island arc systems and the marginal
Kuril Islands
basins they delimit against the Pacific Ocean has been dominated by
Satellite image of the Kuril Islands
between Sakhalin Island, Russia, and extensional tectonics of the arc massifs concurrent with mainly
Hokkaido, Japan. basaltic and subordinate andesitic volcanism, limited subduction-
MODIS Rapid Response Project, NASA/GSFC accretion, and strike-slip faulting (e.g., the Philippine Fault). Some
arcs, such as Sengihe and Halmahera, collided with each other,
while others have split apart in recent geologic time to create newer marginal basins such as the Okinawa Trough.
Some islands, such as eastern Taiwan or those of the Banda arc, have collided with continents. Of the young
marginal basins, only the Sea of Japan may have begun closing again. The extraordinarily complex tectonic
evolution of the East and Southeast Asian island arcs and marginal basins constitutes an excellent present-day
analogue of the processes that may have produced the Altaid collage during the Paleozoic.
A.M. Celâl Şengör

Halmahera
Portion of the shoreline of Halmahera

Land
island, North Maluku province,
northeastern Indonesia. Relief
Eustaquio Santimano
The mountain belts
Characteristic of the surface of Asia is the great predominance of mountains and plateaus, constituting about
three-fourths of the continent’s total area. The mountains are grouped into two belts: those located on the stable
platforms (cratons) and those located in active orogenic zones. The former usually occur on the margins of the
platforms and generally are characterized by smooth eroded peaks and steep faulted slopes. Marginal mountain
ranges, with average heights of 8,200 to 9,850 feet (2,500 to 3,000 metres), usually enclose the inner tablelands
and plateaus; examples of such ranges include the Western and Eastern Ghats in India, the mountains of the Hejaz
and Yemeni highlands on the Arabian Peninsula, and the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains in the Levant.
The Aldan Plateau and Stanovoy Range lie along the eastern margin of the Angaran (Siberian) platform, where
the isolated and uplifted Putoran Mountains are located in central Siberia.
Mountains of the orogenic zones are much higher in elevation and have a more-complicated structure. Tectonic
movements in those zones have given rise to structures of different age and composition. Mesozoic and Cenozoic
foldings (i.e., those of roughly the past 250 million years) created boundaries between basic types of mountains
over vast areas of Asia. The largest mountain belt on Mesozoic structures (i.e., from about 252 to 66 million
years ago) extends from the Chukchi Peninsula at the eastern extremity of Asia through the Kolyma Upland and
the Dzhugdzhur and Stanovoy ranges to the mountains of southern Siberia (the Sayan and the Altai mountains)
and to the Tien Shan and Gissar-Alay ranges. The Chersky and Verkhoyansk ranges are the western spurs of that
belt.
Along the edges of the Central Asian plateaus extend the elongated
Rocky streambed in the Kyrgyz Range of
the Tien Shan, near Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. mountain chains of the Da Hinggan (Greater Khingan), Taihang,
© David Tomlinson/NHPA and Daxue ranges. The Hinggan-Bureya mountains (Xiao Hinggan
[Lesser Khingan] and Bureya ranges) demarcate the Zeya-Bureya
Depression. The Manchurian-Korean and Sikhote-Alin mountain ranges separate the plains of the Amur and
Sungari (Songhua) rivers, the Lake Khanka lowland, and the Northeast (Manchurian) Plain. The coastal ranges in
the southeast consist of the mountains of southern China and the Annamese Cordillera. A generally latitudinal
branch springs from the Pamirs region and runs eastward through the Kunlun, Qilian, and Qin (Tsinling)
mountains.
The Alpine-Himalayan mountain belt runs in a west-east direction

Annamese Cordillera
and includes the Taurus Mountains, the Caucasus, the Zagros and
Pu Mat National Park in the Annamese
Cordillera, north-central Vietnam. Elburz mountains, the Hindu Kush, the Pamirs, the Karakoram
Rolf Müller Range, the Plateau of Tibet, and the Himalayas; it then turns to the
south and southeast, running through the Rakhine (Arakan)
Mountains to the islands of the Malay Archipelago. The western part of that belt consists, for a considerable
distance, of two series of mountain chains that converge in dense knots in the Armenian Highland, in the Pamirs,
and in the southeast of the Plateau of Tibet; the two chains then diverge to encompass the interior plateaus. The
average elevation of highlands and marginal ranges increases from west to east from about 2,600 to 3,000 feet
(800 to 900 metres) on the Anatolian Plateau to about 13,000 to 16,400 feet (4,000 to 5,000 metres) on the
Plateau of Tibet and from about 8,200 to 11,500 feet (2,500 to 3,500 metres) in the Pontic and Taurus mountains
to 19,000 feet (5,800 metres) in the Himalayas.
On the northeastern and eastern edges of Asia, a vast belt of

Aragats, Mount
Cenozoic Era (i.e., of the past 66 million years) folding extends
Mount Aragats rising above the plain,
west-central Armenia. from the Koryak Mountains of the Kamchatka-Koryak arc along the
© pingvin57/stock.adobe.com Sredinny (Central) range on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia.
The marginal seas of the western Pacific Ocean are bordered by the
East Asian islands, which form the line of arcs running from the Kamchatka Peninsula in the north to the Sunda
Islands of Indonesia in the south. Many of those islands are part of the Ring of Fire, a belt of volcanic and
seismic activity in the Pacific Rim.
The plains and lowlands

Low plains occupy the rest of the Asian mainland, particularly the vast West Siberian and Turan plains of the
interior. The remaining lowlands are distributed either in the maritime regions—such as the North Siberian and
Yana-Indigirka lowlands and the North China Plain—or in the piedmont depressions of Mesopotamia, the Indo-
Gangetic Plain, and mainland Southeast Asia. Those plains have monotonously level surfaces with wide valleys,
through which the great Asian rivers and their tributaries flow. The topography of the plains in densely populated
regions has been greatly modified through the construction of canals, dams, and levees. To the south of the zone
of piedmont depressions lie extensive tablelands and plateaus, including the Deccan plateau in India and the
Syrian-Arabian Plateau in the west. In addition, there are the intermontane basins of Kashgaria, Junggar, Qaidam
(Tsaidam), and Fergana and the plateaus of central Siberia and the Gobi, all of which lie at elevations of 2,600 to
4,900 feet (800 to 1,500 metres). Most of their surfaces are smooth or gently rolling, with isolated hillocks. The
plateaus inside the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, the Tien Shan, and the Pamirs lie at elevations of some
12,000 feet (3,700 metres) or more.
A stand of birch trees and conifers in the

The islands
taiga of the West Siberian Plain, near
Nizhnevartovsk, Russia. A large proportion of the islands of Asia are mountainous. The
N. Gyngazov/© TRIP highlands of Sri Lanka rise to 8,281 feet (2,524 metres); Mount
Kinabalu in Malaysia reaches 13,455 feet (4,101 metres); Mount
Fuji on the Japanese island of Honshu has an elevation of 12,388 feet (3,776 metres); and numerous volcanoes on
Sumatra, Java, and Mindanao reach 10,000 feet (3,000 metres). Among the active volcanoes associated with the
Ring of Fire are Krakatoa on Rakata Island in Indonesia, Mount Pinatubo on Luzon in the Philippines, and Mount
Aso on Kyushu in Japan.
Mount Pinatubo
Geologic and climatic influences
Mount Pinatubo erupting in 1991, The contemporary relief of Asia was molded primarily under the
western Luzon, Philippines.
influences of (1) ancient processes of planation (leveling), (2) larger
T. J. Casadevall/U.S. Geological Survey
vertical movements of the surface during the Cenozoic Era, and (3)
severe erosive dissection of the edges of the uplifted highlands with
the accompanying accumulation of alluvium in low-lying troughs, which were either settling downward or being
uplifted more slowly than the adjoining heights.
The interior portions of the uplifted highlands and the plateaus and tablelands of peninsular India, Arabia, Syria,
and eastern Siberia—all of which are relatively low-lying but composed of resistant rock—largely have preserved
their ancient peneplaned (i.e., leveled) surfaces. Particularly spectacular uplifting occurred in Central Asia, where
the amplitude of uplift of the mountain ranges of Tibet and of the Pamirs and the Himalayas has exceeded 13,000
feet (4,000 metres). The eastern margin of the highlands, meanwhile, underwent subsidences of up to 2,300 feet
(700 metres). Uplifting as a result of fractures at great depths, of which the Kopet-Dag and ranges surrounding
the Fergana Valley provide typical examples, and of folding over a large radius, examples of which may be seen
in the Tien Shan and Gissar and Alay ranges, played a significant role.
Erosional dissection transformed many ancient plateaus into

Sayan Mountains
mountainous regions. Majestic gorges were carved into the
Western Sayan Mountains, Siberia, highlands of the western Pamirs and southeastern Tibet; the
Russia.
Himalayas, the Kunlun and Sayan mountains, the Stanovoy and
© Sergey Toronto/Fotolia
Chersky ranges, and the marginal ranges of the West Asian
highlands were deeply cut by the rivers, which created deep
superimposed gorges and canyons.
Vast areas of Middle, Central, and East Asia, particularly in the Huang He (Yellow River) basin, are covered with
loess (a loamy unstratified deposit formed by wind or by glacial meltwater deposition); the thickness of the
deposits on the Loess Plateau of China sometimes exceeds 1,000 feet (300 metres). There are broad expanses of
badlands, eolian (wind-produced) relief, and karst topography (limestone terrain associated with vertical and
underground drainage). Karst terrain is characteristic of the Kopet-Dag, the eastern Pamirs, the Tien Shan, the
Gissar and Alay ranges, the Ustyurt Plateau, the western Taurus Mountains, and the Levant. Tropical karst
(limestone landscape) in South China is renowned for its picturesque residual hills.
The mantle of glaciation from the Pleistocene Epoch (i.e., about

Loess Plateau
2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago) embraced northwestern Asia only to
Loess Plateau, Shanxi province, China.
latitude 60° N. East of the Khatanga River, which flows from Siberia
Till Niermann
into the Arctic Ocean, only isolated glaciation of the mantle debris and
of the mountains occurred, because of the extremely dry climate that
existed in northeastern Asia even at that time. The high mountain regions experienced primarily mountain
glaciation. There are traces of several periods during which the glaciers advanced—periods separated by warmer
interglacial epochs. Glaciation continues in many of the mountainous areas and on the Severnaya Zemlya
archipelago. The Karakoram Range, the Pamirs, the Tien Shan, the Himalayas, and the eastern Hindu Kush are
noted for the immensity of their contemporary glaciers. Most of the glaciers are retreating. The elevation of the
permanent snow line is relatively high, averaging between 14,800 and 16,400 feet (4,500 and 5,000 metres) and
reaching 21,000 feet (6,400 metres) in central Tibet.
An enormous area of permafrost—some 4.25 million square miles

Peaks of the Pamirs rising above a
portion of the Silk Road (foreground), (11 million square km)—covers northern Asia and extends to lower
Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, latitudes there than anywhere else in the world. Little snowfall
western China.
occurs, because of the aridity, and deep freezing of the soil takes
© Nniud/Fotolia
place. The depth of the permafrost in continental northern and
eastern Siberia exceeds 1,000 to 1,300 feet (300 to 400 metres).
Volcanism has added broad lava plateaus and chains of young volcanic cones to the relief of Asia. Ancient lavas
and intrusions of magma, exposed by later erosion, cover the terraced plateaus of peninsular India and central
Siberia. Extensive zones of young volcanic relief and contemporary volcanism, however, are confined to the
unstable arcs of the East Asian islands, together with the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Philippines, and the Sunda
Islands. The highest active volcano in Asia, Klyuchevskaya, rises to 15,584 feet (4,750 metres) on Kamchatka.
Geologically recent volcanism is also characteristic of the West Asian highlands, the Caucasus, Mongolia, the
Manchurian-Korean mountains, and the Syrian-Arabian Plateau. In historical times eruptions also occurred in the
interior of the continent in the Xiao Hinggan Range and the Anyuy highlands.
The regions of Asia
It is common practice in geographic literature to divide Asia into large regions, each grouping together a number
of countries. Those physiographic divisions usually consist of North Asia, including the bulk of Siberia and the
northeastern edges of the continent; East Asia, including the continental part of the Russian Far East region of
Siberia, the East Asian islands, Korea, and eastern and northeastern China; Central Asia, including the Plateau of
Tibet, the Junggar and Tarim basins, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, the Gobi, and the Sino-
Tibetan ranges; Middle Asia, including the Turan Plain, the Pamirs, the Gissar and Alay ranges, and the Tien
Shan; South Asia, including the Philippine and Malay archipelagoes, peninsular Southeast Asia and peninsular
India, the Indo-Gangetic Plain, and the Himalayas; and West (or Southwest) Asia, including the West Asian
highlands (Anatolia, Armenia, and Iran), the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. Sometimes the Philippines, the
Malay Archipelago, and peninsular Southeast Asia, instead of being considered part of South Asia, are grouped
separately as Southeast Asia. Yet another variation of the basic categories is commonly made to divide Asia into
its cultural regions.
Physiographic regions of Asia and New

North Asia
Guinea.
Northeastern Siberia comprises faulted and folded mountains of
moderate height, such as the Verkhoyansk, Chersky, and Okhotsk-
Chaun mountain arcs, all Mesozoic structures that have been
rejuvenated by geologically recent tectonic events. The Koryak Mountains are similar but have a Cenozoic
origin. Volcanic activity took place in those areas during the Cenozoic. Some plateaus are found in the areas of
the ancient massifs, such as the Kolyma Mountains. Traces of several former centres of mountain glaciers remain,
as well as traces of lowland originally covered by the sea, such as the New Siberian Islands. The Prilenskoye and
Aldan plateaus—comprising an ancient peneplain resting on the underlying platform that sometimes outcrops on
the surface—are located in the region. Traces of ancient glaciation also can be distinguished.
The dominant feature of north-central Siberia is the Central Siberian

Kulunda Steppe
Plateau, a series of plateaus and stratified plains that were uplifted
Meandering river on the Kulunda Steppe,
western Siberia, Russia. in the Cenozoic. They are composed of terraced and dissected mesas
© Ivan Dulic/Fotolia with exposed horizontal volcanic intrusions, plains formed from
uplifted Precambrian blocks, and a young uplifted mesa, dissected at
the edges and partly covered with traprock (Putoran Mountains). On the eastern periphery is the Central Yakut
Lowland, the drainage basin of the lower Lena River, and on the northern periphery is the North Siberian
Lowland, covered with its original marine deposits.
The West Siberian Plain is stratified and is composed of Cenozoic sediments deposited over thicknesses of
Mesozoic material, in addition to folded bedrock. The northern part was subjected to several periods of glaciation
throughout the Quaternary Period (the past 2.6 million years). In the south, glaciofluvial and fluvial deposits
predominate.
In the northern part of the region are the mountains and islands of the Asian Arctic. The archipelago of Severnaya
Zemlya is formed of fragments of fractured Paleozoic folded structures. Throughout the region there has been
vigorous contemporary glaciation.
East Asia
The main features in the northern region of East Asia include the Da Hinggan, Xiao Hinggan, and Bureya ranges;
the Zeya-Bureya Depression and the Sikhote-Alin ranges; the lowlands of the Amur and Sungari rivers and Lake
Khanka; the Manchurian-Korean highlands running along North Korea’s border with China; the ranges extending
along the eastern side of the Korean peninsula; the Northeast (Manchurian) Plain; the lowlands of the Liao River
basin; and the North China Plain. Most of those features were formed by folding, faulting, or broad zonal
subsidence. The mountains are separated by alluvial lowlands in areas where recent subsidence has occurred.
The mountains of southeastern China were formed from

Akaishi Range
Precambrian and Paleozoic remnants of the Yangtze paraplatform
Peak in the Akaishi Range, central
Honshu, Japan. by folding and faulting that occurred during the Mesozoic and
alpsdake Cenozoic eras. The mountain ranges are numerous, are of low or
moderate elevation, and occupy most of the surface area, leaving
only small, irregularly shaped plains.
The islands off the coast of East Asia and the Kamchatka Peninsula are related formations. The Ryukyu Islands,
Japan, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands are uplifted fragments of the Ryukyu-Korean, Honshu-Sakhalin, and Kuril-
Kamchatka mountain-island arcs. Dating from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras, those arcs have complex knots at
their junctions, represented by the topography of the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Hokkaido. The mountains
are of low or moderate height and are formed of folded and faulted blocks; some volcanic mountains and small
alluvial lowlands also are to be found.
Kamchatka is a mountainous peninsula formed from fragments of

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
the Kamchatka-Koryak and Kuril-Kamchatka arcs, which occur in
Port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, with
Koryakskaya Sopka volcano in the parallel ranges. The geologically young folds enclose rigid ancient
background, Kamchatka kray, Russia. structures. Cenozoic (including contemporary) volcanism is
Vfp15 pronounced, and the peninsula has numerous geysers and hot
springs. Vast plains exist that are composed of alluviums and
volcanic ashes.
Central Asia and South Siberia

Central Asia consists of mountains, plateaus, and tablelands formed from fragments of the ancient platforms and
surrounded by a folded area formed in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. The mountains of southern Siberia and
Mongolia were formed by renewed uplift of old faulted and folded blocks; ranges are separated by intermontane
troughs. The Alpine mountains—the Altai, Sayan, and Stanovoy mountains—are particularly noticeable. They
have clearly defined features resulting from ancient glaciation; contemporary glaciers exist in the Altai.
The Central Asian plains and tablelands include the Junggar Basin,
Tarim River
the Takla Makan Desert, the Gobi, and the Ordos Desert. Relief
Tarim River in the Takla Makan Desert,
northwestern China. features vary from surfaces leveled by erosion in the Mesozoic and
Michael D. Manning Cenozoic to plateaus with low mountains, eroded plateaus on which
loess had accumulated, and vast sandy deserts covered with wind-
borne alluvium and lacustrine deposits.
Alpine Asia—sometimes known as High Asia—includes the Pamirs and the eastern Hindu Kush, the Kunlun
Mountains, the Tien Shan, the Gissar and Alay ranges, the Plateau of Tibet, the Karakoram Range, and the
Himalayas. The Pamirs and the eastern Hindu Kush are sharply uplifted mountains dissected into ridges and
gorges in the west. The Kunlun Mountains, the Tien Shan, and the Gissar and Alay ranges belong to an alpine
region that was formed from folded structures of Paleozoic age. Glaciers are present throughout the region but are
most concentrated at the western end of the Himalayas and in the Karakoram Range.
The Plateau of Tibet represents a fractured alpine zone in which

Pangong Range
Mesozoic and Cenozoic structures that surround an older central
Lake in the Pangong (Bangong) Range,
between the Indian-administered and mass have experienced more recent uplifting. Some of the highlands
Chinese-administered portions of are covered with sandy and rocky desert; elsewhere in that region,
Kashmir.
alpine highlands are dissected by erosion or are covered with
© dipak123
glaciers. The Karakoram Range and the Himalayas were uplifted
during late Cenozoic times. Their erosion has exposed older rocks
that were deformed during earlier tectonic events.
South Asia
South Asia, in the limited sense of the term, consists of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, peninsular India, and Sri Lanka.
The Indo-Gangetic Plain is formed from the combined alluvial plains of the Indus, Ganges (Ganga), and
Brahmaputra rivers, which lie in a deep marginal depression running north of and parallel to the main range of
the Himalayas. It is an area of subsidence into which thick accumulations of earlier marine sediments and later
continental deposits have washed down from the rising mountains. The sediments provide fertile soil in the
Ganges and Brahmaputra basins and in irrigated parts of the Indus basin, while the margins of the Indus basin
have become sandy deserts. Peninsular India and Sri Lanka are formed of platform plateaus and tablelands,
including the vast Deccan plateau, uplifted in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. The region includes tablelands with
uplifted margins, such as the Western and Eastern Ghats, and terraced and dissected plateaus with lava mantles or
intrusions.
Indus River
Southeast Asia
Indus River in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistani- Southeast Asia is composed of peninsular Southeast Asia and the
administered portion of Kashmir.
islands and peninsulas to the southeast of the Asian continent. The
© think4photop/Fotolia
mainland consists of the western mountain area and the central and
eastern mountains and plains. The western mountain area of
Myanmar (Burma) is a fold belt of Cenozoic age. Mountains of medium elevation constitute folded blocks that
decrease in size and elevation to the south; the valleys are alluvial and broaden out to the south. Central and
eastern Thailand and central and southern Vietnam are characterized by mountains of low and moderate height
that have been moderately fractured. The region is one of Mesozoic structures surrounding the ancient mass
known as the Kontum block, which comprises plateaus and lowlands filled with accumulated alluvial deposits.
Archipelagoes border the southeastern margin of Asia, consisting

