Asian Studies

LICEO DE MASBATE
College of Education
A.Y. 2022-2023
2nd Semester
ASIAN STUDIES
(MC SSE 102)
___________________________________________
Student’s Name
________________________________________
Course & Section
Prepared by:
NIKKO MARK JOSEPH F. ENDRINA, LPT, Dip. SSE

Faculty-in-charge
Asian Studies 2nd Semester
INTRODUCTION
The course Asian Studies (MC SSE 102) is a three-credit course, designed to
cater for undergraduates taking BSED Social Studies program. It is a course
subject that demands your full attention and commitment as an undergraduate
student.
As an undergraduate student of Education, the course is an introduction to

understanding Asian Studies. It examines the geography, history, people and
cultures of Asia, as well as the issues and challenges that Asians face today. You
are equally going to interact with some basic concepts which will provide you with
a proper grounding for mastering the subject matter of Asian Studies. This course
will focus also on change and continuity within various regions of Asia, and these
vast regions interrelationships with the rest of the world.
The course will avail you an opportunity to acquire the basic and relevant
knowledge and skills required for becoming a professional teacher of Social
Studies who can boast of adequate grasp of the content of the subject. This course
is expected to facilitate your understanding of Asia as well as the values of
learning the subject.
COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course, the students should be able to:
A. Demonstrate an understanding on the development perspectives in Asian
countries, cultures, and values as well as issues and challenges, historical

roots, and Asian responses; and
B. Demonstrate an understanding of Asia societies by preparing a
comparative study.
WORKING THROUGH THIS COURSE
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It is important for you to be determined to complete this course by reading through

from Unit 1 of the first module to the last unit of the third module and, carrying
out all the activities stipulated therein. At certain points during the course, you will
be expected to answer the self-assessment exercises as your scores in some of
them form a reasonable percentage of your total scores for the course.
Your faculty-in-charge for the course will be available to attend to you in case you
find it difficult to comprehend any aspect of the course material. You are therefore
advised to ensure that you read ahead and attend tutorial sessions where you would
be able to ask questions and interact with other colleagues of yours and the
facilitator.
At the end of the course is a final examination. The course should take you about a
total of 54 hours to complete.
COURSE REQUIREMENT
To pass this course, you must be able to:

1. Read all readings in the module and answer the pre-assessment and self-
assessment activities;
2. Take and pass the Midterm and Final Exams; and
3. Submit the Midterm and Final Outputs.
COURSE MARKING SCHEME
The work you submit will count for a respective weight of your total course mark.
You will be graded on Written Work, Performance Task, and Quarterly
Examination every quarter. The table below shows how the actual course marking
is broken down.
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SUMMATIVE COMPONENTS PERCENTAGE WEIGHT

Written Work 20%
Performance Task 30%
Major Examination 50%
Total 100%
FACULTY-IN-CHARGE
Nikko Mark Joseph F. Endrina, LPT, Dip. SSE

Facebook/Messenger: Nikko Mark Joseph
Email: nikkoendrina@gmail.com / nfendrina@up.edu.ph
STUDY SCHEDULE
Below is a table showing your study schedule in this course for the 1 st semester.
You are expected to follow this timeline and submit the required outputs on the
given dates.
TOPIC/LEARNING OUTPUTS/
TIMELINE
OUTCOMES REQUIREMENTS
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August 16, 2021 Start of Regular Classes
August 16, 2021-

Units 1-4
October 27, 2021
October 28-29, 2021 MIDTERM EXAMINATION -Examination Permit
-Deadline of Submission of -Midterm Output and

November 8, 2021
Midterm Outputs and Exam Exam
November 3, 2021-
Units 5-8
December 17, 2021
December 16-17, 2021 FINAL EXAMINATION -Examination Permit
December 20, 2021 Start of Christmas Break
-Deadline of Submission of Final

Outputs and Exam -Final Output and
January 03, 2022
-Start of Enrolment for Second Exam
Semester
January 17, 2022 Start of Second Semester
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MIDTERM
UNIT 1: THE CONTINENT OF ASIA