Thailand: coral reef
mainly of island arcs bordered by deep oceanic trenches. The Indian
Coral reef exposed at low tide off the
coast of Thailand. Ocean arcs—Sumatra, Java, and the Lesser Sunda Islands—consist
© 9comeback/Fotolia of fragments of Alpine folds that constitute a complex assemblage
of rock types of different ages. Vigorous Cenozoic volcanic activity,
continuing up to the present, has formed volcanic mountains, and their steady erosion has filled the adjacent
alluvial lowlands with sediment.
Borneo and the Malay Peninsula are formed from fractured continental land situated at the junction of the Alpine-
Himalayan and East Asiatic downwarp regions. The mountains are composed of folded and faulted blocks; the
lowlands are alluvial.
The Pacific Ocean island arcs, including Celebes (Sulawesi), the Moluccas (Maluku), the Philippine Islands, and
Taiwan, have been built by ongoing tectonic processes, particularly volcanism. Mountain areas of moderate
height, volcanic ranges, alluvial lowlands, and coral reef islets are present throughout those regions.
Middle Asia
Middle Asia includes the plains and hills lying between the Caspian Sea to the west and Lake Balkhash to the
east. That area is composed of flat plains on continental platforms of folded Paleozoic and Mesozoic bedrock.
Individual uplifted portions form low, rounded hills in the Kazakh region, low mountains on the Tupqaraghan and
Türkmenbashy (Krasnovodsk) peninsulas of the Caspian Sea, and mesas (isolated hills with level summits and
steeply sloping sides) in areas of earlier marine sedimentation, such as the Ustyurt Plateau and the Karakum
Desert. Thick accumulations of alluvium have been transported by the wind, forming sandy deserts in the south.
Original marine and lacustrine sediments adjoin the shores of the Caspian and Aral seas and Lake Balkhash.
Balkhash, Lake
West Asia
Satellite image of Lake Balkhash (upper West Asia includes the highlands of Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the
left), eastern Kazakhstan.
Armenian and Iranian highlands.
Stocktrek Images/Thinkstock
The highlands of Anatolia—the Pontic Mountains that parallel the

Black Sea, and the Taurus and Anatolian tablelands—are areas of severe fragmentation, heightened erosional
dissection, and isolated occurrences of volcanism. The Greater Caucasus Mountains are a series of upfolded
ranges generally running northwest to southeast between the Black and Caspian seas. The Armenian Highland is
a region of discontinuous mountains including the Lesser Caucasus and the Kurt mountains. Geologically recent
uplifting, in the form of a knot of mountain arcs, took place during a period of vigorous volcanism during the
Cenozoic. The region is seismically active and is known for its destructive earthquakes.
The Iranian highlands comprise mountain arcs (the Elburz, the

Caucasus: Prielbrusye National Park
Kopet-Dag, the mountains of Khorāsān, the Safīd Range, and the
Peaks in Prielbrusye National Park,
central Caucasus, southwestern Russia. western Hindu Kush in the north; the Zagros, Makrān, Soleymān,
© Sergey Mostovoy/Fotolia and Kīrthar mountains in the south), together with the plateaus of
the interior and the central Iranian, eastern Iranian, and central
Afghanistan mountains. There are isolated volcanoes of Cenozoic origin, a predominance of accumulated
remnants resulting from ancient erosion, and saline and sandy deserts in the depressions and stony deserts
(hammadas) on the tablelands.
Southwest Asia
Southwest Asia, like much of southern Asia, is made up of an ancient platform—the northern fragments of
Gondwanaland—in which sloping plains occur in the marginal downwarps. Its principal components are the
Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia.
The Arabian Peninsula is a tilted platform, highest along the Red Sea, on which the stratified plains have
undergone erosion under arid conditions. Plateaus with uplifted margins, Cenozoic lava plateaus, stratified plains,
and cuestas (long, low ridges with a steep face on one side and a long, gentle slope on the other) all occur.
Ancient marine sands and alluvium, resulting from previous subsidence and sedimentation, now take the form of
vast sandy deserts.
Mesopotamia consists of the Tigris and Euphrates floodplains and

Abu Dhabi: desert
of the deltas from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. The original
Desert sand dunes in Abu Dhabi, United
Arab Emirates. lowland is covered with late Cenozoic sedimentation; the elevated
© Nicolas Durance/Fotolia plain, on the other hand, has been dissected by erosion and
denudation under the continental conditions prevailing in the late

Cenozoic.
Tigris River
Drainage
Tigris River near Ashur, northern Iraq. Rivers
© Giovanni Mereghetti/age fotostock
Asia is a land of great rivers. The Ob, Irtysh, Yenisey with the Angara,
Lena (with the waters of the Aldan and the Vilyuy), Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma rivers all flow northward into
the Arctic Ocean. Among rivers draining into the Pacific Ocean are the Anadyr, Amur (combined with the
Sungari [Songhua] and the Ussuri rivers), Huang He (Yellow River), Yangtze (Chang), Xi, Red, Mekong, and
Chao Phraya.
The Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges (Ganga), Godavari, Krishna, and Indus rivers flow into the Indian
Ocean, as does the Shatt al-Arab, which is the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Kura and Aras
rivers flow into the Caspian Sea. Only small mountain rivers flow from Asia into the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea,
and the Mediterranean Sea. The Amu Darya (ancient Oxus River), Syr Darya (ancient Jaxartes River), Ili (Yili),
Tarim, Helmand, and Harīrūd (Tejen) rivers empty into vast interior basins. Some of those rivers end in lakes;
others end in deltas in the sands or salt marshes; and still others flow into oases, where all the water is used to
irrigate fields or else evaporates.
All of the Siberian rivers freeze over in the winter, and some freeze to the bottom. In spring widespread flooding
occurs as snow fields melt. Those rivers are important communication routes, being used by watercraft during the
summer and as roads for sleighs and snowmobiles in winter; they also teem with fish.
In the dry regions where drainage is landlocked, many large rivers

Yenisey River
are temporary ones fed by melting snow and glaciers in the
The frozen Yenisey River in winter, near
its confluence with the Angara River, mountains; they reach their peak water levels in summer. Rivers in
south-central Siberia, Russia. dry regions that are not fed by mountain runoff have little water;
Masahiro Iijima/Ardea London their levels vary sharply, and periodically or occasionally they dry
up completely. The rivers of the monsoon climate regions reach
their maximum volume in summer and are utilized for irrigation. The Asian rivers in the vicinity of the
Mediterranean that are not fed by mountain snows grow shallow in summer and sometimes even dry up. In the
tropical regions, however, the rivers perennially are full of water.
Lakes
The many lakes of Asia vary considerably in size and origin. The largest of them—the Caspian and Aral seas—
are the remains of larger seas. The Caspian has been fluctuating in size, and the Aral has been shrinking,
primarily because its tributaries, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, have been tapped heavily for irrigation
purposes. Lakes Baikal, Ysyk-Köl, and Hövsgöl (Khubsugul), the Dead Sea, and others lie in tectonic
depressions. The basins of Lakes Van, Sevan, and Urmia are, furthermore, encircled by lava, and Lake Telets was
gouged out by ancient glaciation. A number of lakes were formed as the result of landslides (Lake Sarez in the
Pamirs), karst processes (the lakes of the western Taurus, in Turkey), or the formation of lava dams (Lake Jingpo
in northeastern China and several lakes in the Kuril Islands). In the volcanic regions of the eastern Asian islands,
in the Philippines, and in the Malay Archipelago, lakes have formed in craters and calderas. The subarctic has a
particularly large number of lakes; in addition to lakes formed as a result of melting permafrost and subsidence,
there are also ancient glacial moraine lakes. Many lagoonal lakes occur along low coastlines.
The lakes in the internal drainage basins—such as Koko Nor, Lake

Dead Sea
Tuz, and others—are usually saline. Lake Balkhash has fresh water
Salt deposits on the southwestern shore
of the Dead Sea near Masada, Israel. in the west and brackish water in the east. Lakes through which
Z. Radovan, Jerusalem rivers flow are freshwater and regulate the flow of the rivers that
issue from them or flow into them; notable examples are Lake
Baikal, associated with the Angara River; Lake Khanka (the Song’acha and Ussuri rivers); Dongting Lake and
Lake Poyang (the Yangtze River); and Tonle Sap (the Mekong). Large reservoirs have also been created by
constructing hydroelectric stations.
Baikal, Lake
Groundwater
Small rowboat near the coast of Lake In arid regions groundwater (subterranean water) is often the only
Baikal, southern Siberia, Russia
source of water. Large accumulations are known to exist in artesian
© Vladimir Wrangel/Fotolia
basins and beneath the dipping plains at the foot of mountains; those
basins are associated with the extensive oases of Central Asia,
Kashgaria, and many other regions.
Soils
The soils of Asia are marked by the combined effects of climate, topography, hydrology, plant and animal life,
age, and economic activities. All of those factors vary considerably from one part of that vast continent to
another, from north to south, and from lower to higher elevations in mountainous regions. The soil also shows a
horizontal zonality that is especially clearly defined in the continental plains.
Distribution of Asian soil groups as

The Arctic zone
classified by the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO). In the Arctic, where glacial and Arctic deserts predominate, the
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. processes of soil building occur only in rudimentary form. The soils
are skeletal and low in humus. The subarctic north of Asia is
occupied by a timberless zone of tundra vegetation. The subarctic climate and tundra vegetation give rise to
specifically tundra-type soils, which are characterized by poor drainage (due to permafrost) and only a short
period in which it is possible for organic substances to decompose. Those conditions result in the accumulation of
undecomposed organic residues in the form of particles of peat. The poor drainage creates an oxygen-free
medium in which a bluish substance known as gley is formed. Thus, peaty-gley soils are most characteristic of
the tundra. There are widespread occurrences of movement by solifluction (or mudflows), heaving of the ground
because of frost, settling or caving in of the ground from thawing, and formation of stone rings around central
areas of debris in regions covered with boulders.
Siberia: tundra
The forest tundra
Tundra and lakes during summer, Yamal Farther south stretches the transitional belt of the forest tundra,
Peninsula, Siberia, Russia. Underlying
permafrost limits drainage and provides
where tundra and sparse forest alternate with regularity. Tundra soils
moisture for plant growth. alternate with the soils of the taiga (boreal forest), the cold, swampy
Bryan and Cherry Alexander forested region. The soils below the frozen taiga are called
cryogenic (influenced by frost action). In the mountainous regions
the peaty-gley soils are replaced by mountain tundra and weakly developed, often embryonic soils of detritus and
stony fragments.
The forest zone

The forest zone occupies the largest part of the temperate zone. Characteristic of soil formation in the forest zone
is the leaching process. The forest leaves and needles that fall, together with dead remains of the sparse grass
cover, are subjected to decomposition by organic acids in the litter of the forest floor. The duration of the summer
season and the amount of precipitation are sufficient for complete decomposition of the soluble soil components,
and the soil solutions transport them and leach them into deeper soil horizons (layers). The undecomposed quartz
grains remain in the upper horizon, which is therefore infertile; that layer resembles light-gray ashes, which is the
reason soils of that type are called podzols (Russian: “under ashes”). Different degrees of leaching occur in the
various subzones of the forest zone. A dense rusty brown horizon of wash-down (deposition in an underlying
layer of soil) underlies the podzolic portion of the soil profile (or layer); its colour is related to the accumulation
of iron and aluminum oxides. That layer, called orstein, or iron pan, is impervious to water and contributes to the
self-swamping of the taiga forests. East of the Yenisey River, where permafrost occurs across the entire breadth
of the forest zone, soil drainage (and consequently the leaching process) is made more difficult, and the typical
podzols are therefore replaced by specific cryogenic taiga soils. Marshes and bog-type soils are widely distributed
over a considerable part of the taiga subzones.
The deciduous forest subzones of Asia form two distinct areas. In

Siberia: taiga landscape
western Siberia there are small-leafed (primarily birch or aspen)
Taiga (boreal forest) landscape in
southern Siberia, Russia. forests on gray forest soils. They are more gray in colour than the
© Tatiana Grozetskaya/Shutterstock.com podzols because of the greater amount of organic substances—such
as tree leaves and a more abundant grass cover—feeding those soils.
That explains their higher humus content, as well as their greater fertility. The second section of the deciduous
forest subzone has survived in East Asia, stretching from the Xiao Hinggan Range in the west to the Japanese
island of Honshu in the east; in that subzone abundant warmth and moisture intensify chemical weathering, and
iron oxides accumulate even in the surface soil horizons. In that manner brown forest soils, known as forest
burozems, are formed.
The forest-steppe and steppe
Soil cover in the forest-steppe region is formed when the ratio of precipitation to evaporation is in equilibrium
and as the leaching process of the wet season alternates with the upward flow of the soil solutions during the dry
period. Under those conditions, with organic material resulting from the dense vegetation abundantly available,
humus accumulation in the soil is considerable, and dark-coloured soils are formed that are the most fertile in all
Asia; known as chernozems, they are the thickest of the forest-steppe and mixed-grass soils. Characteristic of the
wooded-meadow plains of the Amur River basin (the “Amur prairies”) are meadow soils that are dark, moist, and
often composed of blue gley. In the drier steppes, where vegetation is sparse, the amount of humus is reduced and
the content of unleached mineral salts is increased; transport of the dissolved salts to the surface by the upward
flow of soil solutions is also intensified. Associated with that process is a bleaching and salinization of the soil.
The drier steppes thus form a transitional zone from the shallow southern chernozems to the chestnut soils. Broad
expanses of the forest-steppe and steppe are under cultivation and serve as rich granaries. Severe wind erosion
occurs during the hot, dry seasons. In many areas surface washout and gully erosion have also impoverished the
soil, despite preventive efforts.
Orenburg
Semidesert and desert
Steppe in Orenburg region, Russia. Through inner Kazakhstan and Mongolia stretches a zone of semidesert,
© Alex Uralsky/Shutterstock.com and in Middle Asia, the Junggar (Dzungarian) Basin, the Takla Makan
Desert, and Inner Mongolia, there is a belt of temperate-zone deserts. A
belt of subtropical deserts extends through the Levant, the Iranian highlands, and the southern edge of Middle
Asia. Beneath the semideserts, with their mosaic of desert and arid-steppe vegetation, light chestnut and light
brown semidesert soils form; those are low in humus but contain an abundance of strongly alkaline soil. Beneath
the deserts, where the supply of organic substances, as well as the humus content, is extremely low, gray-brown
soils form in the temperate zone, while gray desert soils (sierozems) develop in the arid subtropics. A great deal
of saline soil is present there, and agriculture is possible only with the use of irrigation, which gives rise to
specific cultivated types of sierozems.
Only in western Asia is the tropical desert zone clearly defined.

Rock formations in the Eastern
(Mongolian) Gobi near Töhöm, Broad expanses of that area are characterized by embryonic soils
southeastern Mongolia. and desert crusts, as well as by blowing sands.
© Philippa Scott/NHPA
The Asian Mediterranean
In the maritime areas of the Asiatic Mediterranean—Anatolia and the Levant—xerophytic vegetation (vegetation
structurally adapted to exist with very little water) of the Mediterranean scrub-woodland types, known as maquis
(evergreen), shiblyak (deciduous), and frigana (low-growing thorny, cushionlike bushes), is prevalent. The
predominant soils under such vegetation are brown; they have accumulated iron as a result of the intense
chemical weathering during the wet Mediterranean winter and of the upward flow of soil solutions during the dry
summer. Frigana vegetation is widely represented in the West Asian semidesert highlands. Here soils have
developed that are transitional between the brown soils and the sierozems.
The subtropical monsoonal regions

Typical of Asia’s monsoonal subtropics are soils that formed beneath the evergreen forests that once occupied the
southern portion of the Korean peninsula, southwestern Japan, and southeastern China. Intensive chemical
weathering during the warm and wet summer monsoon season results—as it also does in the more southerly
torrid zones—in the decomposition and leaching of many soil minerals, the accumulation of residual iron and
aluminum oxides, and the consequent predominance of red and yellow soils as well as of podzolized soils.
Agriculture is especially widespread on the alluvial soils of the plains and on terraced slopes in hilly terrain, in
both cases dominated by irrigated paddy-rice cultivation.
Korea, South: farmland

The subequatorial and equatorial regions
Rich farmland soils in eastern South Savannas (grassy parklands) and dry-tropical deciduous forests
Korea.
predominate in the rain shadow on the leeward slopes of hills, and
Korea Britannica Corp.
wet-tropical evergreen forests grow on the rainy windward slopes of
hills. Intensive leaching followed by evaporation is characteristic of
those soils. Under the wet-tropical forests, red-yellow laterites (leached and hardened iron-bearing soils)
predominate; beneath the savannas and dry-tropical forests, there are red lateritic soils that change, with
increasing aridity, to red-brown and desert brown soils. Beneath the dry savannas of peninsular India are unique
black soils called regurs that are thought to develop from basalt rock.
In the equatorial zone (southern Malaysia and the Greater Sunda

Asia: tropical forest soil
Islands), typical tropical rainforests have developed. In
Tropical forest soil beneath banyan trees
in Asia. southwestern Sri Lanka and on the Indonesian island of Java, they
© sparticus/Fotolia have been almost entirely replaced by an agricultural landscape in
which mountain slopes and hills are covered with plantations of tea,
coconut palms, and rubber trees. The soils are lateritic and are red-yellow or brick-red, with marginal degrees of
laterization.
In the valleys of the subequatorial and equatorial zones, alluvial soils predominate; they have been developed by
thousands of years of cultivation and irrigation of the rice fields. Artificial terracing of the slopes is practiced on a
large scale in the mountainous regions, both for purposes of irrigation and to prevent soil erosion.
The mountains
In the mountains zones of different soil types are found at different elevations. As a rule they are skeletal,
underdeveloped soils, clearly reflecting the differences in rock structure and origin and in the degree of exposure
of the slopes. The boundaries of the vertical zones become higher from north to south, and the number of zones
increases. Mountain soils also correspond to the different vegetation zones that occur at different elevations.
The vertical soil zones correlate with the landscape zones as

Aragvi River
elevation increases. A zone of forest, followed higher up by
Rich alluvial soils along the banks of the
Aragvi River, central Great Caucasus, meadows and with snow cover at the highest altitudes, is
north of Tbilisi, Georgia. characteristic of the western maritime regions. On lower slopes in
© Gyorgy Lajos—Camera Press/Globe Photos the western Caucasus, for example, broad-leaved mountain forests
occur on brown mountain-forest soils; above those are coniferous
forests on mountain podzolic soils, followed by stunted trees, followed in turn by subalpine and alpine meadows
on mountain-meadow soils, while the highest ridges are covered in perennial snow and glaciers. Associations of
desert, steppe, meadowland, and snow zones are widespread in the interior of Asia and sometimes include
mountain-forest zones. Characteristic of the Tien Shan, for example, is the predominance of mountain-desert and
semidesert landscapes, which occur in association with gray-brown and brown mountain soils in the foothills of
the ranges, while higher up are mountain steppes associated with mountain chestnut soils and mountain
chernozems. Under parts of the mountain forest-steppe and the mountain forests, the soils are podzolized.
Typical of the mountains of eastern Siberia are the taiga-tundra spectra that occur in vertical zones. Thus,
mountain taiga on taiga-cryogenic soils is followed by a zone of dwarfed trees, then by mountain tundra, and
finally by bald peaks.
In eastern Asia the subalpine and alpine meadow zones with mountain-meadow soils sometimes disappear;
instead, mountain-forest landscape extends as far up in elevation as the vicinity of the crests and is succeeded
only by a zone of stunted trees and shrubs. The spectra of the alpine regions of South Asia (notably the
Himalayas) are distinguished by the most complex variety of vegetation and soil types.
Effects of human activity on the soil
Virgin soils have been greatly transformed in the areas where agriculture has long been practiced. Sometimes
primary soils are buried under a thick cultivated layer that is high in humus, nitrogen, phosphorus, and trace
elements. The irrigated soils of valleys and deltas of the Murgab (Middle Asia), the Tigris and Euphrates, and the
Indus rivers have a layer of agricultural deposits 10 to 15 feet (3 to 5 metres) thick. The “black-land” (heitu) soils
of the Loess Plateau in China consist of a fertile layer 1 to 3 feet (30 to 90 cm) thick of organic material
accumulated by local farmers. Rice cultivation in the monsoonal regions of Asia has a particular impact on
primary-soil cover. The upper layer of those so-called “rice soils” is degraded as a result of regular flooding and
is subject to the gleying process. The basic properties of those soils remain constant for centuries, but the soils do
not exhibit high fertility.
The most harmful and extended phenomenon among the effects of irrigation on soil cover in Asia is that of
secondary salinization. That process, which is a result of improper agricultural practices, is widespread in the
soils of the arid, semiarid, and subhumid zones of Asia that are irrigated without appropriate drainage. Salt-
affected soils account for large areas in Central Asia, South Asia, and Southwest Asia.
Soil degradation from erosion has also hurt agricultural production. The areas of most significant erosion have
occurred in the Ganges (Ganga) River basin, the lower elevations of the Himalayas, the Huang He basin, and the
Loess Plateau. Severe soil erosion has resulted from year-round cultivation of the plains and from deforestation
of water-catchment areas in the mountains.
Climate
Air masses and wind patterns
Continental climate
The enormous expanse of Asia and its abundance of mountain barriers and inland depressions have resulted in
great differences between regions in solar radiation, atmospheric circulation, precipitation, and climate as a
whole. A continental climate, associated with large landmasses and characterized by an extreme annual range of
temperature, prevails over a large part of Asia. Air reaching Asia from the Atlantic Ocean, after passing over
Europe or Africa, has had time to be transformed into continental air—i.e., air that has often lost much of the
moisture it absorbed over the ocean. As a result of the prevalent eastward movement of the air masses in the
midlatitudes, as well as the isolating effect of the marginal mountain ranges, the influence of sea air from the
Pacific Ocean extends only to the eastern margins of Asia. From the north, Arctic air has unimpeded access into
the continent. In the south, tropical and equatorial air masses predominate, but their penetration to the centre of
Asia is restricted by the ridges of the moutainous belt stretching from the highlands of West Asia through the
Himalayas to the mountains of southern China and Southeast Asia; in the winter months (November through
March), such penetration is further impeded by the density of the cold air masses over the interior.
The contrast between the strong heating of the continent in the