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INTRODUCTION
Asia, the world’s largest and most diverse continent. It occupies the eastern four-
fifths of the giant Eurasian landmass. Asia is more a 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 enormous diversity among the regions
it encompasses. Asia has both the highest and the lowest points on the surface
of Earth, has the longest coastline of any continent, is subject overall to the world’s
widest climatic extremes, and, consequently, produces the most varied forms of
vegetation 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.
MAIN CONTENT
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 Mediterranean Sea. When Western
explorers reached South and East Asia in early modern times, they extended that
label to the whole of the immense landmass.
The Map of Asia

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
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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 boundary follows the Kuma-
Manych Depression to the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait of the Black Sea.
Thus, the isthmus between 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 occasionally in this article, it
generally is not considered a part of Asia.) The farthest terminal points of the
Asian mainland are Cape 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
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active volcanism; thermal abrasion of permafrost (caused by a combination of the

action of breaking waves and thawing), as in northeastern Siberia; and coral
growth, as in the areas to the south 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 throughout Southeast Asia. The Korean and
Japanese peoples and, to a lesser extent, the Chinese have remained ethnically
more homogeneous than the populations of other Asian countries.
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 some three-fifths of the world’s people.
Asia is the birthplace of all the world’s major religions—

Buddhism, 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).
Geologic History
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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 from the formation and motion of that
plate) that are defined on the basis of active structures in Asia are not identical to
those defined on the basis of its fossil (i.e., now inactive) structures. It is therefore
convenient to discuss the tectonic framework of Asia in terms of 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 continental collision and may involve
the accretion of vast tectonic collages, including small continental fragments,
island arcs, large deposits of sediment, and occasional fragments of ocean-floor
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
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(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
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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 younger, the oldest identified orogenic
event being 2.5 billion years old. Its final consolidation took place some 800
million years ago. 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 sedimentary successions correlate. The
Tarim fragment was also stabilized some 800 million years ago.
While other Asian continental nuclei were completing their 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
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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.
Geologic and climatic influences
The contemporary relief of Asia was molded primarily under the influences of (1)
ancient processes of planation (leveling), (2) larger 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
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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 mountainous regions.

Majestic gorges were carved into the highlands of the western Pamirs and
southeastern Tibet; the Himalayas, the Kunlun and Sayan mountains, the Stanovoy
and 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 2,600,000 to

11,700 years ago) embraced northwestern Asia only to latitude 60° N. East of the
Khatanga River, which flows from Siberia 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 (11 million

square km)—covers northern Asia and extends to lower latitudes there than
anywhere else in the world. Little snowfall occurs, because of the aridity, and deep
freezing of the soil takes 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
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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.
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Physiographic regions of Asia and New Guinea.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
North Asia
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 Plateau, a

series of plateaus and stratified plains that were uplifted in the Cenozoic. They are
composed of terraced and dissected mesas 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.
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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 Precambrian and

Paleozoic remnants of the Yangtze paraplatform by folding and faulting that
occurred during the Mesozoic and 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 the Kamchatka-

Koryak and Kuril-Kamchatka arcs, which occur in parallel ranges. The
geologically young folds enclose rigid ancient structures. Cenozoic (including
contemporary) volcanism is pronounced, and the peninsula has numerous geysers
and hot springs. Vast plains exist that are composed of alluviums and volcanic
ashes.
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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, the Takla
Makan Desert, the Gobi, and the Ordos Desert. Relief features vary from surfaces
leveled by erosion in the Mesozoic and 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 Mesozoic and

Cenozoic structures that surround an older central mass have experienced more
recent uplifting. Some of the highlands are covered with sandy and rocky desert;
elsewhere in that region, alpine highlands are dissected by erosion or are covered
with 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
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uplifted margins, such as the Western and Eastern Ghats, and terraced and
dissected plateaus with lava mantles or intrusions.
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is composed of peninsular Southeast Asia and the islands and
peninsulas to the southeast of the Asian continent. The 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 mainly of island

arcs bordered by deep oceanic trenches. The Indian Ocean arcs—Sumatra, Java,
and the Lesser Sunda Islands—consist 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.
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West Asia
West Asia includes the highlands of Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the Armenian and

Iranian highlands.
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 Kopet-Dag, the

mountains of Khorāsān, the Safīd Range, and the western Hindu Kush in the north;
the Zagros, Makrān, Soleymān, 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 of the deltas

from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. The original lowland is covered with late
Cenozoic sedimentation; the elevated plain, on the other hand, has been dissected
by erosion and denudation under the continental conditions prevailing in the late
Cenozoic.
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SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
1. How will you describe the continent of Asia based on your own understanding?
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2. How will you explain Asia’s geologic history and its geologic and climatic
references?
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3. What is the reason behind the clustering of Asian countries into regions?
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REFERENCE
(Unknown author and date). Asia. Brittanica. Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/place/Asia/Religion
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UNIT 2: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY OF ASIA
Asia is the largest of the world’s continents, covering approximately 30 percent of

the Earth’s land area. It is also the world’s most populous continent, with roughly
60 percent of the total population.
The geographic term “Asia” was originally used by ancient Greeks to describe
the civilizations east of their empire. Ancient Asian peoples, however, saw
themselves as a varied and diverse mix of cultures—not a collective group. Today,
the term “Asia” is used as a cultural concept, while subregion classifications
describe the distinct geopolitical identities of the continent. These classifications
are Western Asia, Central Asia, Southern Asia, Eastern Asia, Southeastern Asia,
and Northern Asia.
Today, Asia is home to the citizens of Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain,

Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iran,
Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon,
Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, North Korea, Oman,
Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri
Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), Turkey,
Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen.
Asia’s physical geography, environment and resources, and human geography can

be considered separately.
Asia is home to the world’s earliest civilizations. Its indigenous cultures pioneered

many practices that have been integral to societies for centuries, such
as agriculture, city planning, and religion. The social and political geography of the
continent continues to inform and influence the rest of the world.
Cultural Geography
Historic Cultures
The Fertile Crescent is considered the birthplace of agriculture. Civilizations

developed along a series of watersheds, starting with the Nile River valley and
arching up the Mediterranean coast, eastward toward Iraq and southward along the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers until reaching the Persian Gulf.
Nomadic peoples settled along the lush river banks to harvest wild wheat and
barley, becoming the world’s first farmers. This represented a fundamental shift in
the lifestyle of early humans, who until that point had survived by following their
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food as hunter-gatherers. Through agriculture, people learned to sustain themselves

by manipulating the natural environment.

As more tribes settled and worked together, important agricultural innovations
were developed, such as the wheel, irrigation, and hand tools. Farmers used these
tools to tame wild grasses, such as wheat, barley, and lentils. Farmers also
domesticated animals such as cows, sheep, and pigs.
Agriculture made cities and civilizations possible by producing enough food for
the community so not everyone had to provide for themselves. People not engaged
in agriculture had time to develop writing, religion, taxation, and trade. For
instance, the cuneiform writing system has preserved the history of the metropolis
of Ur, part of the Sumerian civilization, which developed around 2100 BCE.

The Indus Valley was another hotspot of early civilization. From 2600 BCE to
1700 BCE, settlements developed on the flood plain of the Indus River, stretching
over a million square kilometers from northwestern India through Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
The cities of the Indus Valley civilization established early forms of urban
planning and construction. Buildings were well-organized and built out of durable
materials such as brick and stone. Cities contained docks along the river, granaries,
temples, residences, and warehouses. Cities were often surrounded by high walls,
which offered protection from both natural disasters, such as floods, and invading
armies.
Placing a high priority on hygiene, cities like Harappa and Mohenjo-daro (both in
modern-day Pakistan) developed drainage systems, wells, and water-storage
systems that were the most advanced of their times. For example, wastewater was
directed from a home’s bathhouse to covered drains that lined major streets.
Houses only opened to inner courtyards and smaller lanes. This privacy radically
reduced the spread of disease. These efficient and sanitary systems greatly
influenced future urban development.