Asia: major climate regions
summer months (May to September) and the chilling in winter
Asia is dominated by a varied mix of
climate regions. Polar, subarctic, and produces sharp seasonal variations in atmospheric circulation and
temperate climates occur along the also enhances the role of local centres of atmospheric activity.
continent's northern and northeastern
Winter chilling of the Asian landmass develops a persistent high-
fringes; arid and highland climates occur
in the continent's interior and pressure winter anticyclone over Siberia, Mongolia, and the Plateau
southwestern reaches; and a mix of of Tibet that is normally centred southwest of Lake Baikal. The area
grassland and tropical rainforest climates
occur along its southern fringe.
affected by the anticyclone is characterized by temperature
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Kenny inversions and by very cold, calm weather with little snowfall. The
Chmielewski winter anticyclone is fed by subsiding upper air, by bursts of Arctic
air flowing in from the north, and by the persistent westerly air drift
Himalayas that accompanies the gusty cyclonic low-pressure cells operating

Satellite view of the Himalayas, October within the Northern Hemisphere cyclonic storm system. The high
2008. The range constitutes a vast
pressure propels cold, dry air eastward and southward out of the
climatic barrier, separating the Indian
subcontinent to the south from the continent, affecting eastern and southern Asia during the winter.
plateau region of Central Asia to the Only a few of the winter cyclonic lows moving eastward out of
north.
Europe carry clear across Asia, but they do bring more frequent
© Stocktrek Images/Thinkstock
changes in weather in western Siberia than in central Siberia. The
zone of lowest temperature—a so-called cold pole—is found in the
northeast, near Verkhoyansk and Oymyakon, where temperatures as low as −90 °F (−68 °C) and −96 °F (−71 °C),
respectively, have been recorded.
The outward drift of winter air creates a sharp temperature anomaly in eastern and northeastern Asia, where the
climate is colder than the characteristic global average for each given latitude. On the East Asian islands, the
effect of the winter continental monsoon is tempered by the surrounding seas. As the air masses pass over the
seas, they become warmed and saturated with moisture, which then falls as either snow or rain on the
northwestern slopes of the island arcs. Occasionally, however, strong bursts of cold air carry cold spells as far
south as Hong Kong and Manila.
The polar front
Cyclonic storms form and move eastward through the zone where the temperate and tropical air masses are in
contact, called the polar front, which shifts southward in winter. The winter rainy season in the southern parts of
the West Asian highlands, which is characteristic of the Mediterranean climate, is associated with that southward
movement of the polar front. In northern areas of West and Middle Asia, the effect of cyclonic action is
particularly strong in the spring, when the polar front moves north and causes the maximum in annual
precipitation to occur then.
During the northern winter, South and Southeast Asia are affected by northeasterly winds that blow from high-
pressure areas of the North Pacific Ocean to the equatorial low-pressure zone. Those winds are analogous to the
trade winds and are known in South Asia as the northeast (or winter) monsoon. The weather is dry and
moderately warm. Rainfall occurs only on the windward side of maritime regions (e.g., Tamil Nadu state in
southeastern India and southern Vietnam). Some of the cyclonic storms that move eastward through the
Mediterranean Basin during the winter are deflected south of the Plateau of Tibet, crossing northern India and
southwestern China. Such storms do not often bring winter rain, but they create short periods of cloudy, cool, or
gusty weather and are accompanied by snow in the higher mountain ranges.
In summer the polar front shifts northward, causing cyclonic rains in the mountains of Siberia. In West, Middle,
and Central Asia, a hot, dry, dusty, continental tropical wind blows at that time. Over the basin of the Indus River,
the heating creates a low-pressure area. Known as the South Asian (or Iranian) low, it appears in April and is
fully developed from June to August. The onset of monsoon in India and mainland Southeast Asia is related to
changes in the circulation pattern that occur by June—specifically, the disintegration of the southern jet stream
and the formation of low pressure over southern Asia. The monsoon air masses flow into that monsoonal low-
pressure zone from a cell of high pressure just off the eastern coast of southern Africa. Because of the Coriolis
force (the force caused by the Earth’s rotation), winds south of the Equator change direction from southeast to
southwest in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The southwest monsoon bursts upon the Malabar Coast of
southwestern India in early June and gradually extends northward over most of the Indian subcontinent and
mainland Southeast Asia. It brings considerable rainfall, which in most of those areas accounts for 80 to 90
percent of the total annual precipitation.
In eastern Asia the Pacific Ocean polar front creates atmospheric disturbances during the summer. From a
summer high-pressure centre over the western Pacific, the warm and moist summer monsoon blows from the
southeast toward the continent. To the south of latitude 38° N, where the warm Kuroshio (Japan Current)
approaches the coast of Japan, the summer monsoon brings protracted rains and high humidity; together with
high temperatures, that creates a hothouse atmosphere. Becoming chilled as it passes over cold ocean currents to
the north, that air brings fogs and drizzling rains to northeastern Asia.
Monsoons and typhoons
Summer in China is a time of variable air movement out of the western Pacific. If that drift is strong and low
pressure over the continental interior is intense, the summer monsoon may carry moisture well into Mongolia. If
neither the drift nor the continental low is strong, the China summer monsoon may fail, falter over eastern China,
or cause irregular weather patterns that threaten the country with crop failure. The monsoon there is less dramatic
than in other areas, accounting for 50 to 60 percent of China’s annual rainfall.
Tropical cyclones—called typhoons in the Pacific Ocean—may

Average monsoon onset date: Asia
occur in coastal and insular South, Southeast, and East Asia
Average date of onset of the summer
monsoon across different regions of Asia. throughout the year but are most severe during the late summer and
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. early autumn. Those storms are accompanied by strong winds and
torrential rains so heavy that the maximum precipitation from the
typhoons locally may exceed the total amounts received during the normal summer monsoons.
In winter continental tropical air prevails in tropical Asia; in

Super Typhoon Haiyan
summer it is replaced by equatorial ocean air. The winter season’s
Super Typhoon Haiyan (or Yolanda)
passing over the island of Leyte, dry and warm winds, directed offshore toward the equatorial low-
Philippines, on November 8, 2013; the pressure axis, are analogous to trade winds but simultaneously act as
storm's eye is the green ring with a blue
the South Asian continental monsoon. The dry spring that follows
centre.
changes abruptly and dramatically into the rainy summer with the
NASA/SSAI, Hal Pierce
onset of the monsoon. The summer monsoon brings enormous
amounts of rain (up to about 25 inches [635 mm] in a month). Over
the areas of Asia closest to the Equator—southern Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and the Greater Sunda Islands—
equatorial air prevails continuously, accompanied by even temperatures and abundant rainfall in all seasons. The
Lesser Sunda Islands have a tropical monsoon climate; their wet and dry seasons are regulated by the calendar
rhythm of the Southern Hemisphere, which is characterized by a wet summer from November to February and a
dry winter from June to October.
Assam state, India: monsoon

The influence of topography
A tea plantation during the summer (wet) Differences between the climatic conditions of the various regions
monsoon, Assam state, India.
of Asia are determined to a considerable degree by topography.
© Ralf Werner Froelich/Fotolia
Different elevation-based climatic zones are most clearly defined on
the southern slopes of the Himalayas, where they vary from the
tropical climates of the foothills, at the lowest levels, to the extreme Arctic-like conditions of the peaks, at the
highest elevations. The degree of exposure also plays a large role. The sunny southern slopes differ from the
shady northern ones, and windward slopes exposed to moist ocean winds differ from leeward slopes, which, lying
in the wind (and rain) shadow, are necessarily drier. The barrier effect is most pronounced in the zone of monsoon
circulation (i.e., East, Southeast, and South Asia), where rain-bearing winds have a constant direction. In addition
to the physical isolation of the leeward slopes from the moisture-laden winds, those slopes also experience the
foehn effect, in which a strong wind traverses a mountain range and is deflected downward as a warm, dry, gusty,
erratic wind. Contrasts of climate resulting from exposure are manifested clearly in the Himalayas, the Elburz
Mountains, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, the Tien Shan range, the region to the east of Lake Baikal
(Transbaikalia), and many other places.
The isolating barrier effect of the relief on the climate is demonstrated most clearly in the West Asian highlands
and in Central Asia. In those regions the surrounding mountains isolate the tablelands of the interior from
moisture-laden winds. The massiveness of the interior highlands is also a significant factor; it gives rise to local
anticyclones during the cold months of the year.
Temperature
The average January temperature over a considerable part of Siberia is below −4 °F (−20 °C), and in the region
around Verkhoyansk it reaches −58 °F (−50 °C). Near the coast Pacific Ocean air moderates the average
temperature to from 23 to 5 °F (−5 to −15 °C). The January isotherm (a line connecting points of equal
temperature) of 32 °F (0 °C) extends eastward from the Anatolian and Iranian highlands; skirts the southern edge
of the Pamirs, the Karakoram Range, and the Himalayas; and runs northeastward through China to south of the
Shandong Peninsula and through the southern Korean peninsula and central Honshu. An isotherm of 68 °F (20
°C) is traced along the Tropic of Cancer and one of 77 °F (25 °C) farther south.
In July the maximum temperatures are found in the lowlands of

Bilibino, Russia
Mesopotamia and the Arabian Peninsula and in the Thar (Great
Bilibino, Chukotka, northeastern Siberia,
Russia, which experiences some of the Indian) and Takla Makan deserts. The 68 °F (20 °C) isotherm moves
coldest winter temperatures in Asia. as far as latitudes 55° to 60° N, but, in the eastern Gobi and near the
Bryan and Cherry Alexander
cool Pacific Ocean, it bends to the south. Along the far northeastern
coast of Asia, the average temperature in July is below 50 °F (10
°C), which is typical for a tundra climate. The greatest amplitude in annual temperature range on Earth occurs
near the “cold pole,” which has remarkably warm summers; the annual range may exceed 175 °F (97 °C).
Thar Desert, India

Precipitation
Thatched-roof houses in the Thar (Great Annual rainfall in the equatorial belt is approximately 80 inches
Indian) Desert, near Jaisalmer, Rajasthan
state, India. The region experiences
(2,000 mm); it is 80 to 120 inches (2,000 to 3,000 mm) and more
some of the hottest summer (300 to 500 inches [7,600 to 12,700 mm] in places) on windward
temperatures in Asia.
maritime slopes in South, Southeast, and East Asia. In Cherrapunji
© TMAX/Fotolia
in northeastern India, some 900 inches (22,900 mm) of rain fell in
seven months in 1891. Precipitation averages less than 40 inches
(1,000 mm) annually on tropical lee slopes. In the subtropical and temperate monsoon climates there is adequate
rainfall, amounting to about 24 to 80 inches (600 to 2,000 mm) annually. Annual precipitation is less than 10
inches (250 mm) in northeastern Siberia and averages 6 to 8 inches (150 to 200 mm) but may be less than 4
inches (100 mm) in some places in the deserts of West, Middle, and Central Asia.
Asia: precipitation
Climatic regions
Distribution of precipitation in Asia. The distribution pattern of precipitation throughout the year is varied.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Relatively uniform moisture is characteristic of the Asian equatorial zone.
Maximum summer precipitation and minimum winter precipitation are the
rule in the subequatorial zones and in other regions with monsoon climates, as well as in those areas where there
is summer movement of the fronts—the polar front in the mountains of southern Siberia and the Arctic front in
the subarctic regions. Wet winters and dry summers are typical of the Mediterranean climatic region in West
Asia, where precipitation is associated with the winter activity of the polar front. That polar-front activity,
accompanied by maximum precipitation, occurs in the spring in the interior parts of the West Asian highlands.
Summer and winter precipitation merges in some parts of Asia. In the Kolkhida area of Georgia east of the Black
Sea, the summer rains—brought by the northwesterly Atlantic air currents—merge with the cyclonic
Mediterranean winter rains. In some areas of Japan, Korea, and eastern China, there is uniform precipitation
when, in addition to the summer monsoon, the winter monsoon brings moisture.
As the aggregate result of those various meteorological patterns, the following types of climate may be
distinguished in Asia: the tundra climate (associated with the cold, treeless plains of the Arctic lowlands of Asia);
the cold, sharply continental climate of eastern Siberia; the cold, moderately humid western Siberian climate; the
humid, subtropical climate associated with the Kolkhida region; the desert climate of the temperate zone; the
Mediterranean subtropical climate of the western edge of West Asia; the subtropical desert climate; the mountain-
steppe highland subtropical climate of West and Central Asia; the alpine desert climate; the climate of the eastern
Pamirs, the Karakoram Range, and the Plateau of Tibet; the climate of the tropical deserts; the temperate
monsoon climate of the East Asian part of Siberia and the northern parts of Japan and eastern China; the
subtropical monsoon climate of southern Japan and of southeastern China; the subequatorial monsoon climate of
South Asia, eastern Java, and the Lesser Sunda Islands; and the equatorial climate of the Greater Sunda Islands.
All the various features of the types of climate mentioned exert a strong influence on other natural conditions, as
well as on the landscape as a whole.
Urban climate
Human activities, both cultural and economic, have distinctive effects on climate. One example of that is
provided by the microclimates associated with cities and with large industrial complexes. The emission in those
areas of quantities of dust and gases can alter temperatures and change wind patterns. Such conditions are
characteristic, for example, of the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area and the industrial region of northern
Kyushu in Japan, of Kolkata (Calcutta) and the industrial area of the northeastern part of peninsular India, and of
the industrial regions of the Kuznetsk Coal Basin in south-central Siberia.
Yury Konstantinovich Yefremov Aleksandr Maximovich Ryabchikov Nina Nikolaevna Alexeeva
Plant life
An immense range of vegetation is found in Asia, the result of the continent’s wide diversity of latitude,
elevation, and climate. Natural conditions, however, are not entirely responsible for the associations of trees,
plants, and grasses of Asia; natural landscapes have been transformed by more than eight millennia of farming
and other human activities.
The geographic pattern of vegetation
North and Central Asia

The natural landscape has been least affected by people in sparsely populated North Asia. Vast plains,
continentality, and the nearness of the Arctic Ocean explain the presence there of a zone of tundra—cold-tolerant
low-lying vegetation in an area of permafrost (permanently frozen subsoil)—similar to that found in the
European part of Russia and in Canada and the U.S. state of Alaska. In more flourishing parts, the tundra has a
discontinuous covering of lichens, mosses, sedges, rushes, some grasses, cushions of bilberries, and dwarf trees
of willow and birch; in the far north, lichens grow on favourable hillsides. Because of the greater number of
hours of daylight during the summer months, when the Arctic Circle region receives the same amount of light
energy as the tropics, the tundra in that season is covered with bright flowers. Nevertheless, climate conditions
are extreme. In the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, off the Arctic coast, thawing begins in May and frosts begin
in August, although in some years frosts may occur at night throughout the short summer. The soil never thaws
below a depth of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm); consequently, hollows are badly drained and turn into peat bogs.
Windy conditions speed evaporation, and the frozen soil cannot absorb water to compensate for that action, so
surface drought often results in wind erosion and the removal of sediments deposited by annual riverine floods.
The tundra belt extends still farther south on higher ground. In the
Thawed surface of the permafrost on the
tundra in summer, Taymyr Peninsula, Arctic, tundra in the Ural Mountains begins at about 3,000 feet (900
Siberia. metres), but at latitude 53° N it begins at 4,250 feet (1,300 metres).
© John Hartley/NHPA
Tundra extends over large areas of the Chersky, Verkhoyansk, and
Kamchatka mountain ranges.
The taiga (boreal forest) zone—a belt of mainly coniferous forest—begins south of the tundra, after a transitional
zone of “wooded tundra” and forest galleries found along streams between the tundra-covered watersheds. Taiga,
although essentially coniferous, contains hardy deciduous trees such as aspen and birch; there are sections of
grass and shrub steppe in the drier zones. Larches account for more than one-third of the vast Siberian forest,
while pines cover about one-fourth and spruces a tiny fraction. The geographic distribution of particular types of
vegetation is determined chiefly by climate. Spruce, for example, unable to survive temperatures below −36 °F
(−38 °C), is not found east of the Yenisey River. The taiga has a thin undergrowth of cranberries and bilberries,
and there are numerous extensive peat bogs.
The broad-leaved deciduous forest of western Siberia also does not extend east of the Yenisey—where it gives
way to the coniferous forests of central Siberia—but it reappears in eastern Siberia near the Sea of Okhotsk;
poplars, birches, and alders are numerous there, as are various conifers and larches. Forests around the Ussuri
River include maples, ashes, walnuts, elms, and lindens, in addition to species already mentioned.
South of the Siberian forests are found forest-steppes, with forest galleries lining the rivers. Forest-steppe and
meadow-steppe vegetation is predominant on the Northeast (Manchurian) Plain. The steppe (grassland) zone runs
from Kazakhstan in the west through the Altai Mountains to the Da Hinggan (Greater Khingan) Range in the
east. Herbaceous cover of feather grass, rootstock grasses, and sagebrush is utilized for grazing. Farther south
discontinuous semidesert and desert vegetation predominates. To the east the steppes stretch toward the southern
part of the Ordos Plateau, forming the transition to the monsoonal landscapes of eastern China.
Tibet, which is chiefly dry and cold, has a scattered vegetation of halophilic (salt-tolerant) bushes and species of
the genus Artemisia.
East Asia
The monsoonal climate in East Asia brings hot and rainy summers, giving rise to a great variety of temperate and
tropical vegetation. China has the most varied vegetation of any country in the world, with about 30,000 species,
excluding mushrooms and mosses. The enormous variety of plants, which includes a large number of relict forest
species, is explained by the negligible impact that Pleistocene glaciations had on the region’s climate.
Japan: central Honshu About two-thirds of Japan’s total area is forested, whereas much of
Forest vegetation in Yamanashi China is deforested (roughly one-seventh of China is under forest
prefecture, central Honshu, Japan, with
cover); sizable tracts remain untouched, however, in the remote
Mount Fuji rising in the centre
background. rugged regions of China, and many small areas have been
Digital Vision/Thinkstock reforested. One reason for that difference between the two countries
is the traditional respect the Japanese have had for their scenery and,
consequently, the strict forestry regulations that have been promulgated and enforced. In addition, the rugged
topography and inaccessibility of many of Japan’s forested areas have limited the possibilities for economic
exploitation. The best examples of East Asian forest, therefore, are found in Japan, such as in the Kii Peninsula of
Honshu.
North of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang), much of China was once covered by primeval deciduous forest, most
of which has been removed to create farmland. South of the Yangtze, the “true” Chinese forest was prevalent
before 1800. A wild growth of trees and shrubs survives, however, throughout the cultivated areas, and parklike
tree growth and stands of bamboo are widespread. The original forest cover included 60 different genera of tall
trees; among the temperate genera were oak, maple, linden, chestnut, hornbeam, and a species of hickory, and
among the tropical genera were magnolia, the tulip tree, the camphor tree, the Spanish cedar, sweet gum, catalpa,
and lianas (vines). A variety of conifers of both hemispheres also occurred there, and in the mountains of eastern
Sichuan there grew a rare and ancient Chinese conifer, the dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). Palm
trees are found throughout South China and southern South Korea, as well as in the southern parts of Japan; many
varieties of bamboo also are found in those regions.
China has been proceeding energetically with a program of

Coconut palm trees on Hainan Island,
China. reforestation. The new forests, however, consisting largely of pines,
© Freddy Eliasson/Shutterstock.com do not resemble the primeval forests.
South and Southeast Asia

The wettest parts of peninsular India (such as the Western Ghats) and of Southeast Asia have magnificent tropical
forests noteworthy for the variety of their plant life. A significant feature of South Asian vegetation is the family
Dipterocarpaceae (yielding aromatic oils and resins), which is represented there by more than 500 species. In
parts of peninsular India and Southeast Asia that have a seasonal monsoon climate (with four to eight dry months
per year), moist- and dry-deciduous forests thrive. Many of the tree species, such as teak, sal, and sandalwood,
are highly valuable and are heavily exploited. In areas with a prolonged dry season and less precipitation (e.g.,
northwestern India, the interior of the Deccan plateau, and the “dry zone” of Myanmar [Burma]), savanna
woodland and thorny thickets of acacias and euphorbias are the predominant natural vegetation. In all of the
major climate zones of South and Southeast Asia, and particularly on the alluvial plains, much of the natural
vegetation has been cleared to make way for agriculture.
India: Chhattisgarh forest

Lush forestland in Chhattisgarh state, Mangrove swamps thrive in the sheltered muddy coasts and deltas.
India.
Their outermost edges are represented by species of Rhizophora
© Dinodia
(red mangrove), followed by those of Bruguiera and Avicennia
(white mangrove). The bogs on the landward edges of those swamps
abound with the semiaquatic nipa palm.
Primeval evergreen rainforest remains in a few parts of South and

Mangroves (Rhizophora apiculata) at low
tide on the coast of Thailand. Southeast Asia. Secondary forest covers a much larger area. The
C.B. Frith/Bruce Coleman Inc. once universally dense forest has given way to parklike forest and
wooded savanna as a result of intensive grazing, tree harvesting, and
shifting (slash-and-burn) agricultural practices. Extensive fires in such areas have produced a herbaceous
landscape, as in the cogonales (areas of coarse tall grasses, used for thatching) of the Philippines.
Hevea brasiliensis, the rubber tree introduced into tropical Asia from South America in the 1870s, is particularly
important in plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia.
In the higher mountains of Southeast Asia, the cooler humid-tropical climate gives rise to deciduous and
coniferous temperate forest at elevations of between about 4,250 and 10,000 feet (1,300 and 3,000 metres).
Above that level low forests of plants, mostly shrubs of the heath family, are often found. Diverse types of trees
grow in the mountain forests of the region. The Rakhine (Arakan) Mountains of Myanmar, for example, are
covered with a thick mantle of little bamboos. In the eastern Himalayas sal is intermingled with Castanopsis (a
small genus of nut-bearing trees) and pines. Above those are found forests of shrubs and trees of the laurel family
and, higher still, oaks and conifers; between about 10,000 and 13,000 feet (3,000 and 4,000 metres), forests of
firs occur. The central Himalayas present strikingly beautiful landscapes in the following upward succession: dry
sal forest; pine forest; cedars, spruces, pines, and oaks; firs, birches, and tall rhododendrons; rhododendron
bushes and junipers above 13,000 feet (4,000 metres); and perpetual snows above 16,000 feet (4,900 metres).
West Asia
In West Asia naturally wild vegetation no longer occurs in clearly defined zones but is dispersed in small areas.
The region is predominantly arid; desertlike depressions such as the Kyzylkum Desert of Uzbekistan and
Kazakhstan, the Karakum Desert of Turkmenistan, and the Rubʿ al-Khali (Empty Quarter) of the Arabian
Peninsula contrast with the moist, forested mountains that lie between them. Three climatic zones, however,
characterize West Asia: a continental climate in the northern regions; a dry zone, except where northerly winds
bring moisture to the mountains, to the south; and a Mediterranean climate along the western edges.
A few examples of the variety of vegetation associated with those