The spread of religion is an important example of how cultural practices expand
into distant territories through a variety of direct and indirect actions. Buddhism,
for example, has its roots in Nepal and India in the late 6th century BCE. Well-
established maritime and land trade routes allowed Buddhist thought to spread to
other Asian territories. Missionaries joined Buddhist merchants on their ships
and caravans, carrying with them religious manuscripts and images.
Buddhist missionaries remained in market cities for extended periods of time,

facilitating the exchange of ideas and symbols. Today, Buddhism is the majority
religion throughout most of eastern Asia, from Japan in the north to Cambodia,
Thailand, Burma, and Laos in the south.
Art played an important role in the spread of Buddhism. Sculpture, paintings, and
icons depicting Buddhist concepts and deities were easily understood and adopted
by cultures outside Nepal and India. As Buddhist art was created in these specific
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cultural styles, the religion took on local significance in each region. Buddhism
flourishes in part because it allowed its practitioners to express their devotion
through creative means.
Asia’s rich cultural heritage has modernized, along with its developing economies.
The continent’s growing middle class and increased investment from abroad
support this modernization. Asian film, fashion, and music highlight the
relationship between historic cultures and contemporary markets.
India is the world’s largest producer of films, producing more than 2,500 movies
every year. Film production is so widespread in India that it is categorized
regionally. Areas such as Mumbai, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu
produce distinct films that reflect regional language and culture. Government and
private industry have invested heavily in India’s film industry, and today more than
30 film production companies exist in the country. The world’s largest film studio,
Ramoji Film City, is in the city of Hyderabad. It offers more than 500 set locations
and has the space to produce 60 films at the same time.
Indian cinema is a major export. The largest film industry is centered around
Mumbai, and nicknamed Bollywood. Bollywood films screen in more than 90
countries around the world, and earn millions of dollars, especially in the United
States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore. The growing number of
Indians working abroad has opened up new markets for Indian films. These so-
called non-resident Indians (NRIs) account for roughly 12 percent of a film’s
total revenue.
Central Asia’s tradition of textile-making is enjoying a period of revival in such

countries as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. After the fall of the Soviet Union, these
former Soviet republics used their cultural history to help define a new national
identity. Vibrant hand-dyed textiles were an important part of this cultural
tradition, especially in Uzbekistan. Suzani textiles played a central role in Uzbek
family ceremonies and denoted a family’s status.
Today, workers dye, weave, and embroider Uzbek suzani textiles by hand after a

long period of industrial production. Craftswomen are updating traditional designs
and using natural dyes, such as indigo, walnut, and pomegranate, to create eye-
catching pieces for the contemporary marketplace. Uzbek suzanis are sold
internationally. Fashion and home décor companies from around the world have
adopted suzani designs into their products. In order to support the growing
demand, craftsmen’s associations and nongovernmental organizations have been
created to promote Uzbek textiles.
South Korean pop music, nicknamed K-pop, integrates traditional Korean song
with contemporary pop, hip-hop, electronic, and R&B sounds. K-pop has
developed into a pop culture phenomenon in Asia and abroad. Musical producers
invest heavily in girl groups, boy bands, and soloists. Performers are followed by
millions of fans, mostly Asian young adults, who have adopted their style and
fashion trends.
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K-pop producers and artists have invested heavily in broadening their appeal
abroad. Korean artists tour with international headliners and work with producers
such as American rappers Kanye West and will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas. They
also use Internet platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, to reach a
larger audience. As a result, K-pop has a strong following in the United States,
Canada, Australia, and Europe.
Political Geography
Political geography is the internal and external relationships between a continent’s

various governments, citizens, and territories. Asian governments and citizens have
created and responded to political and social change in ways that have profoundly
affected these relationships at both the local and international level. As the
continent continues to increase its political and economic prominence, its policy
decisions will hold greater weight for the global community.
Historic Issues
One of the oldest and most intensely debated political disputes continues to be
negotiated in the Levant, an area in the eastern Mediterranean. The Levant, part of
the Middle East, has been continuously occupied for thousands of years by the
historic cultures of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel.
The Levant is sometimes called “The Holy Land.” This small region is spiritually
important to followers of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths. These are the three
most populous and influential monotheistic religions in the world. All three faiths
trace their origins to the Jewish patriarch Abraham. For this reason, Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam are known as the “Abrahamic religions.”
The religious conflict between Abrahamic religions in the Levant has endured for
thousands of years. Christian leaders persecuted Jews in the region during the late
Roman Empire. During the Middle Ages, European Christians sent soldiers on
crusades to conquer and convert the Levant’s Muslim majority.

The most recent conflict in the Levant is between Israel and neighboring nations.
Israel, the only Jewish-majority nation in the world, was established in 1948. Prior
to 1948, the area was a British colony called Palestine. Many non-Jewish natives
identify as Palestinians. Neighboring states—including Jordan, Syria, Lebanon,
and Egypt—accepted Palestinian immigrants and rejected the new Israeli
government.

Major wars plague the region, including the Arab-Israeli War (1948), the Suez
Crisis (1956), the Six Day War (1967), and the Yom Kippur War (1973). Smaller
conflicts, including incidents of terrorism, are associated with Palestinian
uprisings, or intifadas. The First Intifada, which included nonviolent protests as
well as armed assaults, took place in the late 1980s. The Second Intifada took place
between 2000 and 2005.
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The conflict in the Levant has resulted in Israel creating two “Palestinian
Territories” (the West Bank and Gaza) within its boundaries. Treaties, such as the
Camp David Accords (which established a lasting peace treaty between Egypt and
Israel) have attempted to negotiate a lasting peace in the Levant.

The colonization of Southeast Asia is another example of how historic political
geography can influence an entire region. Colonialism is foreign political rule
imposed on a people. Chinese, Japanese, and European colonization of Southeast
Asia lasted for more than 1,000 years. China, for instance, was the ruling power in
Vietnam from about 110 BCE to 900 CE.

Colonial powers from Europe, the United States, and Japan imposed their rule on
Southeast Asian peoples from the 1500s to the mid-1940s. While these powers had
distinct motives, they were generally looking to expand their territory, increase
trade, import cheap raw materials, and impose their cultural practices.
The Dutch and British established extremely powerful companies that oversaw
trade and labor in their respective colonies. The Dutch East India Company, based
in Indonesia, had the power to print its own money and engage in war. They
enforced harsh labor practices on local peoples, who worked to
collect lucrative spices and extract precious metals. These resources were then sold
in Europe.
Spanish and Portuguese colonists spread the Roman Catholic faith by converting
indigenous peoples, especially in the Philippines. The French used their military to
maintain control of their colonies, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of people.
.
The countries of Southeast Asia are now independent. However, their economies,
politics, and culture still maintain aspects of the colonial period. For instance, the
Vietnamese language is written with the Roman alphabet, not
the glyphs, ideograms, or indigenous alphabets of neighboring Asian nations. This
is because the written Vietnamese language was established by the French, who
use a Roman alphabet.
As with the colonial period, Asia was deeply affected by World War II and its
aftermath. Japan was the most devastated Asian country in terms of loss of life and
physical destruction. However, it also experienced a record period of economic
growth after the war. Investment from the United States and innovative economic
restructuring by the Japanese government stimulated this growth.

Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry coordinated partnerships,
known as keiretsu, between manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and banks in
order to streamline industry. The ministry also created a strong export economy,
focusing on technology industries that still define Japan’s global image. Capital
was invested in Japan’s infrastructure, especially in efficient transportation
systems, communications, and technology. Japan’s intense public and private
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investment increased its gross domestic product (GDP) from $91 billion in 1965 to

more than $1 trillion in 1980.

Current Issues
India’s and China’s economic growth has been profound in the last 20 years. Both
countries have removed government controls, increased foreign trade, and built
strong export-based economies. This economic growth has had both positive and
negative effects.