Turkmenistan
climatic zones may be cited. In the Karakum Desert grows a strange
Drought-resistant plants grow in the
Repetek Preserve in the southeastern xerophytic tree, the saxaul, which is oddly shaped, gnarled, and
Karakum Desert, Turkmenistan. leafless; it is widely used for firewood, and its young sprouts make
© Rodger Jackman/Oxford Scientific Films Ltd. excellent fodder for camels. Between the galleries of saxauls the
desert is interspersed at wide intervals with bushes and tufts of
grass. A fringe of steppe covers the area between the Fertile Crescent (which sweeps in an arc from the Tigris-
Euphrates valley to the Mediterranean) and the north and west of the Syrian Desert. With more than 2,000 species
of plants—more than in the whole of the Sahara—the borders of the Syrian Desert are noteworthy for their floral
variety. The moist northern slopes of the Pontic Mountains in northern Turkey are covered by magnificent forests
of beeches and conifers, with an undergrowth of tall cherry laurels, hollies, and creepers. That type of forest is
also found in Georgia and on the northern slopes of the Elburz Mountains in Iran. Along the Mediterranean
border of Asia, the natural vegetation is similar to that in other parts of the Mediterranean region: holm oak (an
evergreen oak), Aleppo pine (used in shipbuilding), cistus, mastic tree (which yields mastic, an aromatic resin),
and other species are found in landscapes of thick underbrush and open scrubland. Extensive forests, with such
species as the cedar of Lebanon, once grew in that region, but logging and heavy grazing by livestock have
reduced many once-forested areas to grassland and scrubland.
Vegetation and society
Vegetation in traditional civilization

Asia’s indigenous vegetation has provided many of the world’s food crops—including most of the cereal grains,
oilseeds, fruits, and vegetables—and its lands provided one of the great cradles of agriculture. Three primary
centres for the domestication of those plants have been postulated. One was in the southwest, consisting of sites
in the Levant and northern Syria, southeastern Anatolia, Transcaucasia, and the Zagros Mountains. Wild strains
of wheat, barley, certain legumes, cherry and peach trees, and grapevines were domesticated in those regions. The
second centre was in the south and east (northeastern India, peninsular Southeast Asia, the Sunda Islands of
Indonesia, and southern China), where rice, root crops such as taro and yams, and fruit trees such as bananas and
mangoes were domesticated. The third centre was in northern China and adjacent regions, where foxtail millet,
soybeans, and hemp were first cultivated.
Asian plant life also has provided building materials, such as wood,
Japan: bamboo grove
bamboo, and thatch; ramie and flax for clothing and hemp for rope and
Dense grove of bamboo in Japan.
sacks; bamboo, widely used in the making of utensils; and the bark of the
© Tracey Kimmeskamp/Fotolia
paper mulberry, used in the manufacture of bark cloth and paper. In
addition, silkworms are fed mulberry leaves; lacquer is made from the
lacquer tree (Rhus vernicifera); and a multitude of other items are obtained from plants, including many drugs
and pharmaceuticals.
Human impact on natural landscapes
Agriculture (both rain-fed and irrigated), livestock grazing, and forestry have transformed Asian ecosystems.
Three areas have undergone the greatest modification by agriculture: the broad band of predominantly wheat,
corn (maize), and barley cultivation across southern Siberia and northern Kazakhstan; a large belt of wheat, corn,
millet, and soybean cultivation across northern China; and the monsoonal zone of rice cultivation that stretches
from India through Southeast Asia and South China to the Korean peninsula and Japan. Agricultural landscapes
predominate in those regions, and natural vegetation is confined to rugged terrain. The impact of human activity
in the arid regions is intensive in the irrigated areas of Mesopotamia, Middle Asia, the Indus River valley, and
scattered oases. Pastoral activities have had a major impact on the vast belt of Asian steppes and deserts from the
Arabian Peninsula to the Gobi and on the scrublands and former woodlands of the Asian Mediterranean region.
Areas with some of the least-disturbed ecosystems occur in northern and

Vietnam: rice paddies
eastern Siberia, the Plateau of Tibet, and the mountain ranges of Central
Terraced rice paddies in Vietnam.
Asia. By contrast, areas exhibiting some of the most drastic changes to
© Beboy/Fotolia
natural conditions include the eastern margins of the Thar (Great Indian)
Desert in South Asia, Inner Mongolia and the Ordos region in China—all of
which have been subject to intensive desertification from livestock overgrazing—and the Aral Sea basin in
Middle Asia. Regarding the latter, large-scale irrigation for cotton cultivation reduced the flow of the Amu Darya
and Syr Darya, which feed the sea, and thus severely reduced its area; a toxic mixture of salts and pesticide
residue from the dried seafloor has been spread by dust storms throughout the region.
Pierre Gourou Aleksandr Maximovich Ryabchikov Nina Nikolaevna Alexeeva
Animal life
The Himalayas, stretching from east to west, form a barrier that largely prevents the movement of fauna
southward or northward. Thus, Asia north of the Himalayas, with parts of western Asia and most of East Asia,
belongs to the Palearctic (Old World) subregion of the Holarctic zoogeographic region (roughly, the Northern
Hemisphere north of the tropics). Asia south of the Himalayas is called the Oriental, or Indian, region. The
boundary dividing those zones east and west of the Himalayas is not well marked, however, as the mountain
chains there often have a north-south trend facilitating migration of animals between them.
Asian faunal habitats have been subjected to the same disruption

Sumatran rhinoceros
from human activities that has affected the continent’s vegetation,
Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus
sumatrensis) in a wildlife sanctuary, particularly in regions of extremely dense population (e.g., the great
Sumatra, Indonesia. Indian river valleys and the plains and lowlands of eastern and
Minden Pictures/SuperStock southern China). Asia’s vastness and its numerous remote regions,
however, have made it possible for many animal species to live
practically undisturbed by human activity. Nonetheless, the threat of extinction remains for many species, most
notably for the giant panda of China and the Sumatran rhinoceros and orangutan of Southeast Asia.
The Palearctic region
A distinction can be made between the animal life of the tundra in the north and that of the adjacent taiga farther
south. The taiga in turn merges into the steppes, which have their own distinctive forms of animal life. Finally,
the faunas of East and Southwest Asia have their own distinguishing characteristics.
The tundra
Since the tundra subsoil is frozen throughout the year, burrowing animals cannot live there; and, as the tundra is
partly free from snow only during the short summer, conditions for life are poor. Most animals, including
reindeer, Arctic hares, Arctic foxes, and wolves, live there in summer only and migrate in autumn. Lemmings,
however, stay, feeding on the herbage buried beneath the snow. Polar bears are occasionally found throughout the
year along the coasts of the Arctic and northern Pacific oceans, where they feed mainly on seals and fish.
Hibernation is impossible, for the short summer does not allow enough time for the necessary accumulation of
food reserves in the body.
Birds are numerous during the summer, but they also desert the tundra in winter—except for such birds as willow
grouse and ptarmigans, which live in tunnels in the snow and feed on berries and leaves. Many species of waders,
such as gray plovers, the sanderling, and several kinds of sandpipers, migrate to the tundra and breed there in the
summer, feeding principally on mosquitoes in the wet areas. Mosquitoes are also the staple food of passerine
birds (true perching birds), such as the snow bunting and the Lapland bunting. Gyrfalcons (large Arctic falcons),
rough-legged buzzards, and skuas (large dark-coloured rapacious birds of northern seas) prey on those smaller
birds and on lemmings. Several kinds of geese and ducks, the Arctic tern, and species of divers occupy the moist
parts.
The taiga
The taiga fauna is much richer than that of the tundra. The taiga is the haunt of brown bears, wolves and foxes,
gluttons (a kind of wolverine), otters, ermines, sables, lynx, elk, forest reindeer, hares, and several kinds of
squirrels. Birds include species of grouse and woodpeckers and pine grosbeaks, crossbills, siskins, redpolls, red-
spotted bluethroats, rubythroats, redwings, fieldfares (medium-sized thrushes), nutcrackers, and Siberian jays.
Wading birds include terek sandpipers, which frequent marshes and pools.
The rivers of North Asia are inhabited by many common freshwater

Siberia: taiga
fishes and by several kinds of sturgeons, including sterlets. Lake
Red fox (Vulpes vulpes) in the taiga
(boreal forest) of Siberia, Russia. Baikal has a unique aquatic life, including many endemic species of
© Ruslan Olinchuk/Fotolia sponges, worms, and crustaceans and the Baikal seal (Phoca
sibirica).
Baikal seals
The steppes
Baikal seals (Phoca sibirica), endemic to The animal life of the steppes differs as much from that of the taiga
Lake Baikal, southeastern Siberia,
Russia.
as from that of the tundra. It includes many burrowing rodents, such
© Doug Allan/Oxford Scientific Films Ltd. as jerboas, marmots, and pikas, and larger mammals, such as
numerous antelope. The steppes were the original home of the
northern cattle (Bos taurus), the horse, and probably the Bactrian (two-humped) camel; few, if any, of those
remain as truly wild animals. Typical birds are bustards, quails, sand grouse, and the red-legged hobby. Hoopoes
and rollers are common locally, and bee-eaters and the common sand martin nest along riverbanks. Waterfowl
inhabit the reed beds of the great rivers, as do locusts, which periodically migrate in immense swarms,
devastating crops.
Wild sheep and goats live in the mountains and on the plateau
Kyrgyzstan: steppe
regions to the north of the Himalayas. Tibet is the home of the wild
Wild horse on the steppe of Kyrgyzstan,
Central Asia. yak, which is in great danger of extinction, although the
© margouillat/Fotolia domesticated yak survives.
East and Southwest Asia

The eastern part of the region—consisting of northeastern and eastern China, the Korean peninsula, and Japan—
has several endemic varieties of deer. The Siberian tiger, originally native to southeastern Siberia, northeastern
China, and Korea, now survives only in a small region along the border between Russia and China. The
endangered giant panda inhabits the mountain forests of south-central China; the lesser, or red, panda—the giant
panda’s only close relative—is a much smaller Himalayan mammal. Some species of animals are endemic to
Japan, including a monkey related to the tailless Barbary macaque of Gibraltar.
The large rivers of China have a rich fish life, among which a
Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)
feeding in a bamboo forest, Sichuan species of paddlefish (Psephurus gladius) from the Yangtze River
(Szechwan) province, China. (Chang Jiang) and Huang He (Yellow River) is of interest, as it is
Wolfshead—Ben Osborne/Ardea London
one of the two survivors of an otherwise extinct family, the other
remnant of which is the paddlefish of North America. Another
freshwater animal is the giant salamander, found in Japanese waters. Southeast Asia and southern China are the
home of most members of the carp family, from which the various forms of goldfish are derived.
The animal life of Anatolia is much like that of the rest of the Mediterranean region, but that of Israel, Syria, and
Arabia also includes an African element, such as a species of hyrax and—in Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee)
and the Jordan River—fish of the African genus Tilapia, including the Nile perch. The donkey may have been
domesticated in Southwest Asia, and the dromedary (one-humped) camel was originally native to the drier
portions of Middle Asia.
The Oriental region
Mammals
The greater part of the Oriental region is tropical. The northwestern part is dry and partly desert, so animal life is
chiefly confined to the forms related to those of the dry parts of the Ethiopian and Palearctic regions. Elsewhere,
monkeys are common. Apes are found only in tropical rainforests; gibbons inhabit regions of Assam (in
northeastern India), Myanmar, peninsular Southeast Asia, and the Greater Sunda Islands, while orangutans are
restricted to the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, where they are in danger of extinction.
The Asiatic distribution of the African lion is now confined to Gir Forest
orangutan
National Park of the Kathiawar Peninsula in Gujarat state, India, where it is
Young orangutan in Indonesia.
protected, but a few specimens may still occur in southeastern Iran. Tigers are
© UryadnikovS/Fotolia
now found from the Himalayas to Sumatra, though their range was once much
wider. Leopards range throughout the region, except in Sumatra. Civets and
mongooses are numerous. The badgerlike ratel lives in the hilly districts of peninsular India and is even to be
seen as far west as Israel. Jackals are plentiful in India; the striped hyena is confined to drier parts. Both are
absent from the east.
Flying and ordinary squirrels are common in woodlands. Gaurs

tiger
(large wild oxen) are found in India and Myanmar, and bantengs
Bengal tiger in Bandhavgarh National
Park, Madhya Pradesh, India. (Malayan wild oxen) are distributed in Myanmar and south to
© UryadnikovS/Fotolia Borneo and Java but not in Sumatra.
The most common antelope is the blackbuck, found in open brush-

covered wild areas and cultivated plains throughout India, except on the Malabar Coast of India; the nilgai, or
blue bull, and the chousingha (a four-horned antelope of northern India) occupy hilly regions south of the
Himalayas. Species of deer include musk deer in the pine zone of the Kashmir region, Nepal, and the Indian state
of Sikkim; sambar deer practically over the whole region; and muntjac (barking deer) ranging northward into
southernmost China.
Chevrotains (small hornless deerlike ruminants) are typical, and wild pigs are also widely distributed. Indian one-
horned rhinoceroses are protected and confined to Nepal and Assam; Sumatran two-horned rhinoceroses are now
restricted to the deep forests of Malaysia, southern Sumatra, and northern Borneo; the one-horned Javan
rhinoceros population numbers only a few dozen. Malayan tapirs live in dense forests in southern Myanmar,
Malaysia, and Sumatra. Indian elephants are found throughout the region. Scaly anteaters, or pangolins—also
found in Africa—are characteristic. The tropical breed of cattle (Bos indicus), known as the Brahman or zebu and
recognizable by its shoulder humps, was domesticated in India, as was the water buffalo, which is now
distributed from Egypt to central China and the Philippines.
Malayan tapir
Birds
Malayan tapir, Malaysia. Game birds are important. The Indian peacock can be seen throughout India,
© Hii Boh Teck/Fotolia
whereas another species of peacock (Pavo muticus) is restricted to Java. Numerous
species of pheasants live in the forests of Myanmar, Thailand, peninsular Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Sumatra, and
Borneo. Jungle fowl are unique to the Oriental region and are the source of all domesticated chickens. Pigeons
occur in great variety, but the number of species of parrots is small compared with other tropical regions.
Water and wood kingfishers are represented by many species.

Indian peacock
Hornbills show their greatest development in the Oriental region.
Indian peacock displaying its tail feathers.
The Indian hoopoe is common in India but is only a migratory bird
© Mihail Egorov/Fotolia
in the southeastern part of the region. Among cuckoos the brain-
fever bird—an Asian hawk cuckoo that takes its name from the
suggested effect of its repetitious cry—is well known. Eagles, osprey, falcons, hawks, kites, and buzzards all
occur; in the western part vultures are numerous and are found even in towns.
The forests are inhabited by many species of woodpeckers. The

great hornbill
barbets (loud-voiced tropical birds) are characteristic, the best
Great hornbill (Buceros bicornis), Borneo,
Indonesia. known being the coppersmith bird. Bee-eaters and rollers are
© davidevison/Fotolia common in India, but, whereas the former can be found as far as the
Malay Archipelago and beyond, rollers are absent in the southeast
except in Celebes and beyond. The passerine birds are numerous. The house crow, the Indian grackle, and the
common mynah are familiar birds in India. Drongos (Old World passerines, usually black with hooked bills),
flycatchers, bulbuls, tailorbirds, orioles, and many others are widely distributed, and broadbills are typical.
Among the herons the white cattle egret is common throughout the region, whereas spoonbills, cranes, and gulls
are mostly confined to the western part.
Reptiles and amphibians
Of the crocodiles the gavial, which has long slender jaws and a soft inflatable nose tip, is restricted to the large
rivers of northern India; a species of an allied genus is found in Sumatra and Borneo; and the mugger (the
common freshwater crocodile) and the estuarine crocodile have a wider distribution. Freshwater turtles and land
tortoises are well represented. Lizards are numerous, and flying lizards are also typical of the region. Chameleons
are chiefly African, but one species is found in peninsular India and Sri Lanka. Snakes are numerous, among
them the poisonous krait, cobra, and Russell’s viper. Frogs and toads are abundant.
king cobra
Fish
King cobra displaying its hood, Malaysia. The freshwater fish life of the Oriental region is rich. The carp and
© Heiko Kiera/Fotolia catfish families have many native genera and species. The labyrinth
fish (so named for a labyrinthine outpocketing of the gill chamber
that permits them to take oxygen from air as well as from water), to which the climbing perch and the gourami
belong, are characteristic of the fish life of the region, as are spiny eels.
giant gourami Invertebrates

Giant gourami (Osphronemus goramy).
Adrian Pingstone Insects, arachnids (scorpions, spiders, ticks, and mites), mollusks, and
other invertebrates inhabit the region in great numbers. Large
birdwing butterflies, allied to the well-represented swallowtails, are typical. Almost all known families of
scorpions are present. Among land shells the absence of Helicidae (a family of land snails that have lungs),
common in the Palearctic region, is noteworthy. Their place is taken by other forms, such as species of
Hemiplecta, and by land mollusks that have horny or shelly plates on their posterior dorsal surfaces.
Lieven Ferdinand de Beaufort Aleksandr Maximovich Ryabchikov

Great Mormon butterfly
Nina Nikolaevna Alexeeva
Great Mormon butterfly (Papilio
memnon), eastern India. People
AdstockRF
Fossil evidence indicates that Asia has been under occupation by
human species for at least one million years and most likely longer. The first humans in Asia may have descended
from groups of the extinct species Homo erectus that migrated to the continent from Africa. There is much debate
as to whether modern Asian peoples evolved from those early humans or represent the descendants of
anatomically modern peoples who migrated out of Africa beginning about 100,000 years ago.
A discussion of Asian peoples and their cultural development

Replica of a skull of Peking man,
reconstructed from a number of Homo cannot entirely exclude other parts of the Old World. The relatively
erectus fossils found at Zhoukoudian, recent, Western conceptual division of the Eurasian landmass into
China, and dated to some 230,000–
770,000 years ago.
“Europe” and “Asia” has only minor significance in relation to the
© Bone Clones, www.boneclones.com historic patterns of human occupation of the continent. The cultural
diversity of Asia is greater than that of any other continent, because
it represents ethnic types and linguistic systems that have evolved over long periods of time in separated regional
homelands with distinct physical environments, as well as repeated patterns of modification and intermixture that
have resulted from both peaceful and militant migrations. Some Asian territories have become highly diversified
ethnic and linguistic mosaics in which there are mixed and overlapping elements.
Ethnic groups
Prehistoric centres and ancient migrations
The two primary prehistoric centres from which migrations of modern human populations over the continent took
place were Southwest Asia and a region comprising the Mongolian plateaus and North China.
From prehistoric to historic times, possibly beginning as early as 60,000 years ago, movements from Southwest
Asia continued toward Europe and into Central Asia (including Middle Asia) and East Asia; significant
movements into India and Southeast Asia also took place. There were probably small divergent migrational
movements in other directions that became swallowed up in later patterns of mixing.
Important Asiatic migrations, however, also originated in Central Eurasia. Such movements must have begun as
early as 10,000 years ago, but probably the most significant of those migrations for the present ethnic and
linguistic makeup of the continent were those of the Indo-European-speaking peoples, beginning about 3000 BCE.
Those peoples migrated both west into Europe and south and southeast into Southwest and South Asia. People
who spoke a language ancestral to the modern Indo-Aryan languages began arriving in northern India about 2000
BCE. Other people speaking an early Iranian language probably spread into Iran about the same time. Migrations
out of Central Asia continued into the early centuries CE as Mongols pushed westward Turkic peoples, who
occupied large parts of western Central and Southwest Asia. The westward Asiatic movements also produced,
over a period of time, much mixing of early European and Asiatic peoples in Central and West Asia. Northern
Asia continued to be inhabited chiefly by thinly distributed residual elements of ancient eastern Asian peoples,
although some fairly late northward movements of Turkic peoples did take place. In addition, prehistoric
countermovements along the China coast may have carried early Asiatic migrants from South China and
Southeast Asia northward into southern Korea and Japan; in the latter those peoples mixed with and gradually
supplanted the indigenous Ainu, who were of uncertain origin.
Within the broad zone of Central Asia, recurrent movements retracing older migratory routes have created
overlapping and fragmented ethnic groups. Secondary and tertiary intermixing of many of those regionally
derived groupings has resulted in still more complex patterns of ethnic identity and distribution. Thus, the
original speakers of Uzbek, a Turkic language, were probably people from eastern Central Asia similar in
appearance to Mongolians; some of them migrated westward to near the Volga River at an early date, then moved
southward to become intermixed with peoples who probably spoke Iranian languages and looked much like
modern Iranians. Uzbeks are now widely distributed in Central Asia.
An ancient migration similar in impact to that of the speakers of Indo-European languages in West Asia was that
of the Austronesian speakers in Southeast Asia. Both linguistic and archaeological evidence suggest that the first
Austronesian languages may have been spoken on the island of Taiwan about 4000 BCE. Some Austronesian
speakers traveled south and west to settle Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula, and parts of peninsular Southeast Asia,
where they may have mixed with preexisting populations; from Indonesia, Austronesian speakers later colonized
Madagascar, off the coast of Africa. Others spread first south and then east along the coasts of New Guinea and
the Bismarck Archipelago, probably mixing with earlier inhabitants. From there, speakers of the Oceanic
subgroup of Austronesian—which includes the Polynesian languages, most of the languages of Micronesia, and
many languages of Melanesia—spread to nearly all of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, including distant Hawaii
and Easter Island. Today, Austronesian languages are spoken throughout insular Southeast Asia and beyond.
Another major series of prehistoric and early historic migrations originating in what is now southern China
involved the ancestors of many of the present-day inhabitants of mainland Southeast Asia. As Chinese
civilization and Chinese-speaking people expanded southward from their original homeland in northern China
beginning during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) and increasingly from the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BCE–
220 CE) up to modern times, the original inhabitants of southern China, speaking languages in the Tibeto-
Burman, Tai, and Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao) families, either merged with the Chinese-speaking population or
migrated southward or into upland enclaves in southern China. Those who migrated to the south were among the
ancestors of the Burmans, the Lao, the Thai, and Southeast Asian minorities such as the Hmong, the Shan, and
the Karen.
There have been many small-scale movements apart from the main trends, and those have complicated the ethnic
picture of particular regions. For example, there is general agreement among scholars that a nomadic ethnic group
began moving out of India no later than about 1000 CE and probably several centuries earlier and became the
ancestors of the contemporary European Roma. A great variety of peoples also settled in the Caucasus region,
including speakers of Iranian and other Indo-European languages, speakers of languages in at least two language
families found only in the Caucasus, and speakers of Turkic languages.
Historical migrations
Within historic time the aggressive expansion of particular ethnic groups has either driven weaker groups away
from their territory or resulted in the newcomers’ assuming control of the territory and reducing the older
inhabitants to the status of ethnic minorities. Some of those weaker ethnic groups eventually have lost their
identity through intermixture. In some instances a new ethnic group with its own dialect has resulted from the
mixing. Some areas now consist of multiple enclaves of distinct ethnic groups, each following its own way of
life. In parts of Southeast Asia, for example, ethnic distinctions correspond to topography, with larger groups
dominating state societies based in the coastal and riverine lowlands and minority groups with a smaller-scale
tribal or clan-based organization occupying the interior uplands. Within what are now India and Pakistan the
migration of Indo-Aryan speakers eastward and southward produced discontinuous patterns of ethnicity.
Militant campaigns of Arabs spread Islam and Arab political