China has the world’s fastest-growing economy, increasing nearly 10 percent every
year for the past 30 years. This is largely because China is the world’s
largest manufacturer and exporter of goods. As a result of this growth, wages have
increased rapidly, giving Chinese workers a better standard of living. More
Chinese people have access to excellent health care, electricity, and education.
China has a strong presence in international politics and influences important
debates, such as those surrounding terrorism and climate change. China has used
its newfound wealth to invest around the world. China has invested billions of
dollars in Nigeria, for instance, to extract oil. Predicted to be the world’s largest
economy in the coming decades, China’s economic decisions will greatly affect
how and where future development occurs around the globe.
But China’s rapid growth has caused a number of social, environmental, and
economic problems. Rapid industrial growth in the cities has impoverished rural
workers, who must migrate to congested urban areas to find jobs. Industrial
activity has put stress on the country’s energy and transportation systems and
degraded air, water, and soil quality. Industrial growth also has major implications
for global climate change, as China is the world’s largest producer of carbon
dioxide emissions.
India’s growth has been drastically different from China’s. India is a democracy,
while China is a totalitarian state. This means that social and political reforms are
debated more openly in India, and change is often more difficult because power
resides in coalitions instead of one political party.
Unlike China, India’s growth is largely a result of its rapidly growing service

industry—not its manufacturing sector. In particular, India has become a major
exporter of information technology services. Its telecommunications industry,
which focuses on phone and Internet services, added more than 200 million
subscribers in 2010. The country also hosts seven of the world’s top
technology outsourcing companies, which rely heavily on India’s highly educated,
English-speaking population.
India’s growth has caused hourly wages to double during the past decade, bringing
more than 430 million Indians out of poverty and creating an immense middle-
class population. Much like China, India’s urban infrastructure and global
influence have also improved.
Despite this economic growth, India remains socioeconomically divided. India still
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has the world’s largest concentration of people living in extreme poverty—below

$1.25 per day. The difference in revenue between India’s more industrialized states
and its poorer agricultural states has widened substantially. Much like China,
India’s urban infrastructure, education, and health systems are having difficulty
adjusting to the large number of poor, rural migrants moving into cities.
In Asia’s Arab region, conservative governments are under pressure from their
citizens and the international community to enable political, economic, and social
reform. While authoritarian rulers control the majority of these countries, their
citizens broadly support democracy. In the so-called “Arab Spring” of 2011, social
and political groups across the region staged armed protests calling for democratic
reform. Governments have responded to these protests with both military force and
political compromise. Syria and Jordan exemplify this political change in Arab
Asia.

Protesters in Syria called for the legalization of political parties, the removal
of corrupt officials, and the repeal of Emergency Law, which allows arrests
without charge. In response to the protests, the Syrian government launched
military campaigns to repress protesters. These campaigns have killed thousands of
people. Hundreds of Syrians have been jailed. The international community has
responded by placing economic and political sanctions on the Syrian government.
Jordanians have staged weekly protests against corruption, rising prices, poverty,
and unemployment. King Abdullah has responded to these protests by replacing
his prime minister and forming the National Dialogue Committee. Made up of both
government officials and opposition leaders, the committee is in charge of drafting
reforms, including new laws for elections and political parties.
The implications of this complicated and often violent process of political reform
are still too early to determine in Syria, Jordan, and other Asian states that have
joined a common democratic cause. What is certain is that these changes will
increase public participation in the political process.
Future Issues
Asia’s growing political and economic prominence will continue to place stress on
both local and global processes. Great focus has been placed on how Asia’s
increased development has negatively affected the environment. National
governments and international organizations are working to protect local natural
resources and the broader global climate.
The extreme loss of forest cover in Southeast Asia due to overharvesting of timber
threatens the region’s economy and biodiversity, as well as the world’s carbon
budget. Between 1990 and 2010, Southeast Asia’s forests contracted in size by
roughly 33 million hectares (81.5 million acres), an area larger than Vietnam. By
2020, these forests are expected to shrink by an additional 16 million hectares
(39.5 million acres).
This loss would mean an additional 8.72 gigatons of carbon dioxide would enter
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the world’s atmosphere. It would destroy forests with important ecological value,
such as Indonesia’s lowland tropical forests. Furthermore, the loss would
dramatically decrease the productivity of the region’s wood industries, a main
economic generator for many Southeast Asian countries.
International organizations and regional and national governmental bodies are