Thailand: floating market
structures out of Arabia westward into Africa and Spain, northward
Floating market in Thailand, near
Bangkok. Thais of Chinese ancestry through the Levant into Anatolia, and eastward into Central Asia,
often are the merchants in such markets. Persia, India, and the Malay Archipelago. Beginning in the 7th
© happykiddo photography—Moment/Getty century CE and lasting until the 16th century, those efforts brought a
Images
substantial Arab migration to Southwest Asia.
During the period of European imperialism, the penetration by Russians into North and Central Asia and by
western Europeans into the oceanic fringes of South and East Asia carried those peoples to all parts of the
Eurasian continent. The expansion of commerce after the arrival of Europeans gave further impetus to a
preexisting stream of migration from coastal China to Southeast Asia. The British also encouraged migration
from the Indian subcontinent to Malaysia and Singapore. Since the 17th century the resultant intermixing of
peoples has produced new ethnic identities, including the Anglo-Indians of India and the Burghers of Sri Lanka.
Intermarriage between Chinese immigrant men and local women has produced many people of mixed origin in
Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. The introduction of American soldiers of European and
African American ancestry to East and Southeast Asia during and after World War II has further complicated the
ethnic mosaic in China, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The modern mixings of peoples were
once considered a new phenomenon but are increasingly being viewed as a continuation of historical patterns of
migration and cultural diffusion.
Multiethnic states
The development of modern forms of political administration among Asian states has produced some distinctive
regional patterns. The Soviet Union was the first state to organize administrative districts on an ethnolinguistic
basis; some 100 separate ethnic groups were officially recognized during the Soviet period, with about 60
occupying ethnic territories with administrative status at major or minor levels. The larger units, such as
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, became separate republics with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, while others
have retained some degree of autonomy within Russia. China under the communist regime adopted a similar
system and modified the imperial political structure in regions containing ethnic or linguistic minorities—
primarily in southern and southwestern China, northwestern China, and Central Asia. Ethnic territorialism was
relatively fixed and stable in the Soviet Union; but in China changes have occurred in the boundaries of its
autonomous regions, and not all minorities have been granted internal territorial autonomy.
In India, where hundreds of languages are spoken and many ethnic groups coexist,
India: crowd
ethnolinguistic recognition occurs only at the state level. The boundaries of many
Crowd of pilgrims in India.
Indian states now roughly follow linguistic limits. Many minorities have not been
© TheFinalMiracle/Fotolia
given territories of their own, and the question of ethnic and linguistic territorial
autonomy has given rise to considerable unrest within India. In both India and
Pakistan, the tribal and frontier agencies formed during British rule have become full states on the basis of their
cultural unity.
Myanmar (Burma) attempted with limited success to resolve the problems of integrating ethnic minorities into a
modern political structure after several upland ethnic minority groups militantly opposed forms of limited
territorial autonomy offered by the government. Throughout most of the countries of Southeast Asia, ethnic
minorities have been slow to receive formal recognition, although many governments now have developed
policies for incorporating minorities into the national life.
Malaysia is a multiethnic state in which Malays constitute roughly half the total population and Chinese about
one-fourth, with Indians and tribal minorities making up the remainder. The Malaysian constitution does not
recognize the country’s pluralistic composition: Malay is the official language, with English also being
recognized officially; Islam is a state religion (although religious freedom is guaranteed); and the head of state
must be a Malay. Political parties, however, often represent ethnic groupings, and there are—in practice—many
ways in which all ethnic elements are represented.
In most states of Southwest Asia, ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities exist without formal recognition of
their status. Lebanon, for example, is ethnically and linguistically Arab, but a significant proportion of its people
are Christian and its Muslim population is divided between Sunnites and Shīʿites. Israel has a sizable Arab
minority, and Iran is only about half Persian in ethnic and linguistic terms. In the Arab-majority states of the
Persian Gulf, there are substantial populations of migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia, as well as
significant minorities of Shīʿite Muslims.
Languages
The languages of Asia are richly diverse. The vast majority of the people of continental Asia speak a language in
one of three large language families. The first, Altaic, consists of the Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu-Tungus
(Tungusic) subfamilies. The second, Sino-Tibetan, includes the Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages. Finally,
the Indo-European family consists of the Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and Slavic languages, as well as Armenian.
The peoples of peninsular and insular Asia, however, speak

Approximate locations of Indo-European
languages in contemporary Eurasia. numerous other languages, including those in the Austroasiatic, Tai,
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao), and Dravidian families, as well as
Japanese, Korean, a vast number of Austronesian languages, and the
unrelated languages lumped together within the Paleo-Siberian areal category. Also spoken on the western
bounds of Asia are Arabic and Hebrew (both Afro-Asiatic languages) and the Caucasian languages, consisting of
at least two unrelated families. Except for the extensive eastward expansion of Russian (a Slavic language), the
pattern of language distribution in Asia has remained relatively stable since the 18th century.
However, many of the languages spoken by ethnic groups numbering

Distribution of the Caucasian languages
a few thousand or less have become functionally extinct and exist
today, if at all, only in the records of linguists. Those fragile groups
cannot long withstand the onslaught of more politically and
economically influential languages that often are imposed along with new cultural patterns.
Among the dominant languages that have gained speakers is Russian, which remains the primary public language
in Siberia and is still important in the Central Asian republics, having been taught to large numbers of non-Slavic
inhabitants. Similarly, Mandarin Chinese—now generally called putonghua (“common language”) in China—is
spoken by more people than any other language in the world, although such regional languages as Wu and
Cantonese also retain their vitality.
In India, where more than 20 languages are officially recognized,

Distribution of the Sino-Tibetan
languages. the larger regional languages are not losing ground, despite
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. enormous increases in the Hindi-speaking population. The major
languages of northern India, including Hindi, evolved from Sanskrit
and are members of the Indo-European language family, while the languages of southern India belong to the
Dravidian family and include Tamil and Telugu. More than 10 different scripts are used in India. An Indian
banknote has its value written on it in 13 Indian languages and also in English. Hindi and English are the official
languages of the Indian central government. The dominance of Hindi has become a political issue in parts of
India where it is not the primary language, particularly in the Dravidian-speaking south.
The island nations of Southeast Asia, each with hundreds of local

Dravidian languages: distribution
languages, have adopted national languages to facilitate communication.
Distribution of Dravidian languages.
Indonesia’s official national language is Bahasa Indonesia, but hundreds
of local languages and dialects remain in use across the vast archipelago.
Javanese, for example, has more than twice as many native speakers as
Bahasa Indonesia. The Philippines, which also has hundreds of local languages and dialects, has adopted Pilipino
(or Filipino, a standardized form of Tagalog) as a national language, although it is the first language of only about
one-fourth of the population. English—the language of administration when the Philippines was a U.S.
possession—remains in wide use; both English and Pilipino are official languages.
Factors such as ethnic migration, extended commerce, and political

Major divisions of the Austronesian
languages. flux continue to complicate language patterns in many parts of Asia.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Around the old Central Asian oases and in southern Siberia,
migrants from Russia and exiled ethnic groups have created
ethnically and linguistically mixed regional populations. As European Russians moved into the new cities in
Central Asia and western Siberia, Russian became the language of the cities; the older languages have been
confined chiefly to the countryside. In other areas, the economic attraction of the cities, both for foreigners and
for the rural poor, has created urban linguistic patterns of increasing complexity.
Joseph E. Spencer Clifton W. Pannell Graham P. Chapman
Religion
Asia is the birthplace of all the world’s major religions and hundreds of minor ones. Like all forms of culture,
Asian religions may be considered geographically in terms of both their places of origin and their distribution.
South Asia
Hinduism, with a polytheistic and ritual tradition comprising numerous cults and sects, is the oldest of several
religions that originated in South Asia. It remains a unifying force of Indian culture and the social caste system—
which Hindu tradition sees as a reflection of the relative spiritual purity of reincarnated souls. The religion has
had little appeal outside the Indian cultural context. Except on Bali and other “Hinduized” islands of Indonesia,
Hinduism is practiced outside the subcontinent mainly by Indian expatriates.
Jainism and Buddhism emerged in reaction to prevailing Hindu

Prambanan, Indonesia
practices in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, respectively. Although
Part of a temple complex dedicated to the
Hindu deity Shiva, Prambanan, Java, Jainism never spread significantly beyond two present-day states of
Indonesia.
© swisshippo/Fotolia northwestern India, its principles of nonviolence and asceticism

have deeply influenced Indian thought.
Buddhism arose in northeastern India as a “universal” alternative to

Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India: Bodhi Tree
hierarchical religion, offering nirvana, or enlightenment, to
Prayer flags mark the place where the
Buddha achieved Enlightenment in Bodh individuals regardless of culture or social station. In the centuries
Gaya, Bihar, India. following its foundation, Buddhism gave rise to two main divergent
Milt and Joan Mann/CameraMann International schools: Theravada, which claimed orthodox adherence to the
teachings of the religion’s founder, the Buddha, and Mahayana,
Tirthankara which held its teachings to be the fullest account of the Buddha’s
Statue of the Jain Tirthankara (saviour) message. The monastically oriented Theravada predominates today
Mahavira. in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia, while the more liberal
Dayodaya
Mahayana, with its proliferation of philosophical schools and sects,
has had an immeasurable impact on the civilizations of China,
Korea, and Japan. Vajrayana, or Tantrism, is an esoteric form of Buddhism practiced in the Tibet Autonomous
Region of China, Nepal, Bhutan, and Mongolia. In India itself, the once sizable Buddhist population has
diminished to a relatively small number of adherents.
Sikhism, a monotheistic Indian religion, was founded in the Punjab in the late 15th century CE and has fueled that
region’s modern demands for independence. The current Indian state of Punjab has a Sikh majority, with the city
of Amritsar in that state as the religion’s spiritual centre.
Amritsar, India: Harmandir Sahib

Southwest Asia
The Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple; Southwest Asia (the Middle East) is the cradle of three great
right), Amritsar, Punjab, India.
monotheistic systems: Judaism and its offshoots Christianity and
©Master Lu/Fotolia
Islam. Judaism, founded in the eastern Mediterranean region some
4,000 years ago, posits a covenant relationship between God—the
source of divine law—and humankind. Most Asian Jews now live in Israel, although there are small Jewish
communities in various other areas of the continent. In the 20th century a number of Jewish sects and reform
movements founded elsewhere accompanied immigrants to Israel.
Christianity, which was derived from Judaism some two millennia

Jerusalem: Western Wall
ago, came to have the largest number of believers among the
Morning prayers at the Western Wall,
Jerusalem. world’s religions. After it was adopted by the Roman and Byzantine
© Shawn McCullars empires, Christianity became predominant in Europe and in
European-derived cultures. It is practiced by sizable minorities in
many Asian countries (notably South Korea) and by Roman Catholic majorities in East Timor and the
Philippines.
Jerusalem: Church of the Holy Islam dominates as the state religion of most Southwest Asian
Sepulchre
countries, and a substantial majority of Muslims live in Asia. From
Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
the Arabian Peninsula, where it was founded in the 7th century,
Jerusalem.
Islam spread throughout the Middle East, into Central Asia and
© BWBImages/iStock.com
parts of South Asia, and across the Bay of Bengal to Malaysia and
to Indonesia, which remains predominantly Muslim. The majority
of Asian Muslims belong to the orthodox Sunnite branch, except in Iran and Iraq, where members of the more
esoteric Shīʿite branch are in the majority. Muslims constitute important minority populations in India, the
Philippines, and China. Among the other religions that developed in Southwest Asia are Zoroastrianism, an
ancient religion that survives in Iran and India and contains both monotheistic and dualistic elements; and Bahāʾī,
a universalist faith founded in Persia (Iran) in the mid-19th century.
Mecca: Great Mosque

East Asia
Muslim pilgrims surround the Kaʿbah, the Ancient Chinese religious and philosophical traditions survive in the
shrine at the centre of the Great Mosque,
Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
form of two main schools, Daoism (Taoism) and Confucianism,
Zurijeta —iStock/Thinkstock both of which originated in the 5th or 6th century BCE. The two
schools differ in orientation—Daoism stressing mystical experience
and the individual’s harmony with nature and Confucianism emphasizing the duty of the individual in society and
government—but both have profoundly influenced Chinese and Chinese-derived culture. Indigenous Chinese
folk religious traditions continue to influence the practice of both Daoism and Confucianism, as well as
Buddhism, which has many adherents in China. Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism are also widespread in
Korea, where indigenous Korean religious traditions remain important as well.
Shintō encompasses the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of

Yangdong village, Andong, South
Korea the Japanese people. Although among some practitioners that
Instruction hall of Confucian school, tradition has absorbed the influences of other belief systems, such as
Yangdong village, Andong, South Korea. Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, its fundamental principles
© Lorraine Murray linking sacred power, ritual observance, and imperial nationhood
remain unique to Japanese culture.
Torii (gateway) at the entrance to a

Other religions
Shintō shrine on Mount Hakone, east-
central Honshu, Japan. In addition to the major religions discussed above, numerous
R. Manley/Shostal Associates localized spiritual practices are found throughout Asia. Animism,
for example, is particularly common among some ethnic minorities
of South and Southeast Asia. Mystical shamanism remains characteristic of numerous North and Central Asian
peoples, and shamanistic cults are also found in South Korea and Japan.
shaman in South Korea

Settlement patterns
Shaman performing a ritual dance, South Ecological factors

Korea.
Korea Britannica Corp. Agriculture remains the mainstay of Asia, though the proportion of
the population engaged in agriculture is steadily declining. Although
marginal lands in many parts of South and East Asia have been brought under cultivation, and many former
pastoral ranges in Southwest and Central Asia are now irrigated, the broad ecological factors touched upon above
have continued to give rise to geographic variations in population and economic activity. Parts of South and East
Asia can support dense populations. Moister regions in the southwest—for example, in Turkey and northern Iran
—support large populations.
In Southwest and Central Asia in general, however, agricultural

Philippines: terraced fields
productivity and population density vary markedly with the regional
Terraced rice fields on the island of
Luzon, in the Philippines. pattern of precipitation or the availability of water from humid
© Skip Nall/Corbis RF highlands nearby. In the Central Asian republics the older pastoral
nomadism has been transformed into organized transhumance (i.e.,
the seasonal migration of stock between lowlands and mountains); consequently, the families that were formerly
nomadic have become permanent residents in villages, and only herders accompany the flocks and herds.
Northern Asia remains a semideveloped frontier region with short-season crops growing in favoured southern
localities, even though breeding of newer varieties has extended agriculture northward. The Arctic fringe is being
developed on the basis of mineral resource exploitation, but only in particular localities. Siberia has remained
lightly populated, with the population concentrated in scattered local centres. The agriculturally productive river
plains of South Asia, China, and Southeast Asia have supported dense rural populations and large cities since the
beginnings of civilization. Irrigated agriculture has provided the surplus to sustain urban elites.
Rural settlement
Population densities have everywhere increased, and the modernization of agriculture, increased mineral
exploitation, and industrialization have brought cultural change. Some of the small ethnic groups have been dying
out, but larger groups often have accepted change and have increased in numbers. In South and East Asia,
growing lowland populations have been pressing hard on the available land as population densities exceed 2,000
persons per square mile (750 per square km). In Indonesia, government programs have encouraged farmers to
relocate from Java, one of the most densely populated places on Earth, to more thinly populated Indonesian
islands, where ethnic Javanese have sometimes come into conflict with indigenous peoples.
Similarly, in Central Asia, both Chinese and Russian settlement

A Lisu hill settlement near Pai,
northwestern Thailand. programs have moved peoples from heavily populated regions into
Jeffrey Alford/Asia Access frontier zones in order to develop both agricultural and industrial
resources. In southern Siberia the Soviet settlement program spread
a thick wedge of European Russians and assorted ethnic minorities eastward to the Pacific Ocean and northward
along every river valley to the Arctic Ocean. As a result, many of the Paleo-Siberian ethnic groups have been
submerged and absorbed. Old trading posts, oasis towns, and the few old cities of southern Siberia and the
Central Asian republics have been developed into modern industrial centres; those locations have been linked to
modern transport systems by which raw materials and manufactured products flow to the European regions. Most
new cities have been populated largely by European Russians, with Asian peoples remaining chiefly in the rural
areas. The modernization of Southwest Asia—through the renaissance of Turkey and the impact of petroleum
exploitation on the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, and Iran—has altered many of the old patterns of ethnic groupings in
those areas. A further alteration of the historic pattern came in 1948 with the creation of the State of Israel, to
which large numbers of Jews from North Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North America have migrated.
Mud dwellings with crenellated rooftops

Urban settlement
of Najrān, Asir region, Arabia.
More than two-fifths of all Asians live in and around cities and
Peter Ryan/Robert Harding Picture Library
towns, and increasing urbanization is heightening regional contrasts
in population density. Israel, Japan, and Singapore are among the
most highly urbanized countries in the world, and Asia claims several of the world’s largest metropolises. Two
basic factors account for that concentration: natural population growth in the cities themselves and large-scale
rural-to-urban migration. In many cities, such as Kolkata (Calcutta), Mumbai (Bombay), Bangkok, Jakarta,
Manila, and even Shanghai, the ceaseless influx overwhelms the existing capacity to provide jobs, services, and
appropriate shelter for new arrivals. The results are squatter settlements and shantytowns that may contain as
many as half of the city’s people. Such areas typically lack proper water supply, electricity, sanitation, and
transportation facilities, although over time the quality of the makeshift dwellings often improves.
A distinctive adaptation on a large scale, called the extended metropolis, is emerging in some areas. In such a
development, the expanding peripheries of the great cities merge with the surrounding countryside and villages,
where a highly commercialized and intensive form of agriculture continues yet where an increasing portion of the
farmers’ income is derived from nonfarm work. Some decentralization of urban industry occurs, and many new
industrial and service jobs become available for the rural population. Movement of goods and people is extensive,
if basic, achieved with bicycles, mopeds, carts, trucks, buses, and trains. The quasi-rural environs of urban
centres offer to investors and residents alike advantages such as lower land costs, better labour markets, and less
congestion and environmental pollution than exist in the cities proper. The extended metropolis model is thus an
alternative form of urban growth that helps to divert what might otherwise be an overwhelming flood of migrants
to the great cities. Beijing-Tianjin, Shanghai-Nanjing, Hong Kong–Guangzhou, Delhi–New Delhi, Mumbai-
Pune, and Seoul are examples of a form of growth that can lead eventually to the kind of megalopolitan
development found in the Tokyo-Yokohama–Ōsaka-Kōbe corridor of Japan.
Sripati Chandrasekhar Clifton W. Pannell Graham P. Chapman

Tokyo skyline
Portion of the Tokyo skyline at dusk; Demographic trends

Tokyo Tower is at the right.
© Stephen Gibson/Shutterstock.com
Asia constitutes roughly one-third of the world’s land area and is home to about three-fifths of its population. The
continent includes the two most populous countries, China and India, which together account for nearly two-
fifths of all people.
Early population distribution

About 1750 it would have been relatively easy to describe the population and ethnic distribution of Asia. The
whole of northern Eurasia was rather lightly populated by diverse Paleo-Siberian, Tungusic, and Turkic peoples
who engaged in hunting, foraging, fishing, or herding. Some groups, such as the Nenets, Sakha, and Chukchi, had
somewhat distinctive economies focused on a single activity or on activities that changed seasonally.
Central Asia, Tibet, and Mongolia formed a mixed zone dominated by nomadic pastoralists such as the Buryat
Mongols and the Kyrgyz, while the lower plateaus and river valleys were sprinkled with agricultural districts
settled by the Tajiks, Uighurs, Uzbeks, and other groups. Population density was relatively light; mountain
regions were occupied only in summer, but there were locally concentrated populations centred on such large
oases as Tashkent, Samarkand, Kashi (Kashgar), and Ürümqi (Urumchi), with smaller groupings around lesser
sources of water. A similar pattern prevailed in Southwest Asia, which at that time was inhabited by Iranian,
Arab, and Turkic peoples, with a scattering of minority ethnic groups. Population was concentrated around
cultivable areas, water resources, or grass pastures.
South and East Asia showed a more complex dual set of patterns. The largest components consisted of the highly
civilized lowland populations, long settled on their land and engaged in sedentary agriculture and handicraft
manufacturing. Market towns and cities were scattered over the countryside, and many small port towns dotted
the seacoasts. Population density was heaviest in the best agricultural lowlands, which had also been occupied the
longest, such as the North China Plain, the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) valley, southern Japan, coastal Vietnam,
the lowlands of Java, and the Ganges (Ganga) and Indus river valleys.
Smaller components included the diverse ethnic groups scattered in wet deltaic lowlands, such as those of the
Ganges, Irrawaddy, Chao Phraya, and Mekong rivers; the central plain of the island of Luzon in the Philippines;
and northern Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. Groups also were scattered throughout most of the hill and lower-
mountain country. Their economies combined hunting and gathering with sedentary or shifting cultivation (the
cultivation of new land for each successive crop). Generally, those less-densely populated areas had small
populations scattered in village settlements that were sustained by subsistence economies; limited handicraft
manufacturing took place, and trade was confined to minor products. The Naga of northeastern India, the upland
Karen of Myanmar, and the Hmong (also known as Miao) of Laos exemplified that lifestyle. Toward the end of
the 18th century, European colonial efforts were beginning to integrate the production systems of eastern Eurasia
into patterns of world trade. Supplying Europe with raw materials, which was to characterize the early 20th
century, also commenced at that time.
20th-century changes
By the 20th century, great changes had taken place in both the ethnic patterns and the associated lifestyles in
Asia. Many smaller ethnic groups faced challenges to their autonomy as the spread of nation-states and economic
exchange across the continent integrated them into larger social, political, and economic units. By the mid-20th
century, the Soviet Union and China had extended their economic and political control over Siberia and Central
Asia, the former colonial lands of South Asia had achieved independent statehood, and the component territories
of the old Ottoman Empire had been reshaped into the modern countries of Southwest Asia. Meanwhile, the
introduction of modern forms of transportation, communication, and finance integrated even formerly remote
regions into national and global economies. Many of the hundreds of small ethnic groups were absorbed into the
populations of nation-states, many old languages declined, and many formerly distinctive ways of life persisted
only as remnants or artificially preserved societies.
Political and economic predominance in nearly all of the new or expanded nation-states lay in the hands of one or
more of the country’s ethnic groups. In the former Soviet Union and present-day Russia, ethnic Russians have
been the dominant group. In China, Han (ethnic Chinese) hold most positions of power. In Indonesia, the
Javanese have dominated political life, while power in other Southeast Asian countries has tended to remain with
lowland peoples such as the Vietnamese in Vietnam and the Burmans in Myanmar; in those areas, upland tribal
peoples such as the Hmong (in Vietnam) or the Shan (in Myanmar) often face disadvantages.
The expansion of dominant ethnic groups has steadily restricted the territory available for older, simpler societies;
and modern economic patterns have largely replaced earlier practices. It is still possible to identify the region in
which the Yukaghir formerly lived as a separate culture group in eastern Siberia, but—for the several hundred
Yukaghir who remain—political absorption, acculturation, and internal social decay have made the classic
description of the group largely a historic one. Many former horse-riding, tent-dwelling, sheep-herding
Karakalpak now drive tractors on the grain farms established by the Soviets, live in permanent villages, and
speak Russian in public. Some men of the Chota Nagpur hill region of eastern India, who formerly engaged in
hunting and practiced shifting cultivation, now work in the steel mills of Jamshedpur. By the late 20th century,
the remnant Ainu, indigenous people of northern Japan, had largely been gathered into “cultural villages,” where
their traditional wood carving and bear dances attracted a flow of tourists from other parts of Japan. Since then,
however, the Ainu have actively pursued a cultural revival.
Contemporary trends
There is a great variation in population growth rates in Asia. Growth rates are falling in most Asian countries,
but, even so, the United Nations has estimated that the continent’s population will exceed five billion by 2050—
an increase of more than two-fifths from its estimated population in 2000. There have also been predictions that
India’s population will overtake China’s by 2030. Advanced Japan has an essentially static, but aging, population.
Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Georgia have falling populations. The Arab countries of the Middle East, however,
have some of the world’s highest population growth rates: more than 3 percent annually in some Arab countries.
In part that reflects Muslim traditions, which have frowned on birth control and granted women less control over
fertility. The next fastest-growing area is South Asia. The growth rate in the region’s largest country, India,
though high, fell significantly during the 1990s, as did that in Bangladesh, although Pakistan maintained a
somewhat higher rate of growth. The growth rate in Southeast Asia as a whole is somewhat lower, but it varies
widely by country, with the highest rate in Laos and a relatively low rate in Thailand. East Asia, currently the
most populous region, has a relatively low growth rate. That reflects not only Japan’s static population, where the
fertility rate has actually dropped below the replacement level, but also the impact of China’s one-child policy,
which contributed to an annual growth rate of less than 1 percent by the late 1990s. The regions with the lowest
growth rates are North and Central Asia, where the populations in some countries are actually declining. Those
variations across Asia reflect differences in culture, religion, education, economic development, and government
policies.
Most non-Islamic Asian countries, aware of the adverse impact high rates of population growth have on
economic growth and social progress, embarked on official birth-control programs, which met with considerable
success. Japan’s program perhaps has been the most effective. In existence since World War II, it includes well-
publicized family-planning services, legalized abortion, and the provision of contraceptive devices. Indeed, the
birth rate in Japan dropped so dramatically that the median age of the population has increased, and about 2010
the population actually began declining. In China fines and other penalties have been imposed on parents who
have a second child without government approval, although by the early 21st century China had gradually begun
to ease its one-child policy. South Korea, Taiwan, India, and Sri Lanka offer family-planning and birth-control
services. Similar policies and plans exist in some Islamic countries, such as Pakistan, but have less overt public
support. The Southeast and Southwest Asian countries lag behind in formal programs, but public consciousness
and basic planning have grown.
In some Asian countries, particularly India and Sri Lanka, as well as Pakistan and a few other predominantly
Muslim countries, males outnumber females in all age groups, while other countries, such as China, show a
marked surplus of males in most age groups. The sex ratio in those places differs from that found in Western
industrial countries, and there is controversy about its cause. In many Asian societies there is a cultural
preference for sons, and there is evidence that—at least at times—female fetuses in certain Asian countries have
been selectively aborted. In some countries social attitudes may account for the difference in mortality rates of
the sexes after birth, through preferential treatment and feeding of males, for example. In China the one-child
policy created an imbalance in favour of male children. In many countries marriage still occurs earlier than in
Western countries, and that fact may further tip the overall balance in favour of males because of the relatively
high mortality rate of young mothers in childbirth.
Sripati Chandrasekhar Clifton W. Pannell Graham P. Chapman The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Economy
General considerations
While the economies of most Asian countries can be characterized as developing, there is enormous variation
among them. The continent contains one of the world’s most economically developed countries, Japan, and
several that are impoverished, such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Nepal. This variation has a regional
dimension. Most of the countries of Southwest Asia fall within one of the middle-income categories as defined by
the World Bank. Exceptions are Israel and the Persian Gulf states of Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab
Emirates, which are considered high-income. Most of the countries of North and Central Asia fall within the low-
income category, except Russia (Siberia), Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, all considered lower-middle-income.
Likewise, all the countries of South Asia are considered low-income, apart from lower-middle-income Sri Lanka.
Except for China and North Korea, which are considered low-income, East Asia is the most prosperous part of
the continent. Most countries in this region are considered upper-middle-income, and Japan is considered high-
income. China, which has experienced dramatic rates of economic growth since the late 20th century, may be
poised to achieve lower-middle-income status. Many of the countries of Southeast Asia have likewise achieved
high rates of growth and have moved into one of the middle-income categories or even, in the case of Singapore
and Brunei, into the high-income category. Exceptions are Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam,
which remain within the low-income group.
The explanation for these varying degrees of development is complex and multifaceted. Before World War II,
Japan was alone in Asia in having developed a domestically owned, financed, and managed industrial base. Other
countries relied on the exchange of basic raw materials and commodities such as rubber, tea, and tin for industrial
products, often supplied by Western colonial powers. Since then different countries have adopted different
strategies to achieve economic development. From the 1950s through the ’70s, the continent’s two largest
countries—India and China—both adopted policies of self-sufficiency and internal development, limiting the role
of external trade and investment. During that period, countries also chose between socialism—i.e., relying on
state ownership of economic enterprises as a pathway to development—and capitalist development based on
private ownership. The contrasting success of these two economic systems can be seen nowhere better than in the
Korean peninsula, where capitalist South Korea has achieved a relatively high level of prosperity, while socialist
North Korea has experienced repeated famines and economic difficulties. The economic success of capitalist
Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore was undoubtedly one of the reasons why China moved during the 1980s and
’90s from state socialism to increasing reliance on private ownership and capitalist economic relations, even
though the Chinese Communist Party retained absolute political power.
Industrialization has provided the primary means of economic development. For some economies this has meant
manufacturing consumer goods, such as electronics, footwear, or clothing, often as contractors for foreign firms.
The countries that have experienced the most dramatic growth, however, such as South Korea, Singapore, and
Taiwan, have provided state support for domestically owned firms, invested heavily in education, and moved
from low-cost manufacturing to more advanced economic activities generating greater returns. For countries such
as Saudi Arabia, other Persian Gulf states, and Brunei, growth has come from exploiting valuable petroleum and
natural gas reserves—but in general these countries have found it hard to develop economic sectors independent
of oil production for future sustainable growth.
Despite these changes, a majority of people in Asia are still engaged in agriculture, usually working small peasant
holdings. In China and India, agriculture is still by far the biggest employer, though it provides a diminishing
share of gross domestic product. The greatest poverty in these countries is thus usually found in rural areas. But
the acceleration of urbanization since the mid-20th century has meant that increasing numbers of rural peasants
are leaving the land for the cities.
The population shift from rural areas to the cities in Asia is an unprecedented migration. In China, systems of
residential permits aim to control the flow, but many peasants move to Chinese cities even without official
permits. In Indonesia, by contrast, there is effectively no control, although there are policies to try to diffuse the
location of new industrial employment. As industry has become increasingly mechanized, it has often not
provided much proportional growth in employment. It is the service sectors of the expanding cities that have
shown the fastest growth in employment in recent years. In the poorer countries much of the employment growth
is in what is known as the informal sector—a term referring to small, often family-owned businesses operating
outside state regulation or control and mainly engaged in petty services or petty manufacturing.
To date, increases in food production have allowed most countries to feed their growing populations, but the
balance between population growth and food supply has been delicate. The dominant methods by which the
major grain crops are produced remain labour-intensive. Crop yields vary greatly throughout Asia. For example,
rice production per acre in Bangladesh is about half that of South Korea. Only about one-fifth of Asia’s land is
arable, and it has been increasingly difficult to expand production by extending the amount of cultivated land,
although in some areas, such as western Indonesia, forest has continued to be cleared for colonization. In most
tropical and subtropical parts of Asia, cropping intensity has risen—i.e., arable land increasingly has been
cultivated for more than one crop (and in some areas, such as Bangladesh, sometimes even three crops) each year.
Major efforts to increase production have occurred through the so-called Green Revolution, which involved
introducing hybrid seed strains that have been responsive to chemical fertilizers. This technology has required
controlled water supplies and has led to increases in irrigation and the use of pesticides. Mechanization has been
important for some crops, such as wheat and corn (maize), but in general it has not been so important for rice
growing. It is thought that a more significant barrier to further agricultural development has been the uneven
distribution of land. This problem has been particularly acute in the poorer countries of Asia. While governments
have made concerted efforts to produce workable land-reform programs, progress has been slow; this has been
particularly conspicuous in the Indian subcontinent and the Philippines. In the socialist countries, land reform
was attempted through collectivization, but in general land has been given back to peasants to farm individually.
Anxiety that the growth potential of the Green Revolution has been slackening has contributed to arguments for
introducing genetically modified organisms. Asian countries, however, have responded cautiously to such
proposals.
Asian economic interdependence grew significantly during the late 20th century as a product of trade,
investment, and better access to information. Japanese investment has dominated much of East and Southeast
Asia. Formal organization of the regional economy remains relatively weak, although the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has worked reasonably well. For most of these countries, however, trade with
other Southeast Asian countries has grown less quickly than trade with Japan. In 1995 the South Asian
Association for Regional Co-operation proclaimed a South Asian Free Trade Area as one of its policy goals, but
such a zone has not yet been realized. The Persian Gulf countries have sometimes achieved sufficient unity to act
together through the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC; which includes non-Asian
members) to control oil prices, but otherwise there has been little regional integration in Southwest Asia. Siberia,
the Asian portion of Russia, suffered after the collapse of Soviet central planning in the early 1990s, and the
Russian central government subsequently abandoned the region to manage on its own. The remote location and
fierce climate have discouraged private investors from trying to exploit much of Siberia’s vast mineral and timber
resources, except for the heavily developed petroleum and gas deposits of western Siberia.
Resources
The immensity of the continent and its geologic diversity explain the mineral wealth of Asia, which includes
reserves of almost every important mineral. Abundant reserves of coal, petroleum, natural gas, uranium, iron,
bauxite, and other ores are either being exploited or awaiting development; much wealth also remains to be
surveyed. However, at times the inaccessibility of some of these reserves has constituted a barrier to their
exploitation.
Mineral resources
Coal
Asia has enormous reserves of coal, amounting to nearly three-fifths of the world’s total, but they are unevenly
distributed. The largest reserves are found in Siberia, the Central Asian republics, India, and especially China;
Indonesia, Japan, and North Korea have smaller but nevertheless economically important reserves. China has
chiefly high-grade coal reserves. Every province has at least one coalfield, but the largest reserves are in Shanxi
and Shaanxi in the Ordos River basin in the north. Sichuan, Shandong, and the Northeast (Fushun, in Liaoning
province) are old coal-producing regions with good reserves, and a coal-mining area with large deposits has been
developed in central Anhui, north of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang). Mines in Ningxia and Gansu supply
northern industrial plants, but their reserves are not clearly known. The long-known reserves in western Hebei are
being exploited.
Enormous coal reserves are found in North and Central Asia, and some 200 fields have been worked throughout
the region. Most of the known coal supplies of North Asia lie in Siberia, but the total extent and quality of
Siberian deposits have not been fully explored. The Ural Mountains are not rich in coal, but there are some small
fields of lower-grade coals. The Kuznetsk Basin in south-central Siberia has become a giant producer. The
Minusinsk Basin in the central region of western Siberia, the Kansk region to the north along the Trans-Siberian
Railway, the Cheremkhovo area west of Lake Baikal in south-central Siberia, and the Bureya River basin in the
southeast also are the major areas of Siberian production. Many smaller deposits have been worked to supply
local regions, such as the small and scattered fields north of Vladivostok and on Sakhalin Island in the Far East.
The Qaraghandy fields in east-central Kazakhstan contain the largest deposits in Central Asia; during the Soviet
period, however, mining was not expanded there after sources of better coals began to be worked in western
Siberia. The Ekibastuz field, north of the main Qaraghandy fields, also is a producer of high-quality coal. Smaller
deposits also are worked in Uzbekistan, as well as in the valleys of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The Chinese and
Indian economies in particular have depended heavily on coal, and their coal consumption has grown along with
their industrial economies since the late 20th century. Concern has been raised by environmentalists about the
possibility that increasing coal consumption in these two countries would raise global atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels.
Petroleum and natural gas
At least two-thirds of the world’s known crude oil and natural gas reserves are found in Asia; the proportion may
prove higher as Siberia, the Caspian basin, and the seas of southeastern Asia are further explored. Many of the
island chains bordering eastern Asia have geologic formations favouring petroleum accumulation, and oil fields
—both on land and offshore—are in production in the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo and in
China, Brunei, and Malaysia. Western Asia has the largest known oil reserves, located in Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
Kuwait, Iran, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Other regions in Southwest Asia have limited amounts of oil,
and known petroleum reserves on the Indian subcontinent are small as well. However, significant deposits of
natural gas were discovered in Bangladesh during the 1990s.
Malaysia is the only important oil-producing area on the mainland of Southeast Asia, although offshore waters
may yield production after further exploration; Vietnam also has some offshore potential. The area of the South
China Sea has been actively tested, but disputes among the surrounding countries about sovereignty over the
Spratly Islands has inhibited development. The Philippines is negligible as a producing region, and the petroleum
production of Japan is also small. North and South Korea appear to have virtually no prospects of production, but
China has a number of oil-producing fields in the provinces of Sichuan, Gansu, and Xinjiang and in the
Northeast. The Qaidam Basin in northwestern Qinghai province also is a producing region. Some oil has been
derived regularly from oil shales found in the Northeast, and natural gas is exploited in Sichuan and in the
Northeast.
Siberia produces more natural gas than Southwest Asia and is a significant oil producer as well. The flanks of the
Ural Mountains have a number of large oil fields and small gas fields. The rich gas field in the northern Ob River
basin at Berezovo indicates that the entire Ob basin may yield natural gas. In the east the Lena River basin, north
of Yakutsk, also contains large gas reserves.
Azerbaijan and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia also possess large deposits of oil and natural gas.
Much of this is centred in the Caspian basin, particularly in areas claimed by Azerbaijan. The capital, Baku, has
become a new world centre for oil exploration. The reserves, which the former Soviet Union hardly noticed, may
prove to be substantial. Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan share in Caspian output. Uzbekistan has a major gas field
at Gazli in the Kyzylkum Desert southeast of the Aral Sea and oil fields in the southeastern part of the country.
Although the landlocked region is not as remote as Siberia, its oil and gas producers have debated whether to
export production to the world market through Russia or to build pipelines across Iran to the Persian Gulf, across
the politically unstable Caucasus region to the Black Sea, or to the Mediterranean ports of Turkey.
oil derricks near Baku

Uranium
Oil derricks in the Caspian Sea near Reserves of uranium ore are found in Asia’s ancient crystalline
Baku, Azerbaijan.
rocks. The richest ore fields are found in Kyrgyzstan, between Osh
Dieter Blum/Peter Arnold, Inc.
and Tuya Muyun. China and India have their own deposits. Chinese
uranium resources are thought to be in northern Xinjiang and
southern Hunan provinces.
Iron
Many regions of Asia have deposits of iron ore, although not every country has its own domestic supply. South
Korea, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, and several smaller countries in Southwest Asia appear to have only small iron ore
supplies. Japan has far less than is needed by its large iron and steel industry and depends largely on imported
supplies. The Philippines exports ore. Malaysia produces a considerable volume. Thailand, Myanmar, and
Pakistan have fair amounts of relatively low-grade ores, and Vietnam and Turkey have good ores in substantial
volume. Indonesia and India both have large deposits of good iron ores that are reasonably distributed.
Although China formerly was regarded as deficient in iron ores, huge quantities of varying grades of ores have
been discovered that are widely distributed and often located close to coal supplies. Regional centres of ore
mining, smelting, and fabrication are located at Anshan in Liaoning province; near Beijing; in southern Anhui,
west of Shanghai; in central China, east of Wuhan; in southern Inner Mongolia, north of Baotou; in central
western Gansu; and on Hainan Island, off the southern coast. Large iron ore deposits also occur near Chongqing.
Iron ore in small local volumes is widely located in Guizhou and Yunnan in the southwest. China now ranks
among the world’s major producers of iron ore.
Iron ore long has been extracted from the Ural Mountains, and there appears to be a virtually unlimited supply of
low-grade ore in the Qostanay Basin east of the Southern Urals in northwestern Kazakhstan and southwestern
Siberia. Large deposits of medium-grade ore have been found northwest of Lake Baikal, close to the
Cheremkhovo coal deposits. Smaller deposits have been located in several locations in eastern Siberia. In Central
Asia the main deposits are found in eastern Kazakhstan.
Ferroalloy metals
Asian resources of nickel are not extensive. There is a notable ore field at Norilsk, in north-central Siberia;
Indonesia, China, and the Philippines also possess reserves and produce substantial quantities of nickel. Asian
countries with reserves of chromium include Turkey, the Philippines, India, Iran, and Pakistan; reserves are also
found in northwestern Kazakhstan. Manganese is found in abundance, with large reserves in Transcaucasia,
Central Asia, Siberia, and India; Chinese reserves also are considerable. Southern China has exceptionally large
deposits of tungsten. Tungsten reserves in Central Asia also are important, as are those of molybdenum.
Nonferrous base metals