enforcing sustainable forestry practices in order to combat forest degradation. The
Cambodian government, for example, has encouraged the planting of fast-growing
trees, modernized wood-processing equipment, and banned the export of many
types of logs. Myanmar (Burma) has developed a network of more than 600
community forest management agreements that bring local people and the
government together. Organizations such as the Forest Stewardship Council and
the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme enable forest industries to pursue
sustainable development. Roughly 3.5 percent of Southeast Asia’s total forest area
was sustainably certified in 2010.
Maldives, a country of hundreds of islands and atolls in the Indian Ocean,

symbolizes the current and future effects of global climate change. Rising to only
2.3 meters (7.7 feet) above sea level at its highest point, Maldives has already felt
the effects of rising sea levels. A 2004 tsunami flooded the entire country, killing
82 people, displacing 12,000, and inflicting $375 million in damage.

The effects of global warming on Maldives will be more widespread during the
coming decades. Along with rising sea levels, the country will be susceptible to
coastal erosion, higher storm surges, and loss of biodiversity. This will drastically
affect the country’s tourism-based economy. A loss of beachfront property coupled
with warmer winters in the Northern Hemisphere would keep residents of Europe
and North America from visiting the islands.
The Maldivian government has taken decisive steps to curtail the effects of climate
change, commanding the attention of the international community. Former
President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom supported the construction of the artificial
island of Hulhumalé, which now houses a hospital, school, government buildings,
and residences for 50,000 people. Hulhumalé sits on ground several meters higher
than the rest of the country.
In 2009, Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed held the world’s first

underwater cabinet meeting in order to highlight the effects of climate change. At a
table 6 meters (20 feet) below the water’s surface, Maldivian leaders signed a
document calling on all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions. President
Nasheed also agreed to make Maldives the world’s first carbon-neutral country by
switching entirely to wind and solar energy within a decade. These acts have
demonstrated that those who affect and are affected by climate change need to take
decisive steps to create lasting environmental improvements.
1. How will you describe Asia’s cultural geography? Explain your answer.
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2. How will you describe also Asia’s political geography? Justify your answer.
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3. What are the current issues that Asia faces today? Cite at least three and give
examples on how to address these challenges.
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REFERENCE
(Unknown author and date). Asia: Physical Geography. National Geographic.

Resource Library. Retrieved from
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/asia/#:~:text=Asia%20can
%20be%20divided%20into,freshwater%20environments%3B%20and
%20saltwater%20environments.&text=The%20Himalaya%20mountains
%20extend%20for,from%20the%20rest%20of%20Asia.
UNIT 3: THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHYOF ASIA

Asia is the largest of the world’s continents, covering approximately 30 percent of
the Earth’s land area. It is also the world’s most populous continent, with roughly
60 percent of the total population.
Asia makes up the eastern portion of the Eurasian supercontinent; Europe occupies

the western portion. The border between the two continents is debated. However,
most geographers define Asia’s western border as an indirect line that follows the
Ural Mountains, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Caspian and Black Seas. Asia is
bordered by the Arctic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
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Asia’s physical geography, environment and resources, and human geography can

be considered separately.
Asia can be divided into five major physical regions: mountain systems; plateaus;
plains, steppes, and deserts; freshwater environments; and saltwater environments.
Mountain Systems
The Himalaya mountains extend for about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles),