Asia is not richly endowed with copper. In Central Asia the main sites are Olmaliq, southeast of Tashkent
(Uzbekistan); Zhezkazgan, west of Qaraghandy; and Qongyrat, on Lake Balkhash (Kazakhstan). In Siberia,
production is mainly from the Kuznetsk Basin. Japan’s once widespread copper ore reserves are no longer
worked, and the Philippines has limited reserves. China has deposits in Gansu, Hebei, Anhui, and Hubei, but
production is insignificant. Turkey, Myanmar, Malaysia, Mongolia, India, and North Korea have small reserves.
Significant reserves of tin exist along a north-south axis running from southwestern China through the Malay
Peninsula to Indonesia. Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, and Yunnan province in China also have deposits of
tin. Siberia has substantial reserves in Transbaikal and also in the Sikhote-Alin Mountains of the Far East.
The largest reserves of lead and zinc in Asia are located in the Kuznetsk Basin of Siberia and in central and
eastern Kazakhstan. China also has abundant deposits of zinc and lead ores, and North Korea has important lead
resources.
Asia has enormous reserves of bauxite. The largest fields are located in Kazakhstan and in south-central Siberia
in the Sayan Mountains. There also are large deposits in India, Indonesia, Turkey, and Malaysia, as well as
significant reserves in China.
Important quantities of mercury occur in south-central China and in Siberia. Magnesite is common in Asia. There
are large deposits of antimony in central China; Turkey and Thailand also have substantial reserves.
Precious metals
Many Asian countries have produced gold from alluvial stream deposits in past centuries, and some have
continued to do so. Small volumes of alluvial gold are produced in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Indonesia, and the
headwaters of the Yangtze River in the Tibetan border region yield some gold. India formerly was a large
producer of gold from lode mines, but the best ores appear to have been exhausted. North and South Korea,
Taiwan, and the Philippines have significant gold ore reserves and periodically produce gold from small lode
mines.
Gold has been produced from Siberian lode mines in the Central Ural Mountains for centuries, and in the 19th
century there were several gold rushes to work alluvial stream deposits farther east on the Lena and Yenisey
rivers. Siberian gold production is now considerable, and lodes are worked in several locations, centring on the
upper reaches of the Kolyma River in the northeast. In addition, platinum is mined near Norilsk in the Central
Siberian Plateau in northern Siberia. Another major lode is in eastern Kazakhstan at Auezov, south of Semey.
Nonmetallic minerals
Reserves of asbestos are localized; it is abundant in China, in South Korea, and on the eastern slope of the Central
Urals in Siberia. Mica is abundant in eastern Siberia and is also found in large quantities in India. Asia has vast
reserves of rock salt, but the hills and “glaciers” of salt in southern Iran have not been exploitable. Deposits of
sulfur and gypsum are abundant in Central and West Asia. Japan has large reserves of sulfur. Kazakhstan has
large deposits of phosphates in the Tupqaraghan Peninsula on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea and other
scattered deposits of lesser value. Diamonds are produced in east-central Siberia and in India. India and Sri Lanka
are significant producers of rubies, sapphires, and many semiprecious stones, such as moonstones and agates.
Myanmar and Cambodia also have important supplies of rubies, sapphires, and other gems.
Water resources
Asia’s water resources constitute a vast potential, both for generating hydroelectricity and for irrigating crops.
Water is important for irrigation in many Asian regions that are either arid (as in much of Central and Southwest
Asia), subject to long dry seasons because of pronounced monsoonal (seasonal) variation in rainfall (as in much
of South and Southeast Asia), or subject to seasonal high water and floods (for example, from the spring
snowmelt in Siberia, the Himalayas, and the mountains of Central Asia). Other regions, such as Indonesia, are
particularly susceptible to longer-term climate variation, such as that caused by the El Niño phenomenon.
The management of water has been a prime focus of Asian peoples since the earliest civilizations were
established on the continent; perhaps the most graphic expression of this is the Islamic tradition of building a
garden in the desert, complete with splashing fountains. As ever-larger dams have been built, however, resistance
has increased from opponents concerned with the environmental and social harm that such dams can cause.
Siberian rivers have an excellent hydroelectric potential, for when dammed they provide low falls with an
enormous flow volume. However, the extreme cold temperatures of winter freeze lakes and streams and keep
water levels low for much of the year, which hinders exploitation. The Far East, with its abundant precipitation
and great differences in water level, has an immense generating potential, although the remoteness of eastern
Siberia has discouraged industrialization.
East Asia’s waterpower potential varies by region. Japan, a mountainous country whose short rivers have steep
drops but relatively small volumes of water flow, has already harnessed much of its hydroelectric potential;
generating capacity, however, is increased by heavy rains, particularly in summer. The waterpower potential of
northern China is extremely limited because the flow of the Huang He and other northern rivers is erratic and
because these rivers carry heavy volumes of silt. The hydroelectric potential of China south of the Qin (Tsinling)
Mountains, however, is great.
The Yangtze River has considerable waterpower potential. The Three Gorges Dam project on the central Yangtze
near Yichang, construction of which officially began in 1994 and was largely completed in 2006, has been the
largest and most ambitious attempt to harness this potential. The dam created a vast reservoir and locks that
facilitate ship transport upstream and is intended to control the river’s periodic flooding. The dam also has the
capacity to generate 22,500 megawatts of hydroelectricity. However, the project attracted considerable
controversy. Flooding the river basin submerged numerous cities, towns, and villages and several sites of
archaeological and cultural interest, and it necessitated resettling more than a million people in a region with a
shortage of available land.
The hydroelectric and irrigation potential in South Asia also varies by region. In Pakistan nearly all agriculture
depends on the Indus River and its tributaries in the Punjab, and the waters of the Indus basin are highly
regulated, with numerous barrages and canals providing water for irrigation. The Western Ghats, which slope
down abruptly to the western maritime plains, would theoretically allow dams to harness water flowing down the
steep slope; however, the rivulets that rise on the summit have an insignificant volume of flow in winter. Rivers
on the eastern slope of the Deccan plateau, such as the Mahanadi and the Godavari, lend themselves to the
construction of low dams with great volumes of flow, as also do the Himalayan rivers entering the Gangetic
Plain. Nearly all of the highly seasonal rivers of peninsular India have been dammed. One exception was the
Narmada River, where work began in the 1990s on the first in a series of 30 large dams. Construction of these
dams has been vigorously opposed by environmentalists both within India and internationally.
The Himalayan ranges represent one of the world’s greatest “water towers,” with rich possibilities for utilizing
steep drops for generating hydroelectricity. During the summer monsoon the heaviest precipitation on Earth falls
there on the highest mountains. Nepal has a vast theoretical hydroelectric potential. Environmentalists worry that
earthquakes in this seismically active region could cause the dams to fail. Some also argue that large dams might
themselves instigate earthquakes, because the weight of the water in reservoirs could press on faults in the
mountains and because water under pressure lubricates faults. Engineers, however, believe that they can address
these problems. An obstacle to such development is the fact that the Ganges (Ganga)–Brahmaputra basin spans
five countries—China, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. Power, irrigation water, and flood control would
benefit India and Bangladesh most, but the sites of the projects would be mostly in Nepal and Bhutan.
In Southeast Asia the Mekong passes through six countries; again development has been stalled by regional
political difficulties. In arid West Asia water politics are highly serious, as shown by the tensions among Syria,
Israel, and Jordan over the use of the Jordan River. Another dispute, between Iraq and Syria on the one hand and
upstream Turkey on the other, concerns the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, whose headwaters lie in Turkey. Turkey
had already built several dams, including the Atatürk Dam, on the two rivers, and construction has been
underway on two more dams on the Euphrates, at Birecik and Kargamış, since the 1990s. Iraq and Syria have
objected strongly to both projects, because they feared that the water supply would be reduced, that they would
not be able to control water-flow timing, and that the quality of water would be diminished. Concern was also
raised that water issues might give rise to future armed conflicts within the region.
Biological resources
Asia’s vastness and widely varying climatic conditions have produced the enormous diversity of life described in
the discussions of plant and animal life. The distribution of economically valuable species, however, is highly
uneven. The Arctic north of the continent and large areas of the central mountain massif—known as “the roof of
the world”—are practically barren. In addition, even where there is water—and nowhere is water conservation
pursued more carefully than in Asia—there are still many areas of undrained swamp. Conservationists, who
believe these swamps are resources in their own right, hope that they will remain undrained. The continent’s
naturally occurring biological resources—combined with the produce of intensive crop cultivation and
widespread animal husbandry—constitute a large portion of its total economic output.
Botanical resources
Much of northern Siberia, south of the Arctic Circle, is covered by commercially exploitable coniferous and
mixed forest. The great deciduous forests of northeastern India, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia
contain teak and other valuable hardwoods, as well as bamboo. Mangrove forests line the waters of the Ganges
and Irrawaddy deltas and many small stretches of coast along the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia, and the
Philippines. But in the Indian subcontinent lowland, forest has given way to cultivated land as population has
expanded; agriculture has similarly reduced the natural forest areas of China to insignificance, except in the
Northeast. Japan, on the other hand, is relatively heavily forested in relation to its area and population, although
much of the present cover is planted forest. At one time, more than half of the Philippines was heavily forested,
but tree cover in those areas—particularly in the good commercial forests—has been reduced considerably.
Interest in the genetic resources of the forests is increasing. India’s neem tree, for example, produces an
insecticide, used by farmers for generations, that is now being exploited commercially.
Grasslands in uncultivated steppe and semidesert areas form the other class of economically significant
vegetation. These regions are the homeland of numerous animal species important to humans, such as the horse,
and they continue to support huge livestock populations.
Animal resources
Domesticated animals—principally sheep and goats, but also cattle, poultry, and pigs in agricultural areas—are
the most economically important animal species. Hides, wool, and dairy products are of great economic
significance in many areas. In Central Asia the horse and the yak traditionally are the riding animal and the beast
of burden, respectively; in Arabia the camel is both. Reindeer herds are kept in the northern tundra of Siberia,
where they feed on mosses and shrubs. In India cattle are especially prized as sources of milk and butter, and the
oxcart is still ubiquitous in rural areas. In India, Myanmar, and Thailand elephants work as draft animals in the
lumbering industry; particularly in Southeast Asia the water buffalo is an important draft animal as well as a
source for milk and butter.
Among Asia’s populations of wild animals, the valuable fur-bearing mammals of Siberia have long been hunted.
North of the Himalayas, game birds such as ptarmigans, grouse, plovers, and various kinds of waterfowl are
found. South of the Himalayas, pigeons, pheasants, and other game birds are taken. Various kinds of hawks and
falcons, trained to hunt, have their habitat in Arabia and other parts of Asia.
Fish and other sea creatures and various kinds of crustaceans and mollusks are heavily exploited by the
populations of East and Southeast Asia. The coastal areas of India, Bangladesh, and Thailand are being
developed for export shrimp farming on a large scale. Numerous freshwater species—such as the sturgeon in the
Caspian Sea and the rivers of Siberia, which is prized for its caviar—are also commercially significant, although
the Caspian is threatened with polluted water from the Volga and by contaminants and spills from the oil industry.
The Indus has its own species of blind dolphin, and the great rivers of South Asia are home to the giant mahseer
fish, threatened by pollution, overfishing, and habitat loss.
Pierre Gourou Thomas R. Leinbach Graham P. Chapman
Resource development
The utilization of Asia’s natural resources has depended, to a large extent, not only on the development of
technology but also on political circumstances. Thus, until the end of World War II and the beginning of the
process of decolonization in Asia, most Asian countries were not free to develop their own natural resources
independently and without reference to the economic interest of a colonial power. Cultural attitudes also have
affected the utilization of resources. In India cultural taboos prohibit the slaughter of cattle either for food or to
conserve resources when the animals are no longer productive.
The value of natural resources also varies with the prevailing technology. For example, by applying new
technology to the production of cereals, the same area of land can give greatly increased yields. Modern
technology has enabled improvements in many other areas—e.g., in Japanese production of silk or cultured
pearls. Technology also may make it possible to exploit mineral wealth that previously was unusable because it
was inaccessible or juxtaposed with other minerals.
Mining
Asia extracts an immense wealth of minerals, of which its mineral fuels—coal, petroleum, and natural gas—are
of greatest value. The largest Asian coal producers are China and Russia (Siberia), followed by India,
Kazakhstan, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan. Considerably smaller quantities of coal are mined in a number
of other countries. The Arab countries of Southwest Asia collectively are the principal producers of petroleum in
the world. The major Middle Eastern mines are in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Kuwait, Oman,
and Iraq. Russian Siberia is also a major petroleum producer, as are China, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The biggest
supplier of natural gas is Siberia, and the Central Asian republics, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab
Emirates, and Iran are also important.
The largest producers of iron ore and ores for ferroalloys are China, Siberia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, and North
Korea. Together these six account for almost all of the ore mined on the continent. India and China are among the
major world producers of manganese ore and between them account for virtually all of Asia’s output. Asia’s
biggest producer of chromite is Kazakhstan, followed by Turkey, India, and Iran. Some tungsten is mined in
China, Central Asia, North and South Korea, Thailand, and Myanmar. Nickel is extracted in Indonesia, Siberia,
China, and the Philippines. Central Asia has become an increasingly important producer of many of the
ferroalloys.
Asia is one of the world’s main producers of tin-in-concentrates (i.e., tin ore that has been partially processed to
increase the proportion of tin in it), providing more than half of the world’s total output. The most important
Asian tin producers are China, Indonesia, and Malaysia. There is also considerable production of copper ore in
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, China, and Indonesia.
The bauxite produced in Asia represents only a small part of total world production, and China, India, Siberia,
and Kazakhstan are the most important Asian producers. China and Siberia are among the world’s leading
producers of gold, and Uzbekistan and the Philippines are also important. Asia accounts for more than half of the
world’s output of graphite, mostly from China and South Korea.
Timber, fisheries, and animal husbandry

Logs are exported from China, Siberia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Myanmar to industrialized and timber-deficient
countries, especially Japan. Thailand and Myanmar produce special varieties of timber such as teak. Thai teak is
also exported to other parts of the world. Malaysia and Indonesia are among the world’s leading producers of
commercial hardwoods. Although output from Philippine forests has been reduced, valuable hardwoods and the
soft “Philippine mahogany” are still produced.
Wood in the enormous forestland of Siberia ranges from pine around the Bratsk area to a mixture of pine, larch,
aspen, birch, and other species in the region south of Lake Baikal. Logging and transport operations are highly
mechanized and have been facilitated by a road-building program.
Bamboos are an important component of wet-evergreen, moist-deciduous, and dry-deciduous forests in the
tropical parts of Southeast Asia. At higher elevations and in temperate climates of Asia—as in Bhutan, China,
Japan, and Nepal—many of the genera found in tropical parts are represented by different species, and other
genera are common in China and Japan. Pure bamboo forests are common on slopes where temporary cultivation
has been practiced in Myanmar, Bangladesh, and other areas.
The exploitation of Asian fisheries increased during the late 20th century. Japan has created a well-organized
fishing fleet that can go nearly anywhere in search of catches, although it has been accused of environmental
insensitivity, because the techniques used to catch tuna have also killed many dolphins and turtles. Freezing and
canning fish products have allowed international trade to increase dramatically. In some countries freshwater fish
are an important component of the diet of the local people; raising fish in culturally controlled ponds is
significant in southern China, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Fish from big delta regions such as the Ganges in
Bangladesh provide local populations with a valuable source of protein. Overall, China catches the world’s
greatest tonnage; however, Thailand has become one of the world’s most important fish exporters, largely
because of its shrimp and prawn farming.
Raising sheep and goats for meat and wool is especially important in China, India, Pakistan, and Iran; these
animals also are raised in nearly all the other countries of Asia, although the sheep population of Southeast Asia
is small. Seminomadic pastoralism is practiced on the steppelands of Central Asia, as it is in parts of Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Angora goats are herded in Anatolian Turkey to provide the silky mohair for
which they are noted. Silkworms are raised for their silk in China, Japan, India, and the Central Asian republics.
While dairying is important in a few areas such as India, Pakistan, Central Asia, and Turkey, there is little large-
scale beef-cattle farming; the Central Asian republics, however, have attempted to develop such patterns. Both
China and Japan have discarded their traditional avoidance of milk products, and both countries have growing
urban dairy industries. China, the world’s largest producer of pork, is the principal producer in Asia, with Japan a
distant second. The poultry industry has made rapid strides, and the production of both eggs and broiling
chickens has gathered much momentum. Feed availability for poultry is one of the major factors limiting the
sector’s growth and development. Straw, obtained from rice crops, is the primary fodder for livestock in southern
Asia, with cattle feed usually supplemented by concentrates such as oil cake.
In spite of the large number of cattle and sheep in the region, the production of hides and skins is only slowly
reaching internationally significant levels. For many tanneries the quality of flaying and curing has to be
improved.
Agriculture
By far the greater part of Asia remains uncultivated, primarily because climatic and soil conditions are
unfavourable. Conversely, in the best growing areas an extraordinarily intensive agriculture is practiced, made
possible by irrigating the alluvial soils of the great river deltas and valleys. Of the principal crops cultivated, rice,
sugarcane, and, in Central Asia, sugar beets require the most water. Legumes, root crops, and cereals other than
rice can be grown even on land watered only by natural precipitation.
Agricultural technology
The traditional method of irrigation in Asia is by gravity water flow. The water from upstream storage reservoirs
or diversion dams is carried through canals to field distributaries. In some systems the fields adjoin one another,
and the water is able to flow from one field to the next; it may, however, take some time for the water to move
across the fields back to the canal system. The disadvantages of this system include water loss by evaporation and
seepage and the possibility that the continuously flowing water will carry with it soil nutrients, fertilizers, and
pesticides. In Japan and Taiwan water is moved by small electric pumps, which operate continuously during the
growing seasons.
Increasing attention has been given to pumping underground water. The use of ordinary pumps as well as of
deep-bore well turbine pumps has become common, especially in India, Pakistan, and Iran. Such irrigation avoids
some of the disadvantages of flow irrigation and allows for easier drainage.
The most important modern development in Asian agriculture has been the introduction of new high-yielding
strains of cereals. Several Asian countries have utilized this technology, and the yield per acre for cereals has
increased substantially since the late 1960s. These improved yields can be attributed to partnership between
international organizations, such as the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, and
national agricultural research stations. Thus, in the case of rice, countries have adapted the IRRI strains to local
conditions and have implemented their own seed improvement programs and extension (advisory) services to
farmers. Access to a reliable water supply has been crucial to the new agricultural technology, which has also
required using fertilizer in conjunction with the improved cereal seeds that have been developed. Huge irrigation
projects in southern Siberia, Central Asia, and Pakistan have been rapidly altering traditional agricultural
patterns.
Principal crops
Cereals and grains

Rice is the staple food crop for most Asians. Asia produces some 90 percent of the world’s total supply of rice.
Except in the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Siberia, Central Asia, and Malaysia, rice occupies more land
area than any other single crop. The total proportion of land under rice cultivation, as compared with total arable
land, is highest in Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka; it varies between one-fourth and half in most Asian
countries outside the Middle East, Central Asia, and Siberia. In spite of this, many countries (among them Sri
Lanka and Bangladesh) are not self-sufficient in rice. Thailand, Pakistan, and Vietnam are notable rice exporters.
The black-earth (chernozem) belt across southern Siberia is

Rice paddies on the island of Bali,
Indonesia. cultivated with several grains, of which wheat is the most important.
Shostal Associates Wheat is also the dominant crop in Central Asia (notably
Kazakhstan), the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Grain
rice planting crops, chiefly wheat, are cultivated in North China—where
A farmer planting rice in Ninh Binh, in the

soybeans are also grown—and in Japan. Barley is grown in China
Red River delta, northern Vietnam, 2015. and India, among other countries. Corn (maize) is raised in China,
© Leocadio Sebastian Siberia, Central Asia, India, the Philippines, Thailand, North Korea,
and other countries. India, China, Pakistan, and Central Asia also
grow sorghum and millet. Intensive use of water resources from wells and from river-fed irrigation systems has
enabled grain crops to be raised in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and northern India.
Fruits and vegetables
The continent produces a variety of tropical and subtropical fruit, mainly for domestic consumption. Transport
facilities, where available, can be used only for limited distances. In view of the climatic conditions and the
general lack of refrigerated transport, consumption tends to be seasonal and confined to areas close to centres of
production. Among the main varieties of fruit produced are bananas, mangoes, apples, oranges and other citrus
fruits, pineapples, papayas, and some specialities such as mangosteen (a dark reddish brown fruit), litchi (a grape-
shaped fruit in a brittle red rind), and durian (a large oval fruit with a prickly rind, a soft pulp, and a distinctive
odour). Citrus fruit is produced in the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea, in Transcaucasia, and in China and
Japan. Taiwan, the Philippines, and Malaysia export bananas to Japan.
Except in a few countries—such as the Philippines, Taiwan, and Malaysia, which grow and can pineapples for
export—canning surplus fruit has been developed only to a limited extent. In view of the tremendous potential for
greater fruit production, it is possible to increase canning of both fruits and fruit juices for export.
The same factors affect the production of vegetables. Vegetables are grown mainly for local consumption, and
only tubers can be transported over distances and stored for any period of time. Taiwan has had success canning
mushrooms and asparagus, and both products have become leading exports.
Cash crops
Asia is noted for several plantation cash crops, of which the most important are tea, rubber, palm oil, coconuts,
and sugarcane. Jute, a commercial fibre, though it has decreased in significance, remains a major export crop of
Bangladesh. Cotton is important to the states of Central Asia and is also a major crop in India and Pakistan.
Rubber was brought to Asia from Brazil in the 19th century; the major producers are Indonesia, Thailand, and
Malaysia, with lesser amounts from India, China, and the Philippines. Palm oil has become important in
Indonesia and Malaysia. Tea is grown on commercial plantations in the uplands of India, Sri Lanka, and
Indonesia; and China, Taiwan, and Japan produce several types of tea on smallholdings. Coconuts are an
important crop in the Philippines, Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka. India, the world’s leader in sugarcane
production, grows primarily for domestic use, whereas the Philippines, Indonesia, and Taiwan produce for both
domestic consumption and export. Tobacco is grown widely, notably in China, India, Turkey, Central Asia,
Pakistan, and Indonesia. Date palms are cultivated, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula. Licorice is grown in
Turkey. A large variety of spices are grown in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia, particularly
Indonesia.
rubber trees
Manufacturing
Latex being tapped from trees on a Industrial development in Asia has been remarkable since the end of
rubber plantation near Kuala Lumpur,
World War II. Most spectacular was Japan’s emergence as a global
Malaysia.
P. Morris/Ardea London
manufacturing superpower in the first postwar decades, but more
recently the focus has been on countries such as South Korea,
Taiwan, and Malaysia. Nonetheless, Asia’s industrial output is still far less than its proportion of world
population. Although heavy industry has been important to the economies of the larger Asian countries, light
manufacturing has been more conspicuous. In the lesser-developed and newly industrialized countries, labour-
intensive industries have remained the most important. Medium-technology industries have been significant in
many Asian economies regardless of their stage of development. Unequal regional development is a political
problem in large countries such as China and India. Parts of western India are developing rapidly, while the east
stagnates; similarly, China’s prosperous coastal belt is outstripping inland areas.
Heavy industry and engineering

The wide variety of mineral resources in Asia provides the basis for several metallurgical industries. Some, as in
Russia (Siberia), are based on local resources, while others, as with Japan’s steel industry, rely on imported ores.
The major producers of steel are China and Japan, respectively first and second in the world; other important
steel producers in Asia are Siberia, South Korea, India, Taiwan, and Turkey. Japan, China, South Korea, India,
and Taiwan are the major steel consumers, although the consumption of steel is increasing in other countries.
Japan, China, and India also are the region’s leading producers of metallurgical coke.
The leading primary producers of aluminum in Asia are China, Russia, India, and the Persian Gulf countries,
particularly Bahrain. There is also some production of copper, zinc, lead, and tin in Asia, with China and Japan
leading in the production of zinc and lead and Malaysia in the production of tin. Japan, China, and India are
leading consumers of tin.
Japan produces every variety of engineering goods, from tankers and locomotives to miniaturized electronic
equipment. Since World War II, India has also gradually diversified its engineering industries and now produces
heavy capital goods (machines and tools used to manufacture other goods), various types of industrial machinery,
prime movers (engines and other sources of motive power) and boilers, diesel engines, sewing machines,
machine tools, agricultural machinery, and all types of electrical equipment. In addition, India produces radio
receivers, metal manufactures, railway rolling stock, automobiles, bicycles, and precision instruments. China has
also made considerable progress in the field of engineering industries. Other Asian countries have primarily
concentrated on producing durable consumer goods. Manufacturing based on computer hardware, software, and
information processing has grown fast in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea and has also
established fast-growing enclaves in India—particularly around Bangalore and Mumbai (Bombay).
Chemicals and petrochemicals

The consumption of nitrogenous and phosphatic fertilizers has greatly increased in Asia, largely because
additional countries have begun to use the advanced techniques and improved seeds that have become available.
The major consumers of fertilizers, per acre of arable land, have been Japan and South Korea. Because of their
vast size and the increased use of fertilizers, India and China are, in absolute terms, among the major consumers.
India has greatly increased its production, especially of ammonium sulfate, and has also experimented with
fertilizers that have a much higher nitrogen content, such as urea. Production of phosphatic fertilizers has also
been increased in Asia, especially in Indonesia.
While Asia’s main sources of natural gas and crude oil lie in the Persian Gulf region, western Siberia and Central
Asia, China, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the continent’s petrochemical industry is more widely distributed, with
especially heavy concentrations in countries with skilled workforces and strong domestic demand for
petrochemical products. Thus, the leading centres of petrochemical manufacturing in Asia are Japan, China, and
Siberia. Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading crude oil producer, refines only slightly more petroleum than South
Korea, which, like Japan, has to import nearly all of its crude oil and natural gas. Other countries with significant
petrochemical industries are India, Iran, Indonesia, Singapore, the smaller Persian Gulf countries, Azerbaijan, and
Turkmenistan.
Asia also produces and consumes common chemicals such as caustic soda, soda ash, and sulfuric acid; Japan and
China are the leading producers of these, followed by India.
Textiles and other light manufacturing

The textile industries, particularly cotton, have expanded greatly in Asia since World War II. China (including
Hong Kong) is the world’s largest exporter of cotton textiles. Pakistan is another major exporter, while Japan,
India, South Korea, Turkey, and Bangladesh also are prominent in the international market. The industry
produces cotton yarn, cloth, and finished garments. There is also some processing of wool (both yarn and woven
fabrics) in the region. China, Japan, India, and Turkey are among the main producers and consumers; China is
Asia’s chief producer of woolen fabrics. South Korea, Japan, and India also have become major producers of
woven rayon and acetate fabrics. South Korea and Japan have turned to noncellulose synthetic fibres, especially
nylon, acrylic, and polyester, as well.
Industries based on processing agricultural products—e.g., canning, food and beverage processing, and footwear
manufacture—continue to be important in most Asian countries. The consumption of pulp and paper throughout
the continent has grown steadily, largely because standards of living are higher. The major consumers are China,
Japan, and India, and the major producers are China, Japan, Siberia, and India. Feedstock includes grasses and
bamboos as well as timber.
Pharmaceutical manufacture also has become important, although its development has varied from country to
country. Japan, for example, has established a pharmaceutical industry, the research and development capabilities
of which are comparable to those achieved in western Europe and the United States; whereas in many of the other
Asian countries pharmaceutical manufacture consists of only fabricating products from basic drugs, imported in
bulk, which are then marketed for domestic consumption or for export.
Handicrafts
Traditional cottage industries and handicrafts continue to play an important role in the economies of all Asian
countries. They not only constitute major manufacturing activities in themselves but are also often the only
available means to provide additional employment and raise the level of living for both rural and urban
populations. In view of the growing world market for products of traditional Asian cottage industries and for
Asian handicrafts, there is room for considerable expansion. During the 1990s significant improvements were
made in marketing these products in wealthy countries. Some, however, have raised ethical questions about the
use of child labour in some of these industries, such as carpet making in South Asia.
Energy
The per capita consumption of energy in Asia outside the oil-producing countries of the Middle East is
considerably lower than the world average. China is by far the largest producer in Asia. While Japan produces
about half as much, it consumes more energy than China in per capita terms. India produces slightly less energy
than Japan, but, with its vast population, its per capita consumption is much lower. In China and India coal is the
dominant source of energy for generating electricity, but in both countries about one-sixth of the electricity
supply comes from hydroelectric sources. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan both largely depend on hydropower from the
Pamir and Tien Shan ranges, and Sri Lanka also relies heavily on hydropower. Japan and South Korea are the
only countries in Asia where a substantial portion of the electricity (about one-third) comes from nuclear power.
China and India have nuclear power plants, but they contribute little to national supplies. Many countries of the
Middle East have per capita energy-consumption figures considerably higher than the world average. Electricity
there is generated using domestic oil and gas supplies.
Geothermal power in Asia is most developed in Siberia, with plants at Makhachkala, Lake Baikal, and
Kamchatka; Uzbekistan has a plant at Tashkent; and Japan has two small plants. The only other Asian country to
use geothermal power is the Philippines. Small gas-turbine generating stations also have been installed in many
countries. Pakistan uses natural gas for both thermal and gas-turbine generation. Bangladesh is expanding
electricity generation from domestic gas supplies.
Services
The service sector has grown markedly in Asia since the mid-20th century, and in most countries it now
constitutes the most important component of the economy. Service activities account for some three-fifths or
more of the gross domestic product (GDP) of economically advanced countries such as Japan, Taiwan, and
Singapore and exceed half of the GDP in countries such as South Korea and Thailand. In China the service
sector’s proportion of the GDP jumped dramatically after the country reacquired sovereignty over Hong Kong
and Macau, both with economies that are based largely on services. Banking and other financial activities have
grown significantly in importance, and Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, and other major Asian cities have become
integral parts of the global banking system; nearly all such cities also have stock exchanges.
Tourism has developed considerably since World War II and has been a major component in the growth of the
Asian service sector. There have been increases not only in the number of non-Asian visitors but also in the
number of Asian travelers within Asia. The Japanese in particular have been avid tourists in Asia, notably in
Southeast Asian countries. The most-visited places include Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, China, Singapore, India,
Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, and Israel. Hong Kong and Singapore both have a large entrepôt trade and attract visitors
partly because they are duty-free ports. The number of tourists visiting China has grown since that country began
lifting travel restrictions in the 1970s. India and Thailand both have well-established tourist sectors, which cater
to visitors not only of their historic cities and palaces but also of their coastal resorts; Thailand is also known for
its sex trade. Nepal is a popular destination for trekkers in the Himalayas, while nearby Bhutan strictly rations the
number of visitors it allows into the country. Parts of Indonesia, particularly Bali, have become popular with
tourists from Australia and Europe, as reaching those destinations has become easier. Israel has a large and
multifaceted tourist industry, while Turkey has become a major holiday resort for Europeans. Vietnam is
emerging as a destination for tourists wishing to see less heavily visited countries. Siberia and Kamchatka have
begun to attract travelers seeking wilderness experiences.
Beach at a resort on Bangaram Island,

Trade
Lakshadweep, India.
© Evelyn Letfuss
Historical background
In ancient times, regions of Asia had commercial relations among
themselves as well as with parts of Europe and Africa. In the earliest days nomadic peoples traded over
considerable distances, using barter as the medium of exchange. Particularly important in such trade were fine
textiles, silk, gold and other metals, various precious and semiprecious stones, and spices and aromatic products.
Trade between Europe and Asia expanded considerably during the Greek era (about the 4th century BC), by
which time various land routes had been well established connecting Greece, via Anatolia (Asia Minor), with the
northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. Further development of land and sea routes from the Mediterranean
basin, especially to southern India, occurred during Roman times. This east-west trade flourished in the first four
centuries AD but was subject to considerable vicissitudes in later centuries. During that period trade also
expanded considerably to Southeast Asia and to China through what are now Malaysia and Cambodia.
After Spain and Portugal, in the 15th century, became interested in discovering a direct sea route to Asia—an
interest that led to the European discovery of the Western Hemisphere—the era of the great circumnavigators
arrived in the 16th century. Portugal was one of the first countries to attempt to establish a monopoly over the
lucrative spice trade with the East, and it founded a network of trading outposts in Asia. The Spanish, meanwhile,
established control over the Philippines. The Dutch and the British started similar enterprises at the beginning of
the 17th century, each country establishing its own East India company. The British began by centring their
activities on the Indian subcontinent and extended their control to Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri
Lanka), and Malaysia. The Dutch first concentrated on Ceylon but later expanded into and concentrated on
Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia. The French were able to establish only minor footholds on the Indian
subcontinent, but their 19th-century penetration of the Indochinese Peninsula was more successful. Over time
these European trading companies developed into colonial empires.
The East India companies of Europe came seeking the exotic products of Asia: silks, cottons, and precious
commodities such as spices and aromatic products. These products required the skilled labour of weavers and
farmers or soil and climatic conditions unique to the region.
As the East India companies developed and imposed colonial rule, a new pattern of trade emerged. Generally
speaking, the colonial countries became the exporters of raw materials and imported the finished products from
their colonial rulers. For example, Britain ceased importing finished cotton goods from India and instead
imported raw cotton to be spun and woven in the new industrial mills. Cotton cloth was then exported back to
India, where indigenous weavers lost their employment. Steel products from cutlery to railway locomotives were
exported to Asian countries from Europe. During that period tea and tobacco also entered into international trade,
and jute became a monopoly product of the Indian subcontinent. After the British went to war with China to
block Chinese efforts to ban opium imports, opium was traded legally by British merchants from India to China
and was a source of tax revenue for the government of India. From the 17th to the second half of the 19th century,
Japan had limited trading relations primarily with Korea and China and prohibited trade with Western countries
apart from a small Dutch trading post in southern Japan.
The latter half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th constituted the heyday of colonial rule. By the
first decade of the 20th century, Japan had emerged as a major military and naval power, and it gradually
developed into an important trading partner with the rest of the world. The era that followed was that of the
colonies’ struggle for political independence, which reached its climax immediately after World War II. Less than
two decades after the end of the war, the great British, French, and Dutch empires had virtually ceased to exist in
Asia.
After independence many countries in Asia sought to develop industries of their own to produce substitutes for
their former imports. This happened under both socialist and nonsocialist regimes. A few countries—Japan the
most notable among them—lacking natural resources but endowed with an educated labour force, opted for
promoting new industrial production for export instead of import substitution. In general this strategy has paid off
better, particularly for Japan and the “four tigers”—Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. At the
beginning of the 21st century nearly all countries were responding to the globalization of production by
promoting exports and opening domestic markets to international competition to varying degrees. Such
liberalization exposed those economies to the volatility of international markets, and there were major currency
collapses and episodes of capital flight in the late 1990s. Although most Asian economies had begun to recover
by 2000, there was still a legacy of unemployment, poverty, and resentment for many.
Contemporary trade patterns
In view of the division of labour that existed between the colonial countries and the metropolitan powers in
colonial days, it is not surprising that until the 1970s the economies of the independent countries of Asia often
were more competitive than complementary. For some countries intraregional exports have amounted to only a
small fraction of total exports. However, in East and Southeast Asia intraregional trade has grown in importance.
Japan has assumed a prominent role in Asian trade, and South Korea, China, and Taiwan have also traded more
heavily with other Asian countries. Because many of the countries of East and Southeast Asia have maintained
substantial trade surpluses and because those regions as a whole have been net exporters, many of those countries
have derived most of their imports from other Asian countries, while their main export market has often been
outside the region, often in the United States.
Asia is the biggest producer of rice in the world, and rice remains an important commodity of intraregional trade.
It is an important export item for countries such as Thailand, Pakistan, and Vietnam.
The countries of Transcaucasia and Central Asia, members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, still
trade largely within the former Soviet bloc as a result of both history and location. However, those countries have
also steadily increased trade with the countries of the European Union and with Turkey and Iran. The most
important trading partners of Turkey and Cyprus are the countries of the European Union. Indeed, the chief
trading partners of most South and Southwest Asian countries lie outside the region—in the European Union,
North America, and East Asia.
There has been an effort on the part of Asian countries to improve their trading position by joining organizations
of commodity producers. Among these are the International Sugar Agreement, the Asian and Pacific Coconut
Community, and the International Tea Committee. These organizations have been designed not so much to
promote intraregional trade as to help stabilize the prices of primary products produced in Asia and exported to
other parts of the world. The most prominent and occasionally successful of these groups is the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which is dominated by the major oil-producing countries of Southwest
Asia.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has fostered joint economic ventures among its member
states and has worked to reduce trade barriers. Although some consider it the most successful of the Asian
regional blocs, intrabloc trade accounts for less than one-third of its members’ exports. Trade between India and
Pakistan, which could be of great mutual benefit, has been hampered by poor political relations between the two
countries. There are some hopes that the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation will be able to
implement a South Asian Free Trade Area by 2015, although commerce between member countries remains
small. The Gulf Cooperation Council embraces members from around the Persian Gulf. Trade within the bloc has
not grown much, because the economies are too similar. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation has been more
successful, but this group is intercontinental, not strictly Asian; it includes the middle-income countries of
Southeast (including most ASEAN members) and East Asia as well as Pacific-coast countries in both North and
South America.
Exports from the Persian Gulf are still dominated by petroleum. Oil is Indonesia’s most important export, but it
accounts for less than one-fourth of the country’s export earnings. However, apart from the countries of Central
Asia, most other Asian countries now earn more from exports of manufactured goods than from any raw
commodity. Bangladesh established a successful apparel industry within a decade. Local manufacturing firms—
for example, automobile producers in Korea or Malaysia—increasingly have become part of multinational
combines. China exports an extensive range of inexpensive consumer goods. One of India’s fastest-growing
exports is software and data processing—since it has become possible for companies in Europe and North
America to beam data by satellite for processing. The number of trained programmers in India, the relatively low
pay scale, and above all the common use of English by educated people give India a comparative advantage over
most other Asian countries in this international trade.
Transportation
Reference has already been made to the main transport systems that linked Asia and the Western world. Until the
19th century the land, or caravan, routes, supplemented by oceangoing vessels, were predominant. In the latter
half of the 19th century there was a major shift to seagoing vessels. Rail and road transport has become important
for moving passengers within individual states and for transporting bulk goods over longer distances.
Concurrently, there has been considerable development of ports and harbours—including container facilities in
the larger ports—which have been linked to their hinterlands by rail and road. Air transport has proved to be not
only the speediest but also often the cheapest means of transport, especially for costly items of relatively small
weight and bulk. Air transport has played a particularly important role in landlocked countries—such as
Afghanistan, Nepal, and Laos—and in the opening up of relatively inaccessible and fragmented areas, such as
Indonesia.
Within Asian countries, diesel trucks, buses, and jeeps have been
Seto Great Bridge
replacing draft animals for internal traffic, as roads and highways
The multiple-span Seto Great Bridge over
the Inland Sea, linking Kojima, Honshu, have been extended in most countries. Motorbikes and motorcycles
with Sakaide, Shikoku, Japan. have also become common in many areas for hauling goods short
Orion Press, Tokyo distances. Carts hauled by draft animals (mostly oxen or buffalo) are
still used where roads are unpaved or poorly maintained, and they
may be seen in large cities of the poorer regions.
Inland navigation is important in certain countries; a good river and canal system is capable of carrying goods
and passengers at small cost over considerable distances. Among the countries with well-developed inland water
transport systems are Bangladesh, the countries of mainland Southeast Asia, and China. There are also great
riverine ports such as Kolkata (Calcutta) in India, Yangon (Rangoon) in Myanmar, Bangkok in Thailand, and Ho
Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Oceangoing ships can navigate the Mekong River to inland ports such as Phnom
Penh, in Cambodia, and can sail up the Yangtze River to Wuhan, China. Ultimately, it may be possible to connect
even Laos with the sea by improving navigation facilities on the Mekong. The Yangtze, Sungari, and Xi rivers of
China provide a wide network of routes for motorized barges, supplementing traditional water transport.
A number of pipelines have been constructed to move petroleum products, especially in Southwest Asia, western
Siberia, and the Caucasus region. Pipelines have considerable advantages, such as economy and speed, but they
also have the disadvantage of being subject to sabotage and to political vicissitudes when they cross international
boundaries. For example, the war between Russian troops and rebels in Chechnya was partly about control over
possible pipeline routes between the Caspian and Black seas.
Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan Thomas R. Leinbach Graham P. Chapman
Citation Information
Article Title: Asia
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 18 October 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/place/Asia
Access Date: June 29, 2020

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The land boundary between Asia and Europe is a historical and

Asia’s coastline—some 39,000 miles (62,800 km) in length—is,

Asia’s population is unevenly distributed, mainly because of

in the articles on Asian countries, regions, and cities and in the

Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan Yury Konstantinovich Yefremov The

According to the theory of plate tectonics, forces within Earth

In the North China paraplatform, Chinese geologists have identified

Stratigraphy and structure

Aravalli Range, northern India.

The Paleozoic Era

Paleozoic events in the Altaids

Paleozoic events in the Tethysides

Orogenic deformation, magmatism, and metamorphism during the

Paleozoic events in the continental nuclei

The Mesozoic Era

Mesozoic events in the Tethysides

The northern fragment of the Cimmerian continent, including much of

Mesozoic events in the Altaids

Mesozoic events in the continental nuclei

Mesozoic events in the circum-Pacific orogenic belts

The Cenozoic Era

Cenozoic events in Stable Asia

Cenozoic events in the island arcs and the marginal basins

A.M. Celâl Şengör

Portion of the shoreline of Halmahera

The Alpine-Himalayan mountain belt runs in a west-east direction

On the northeastern and eastern edges of Asia, a vast belt of

The plains and lowlands

A stand of birch trees and conifers in the

Erosional dissection transformed many ancient plateaus into

The mantle of glaciation from the Pleistocene Epoch (i.e., about

An enormous area of permafrost—some 4.25 million square miles

The regions of Asia

Physiographic regions of Asia and New

The dominant feature of north-central Siberia is the Central Siberian

The mountains of southeastern China were formed from

Kamchatka is a mountainous peninsula formed from fragments of

Central Asia and South Siberia

The Plateau of Tibet represents a fractured alpine zone in which

Archipelagoes border the southeastern margin of Asia, consisting

The highlands of Anatolia—the Pontic Mountains that parallel the

The Iranian highlands comprise mountain arcs (the Elburz, the

Mesopotamia consists of the Tigris and Euphrates floodplains and

denudation under the continental conditions prevailing in the late

In the dry regions where drainage is landlocked, many large rivers

The lakes in the internal drainage basins—such as Koko Nor, Lake

Distribution of Asian soil groups as

The forest zone

The deciduous forest subzones of Asia form two distinct areas. In

The forest-steppe and steppe

Only in western Asia is the tropical desert zone clearly defined.

The Asian Mediterranean

The subtropical monsoonal regions

Korea, South: farmland

In the equatorial zone (southern Malaysia and the Greater Sunda

The vertical soil zones correlate with the landscape zones as

Effects of human activity on the soil

Air masses and wind patterns

The contrast between the strong heating of the continent in the

Himalayas that accompanies the gusty cyclonic low-pressure cells operating

The polar front

Monsoons and typhoons

Tropical cyclones—called typhoons in the Pacific Ocean—may