separating the Indian subcontinent from the rest of Asia. The Indian subcontinent,
once connected to Africa, collided with the Eurasian continent about 50 million to
55 million years ago, forming the Himalayas. The Indian subcontinent is still
crashing northward into Asia, and the Himalayas are growing about 5 centimeters
(2 inches) every year.
The Himalayas cover more than 612,000 square kilometers (236,000 square miles),
passing through the northern states of India and making up most of the terrain of
Nepal and Bhutan. The Himalayas are so vast that they are composed of three
different mountain belts. The northernmost belt, known as the Great Himalayas,
has the highest average elevation at 6,096 meters (20,000 feet). The belt contains
nine of the highest peaks in the world, which all reach more than 7,925 meters
(26,000 feet) tall. This belt includes the highest mountain summit in the world,
Mount Everest, which stands at 8,850 meters (29,035 feet).
The Tien Shan mountain system stretches for about 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles),
straddling the border between Kyrgyzstan and China. The name Tien Shan means
“Celestial Mountains” in Chinese. The two highest peaks in the Tien Shan are
Victory Peak, which stands at 7,439 meters (24,406 feet), and Khan Tängiri Peak,
which stands at 6,995 meters (22,949 feet). Tien Shan also has more than 10,100
square kilometers (3,900 square miles) of glaciers. The largest glacier is Engil'chek
Glacier, which is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) long.
The Ural Mountains run for approximately 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) in an
indirect north-south line from Russia to Kazakhstan. The Ural Mountains are some
of the world’s oldest, at 250 million to 300 million years old. Millions of years
of erosion have lowered the mountains significantly, and today their average
elevation is between 914 and 1,220 meters (3,000 to 4,000 feet). The highest peak
is Mount Narodnaya at 1,895 meters (6,217 feet).
Plateaus
Asia is home to many plateaus, areas of relatively level high ground. The Iranian
plateau covers more than 3.6 million square kilometers (1.4 million square miles),
encompassing most of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The plateau is not
uniformly flat, but contains some high mountains and low river basins. The highest
mountain peak is Damavand, at 5,610 meters (18,410 feet). The plateau also has
two large deserts, the Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut.
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The Deccan Plateau makes up most of the southern part of India. The plateau’s
average elevation is about 600 meters (2,000 feet). It is bordered by three mountain
ranges: the Satpura Range in the north, and the Eastern and Western Ghats on
either side. The plateau and its main waterways—the Godavari and Krishna rivers
—gently slope toward the Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Bengal.
The Tibetan Plateau is usually considered the largest and highest area ever to exist
in the history of Earth. Known as the “Rooftop of the World,” the plateau covers
an area about half the size of the contiguous United States and averages more than
5,000 meters (16,400 feet) above sea level. The Tibetan Plateau is extremely
important to the world’s water cycle because of its tremendous number of glaciers.
These glaciers contain the largest volume of ice outside the poles. The ice and
snow from these glaciers feed Asia’s largest rivers. Approximately 2 billion people
depend on the rivers fed by the plateau’s glaciers.
Plains, Steppes, and Deserts
The West Siberian Plain, located in central Russia, is considered one of the world’s
largest areas of continuous flatland. It extends from north to south about 2,400
kilometers (1,500 miles) and from west to east about 1,900 kilometers (1,200
miles). With more than 50 percent of its area at less than 100 meters (330 feet)
above sea level, the plain contains some of the world’s largest swamps and flood
plains.
Central Asia is dominated by a steppe landscape, a large area of flat, unforested

grassland. Mongolia can be divided into different steppe zones: the mountain forest
steppe, the arid steppe, and the desert steppe. These zones transition from the
country’s mountainous region in the north to the Gobi Desert on the southern
border with China.
The Rub’ al Khali desert, considered the world’s largest sand sea, covers an area
larger than France across Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and
Yemen. It holds roughly half as much sand as Africa’s Sahara desert, even though
it is 15 times smaller in size. The desert is known as the Empty Quarter because it
is virtually inhospitable to humans except for Bedouin tribes that live on its edges.
Freshwater
Lake Baikal, located in southern Russia, is the deepest lake in the world, reaching a
depth of 1,620 meters (5,315 feet). The lake contains 20 percent of the world’s
unfrozen freshwater, making it the largest reservoir on Earth. It is also the world’s
oldest lake, at 25 million years old.
The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world (behind
the Amazon of South America and the Nile of Africa). Reaching 6,300 kilometers
(3,915 miles) in length, the Yangtze moves east from the glaciers of the Tibetan
Plateau to the river’s mouth on the East China Sea. The Yangtze is considered the
lifeblood of China. It drains one-fifth of the country’s land area, is home to one-
third of its population, and contributes greatly to China’s economy.
Page | 27
The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers begin in the highlands of eastern Turkey and flow
through Syria and Iraq, joining in the city of Qurna, Iraq, before emptying into the
Persian Gulf. The land between the two rivers, known as Mesopotamia, was the
center of the earliest civilizations, including Sumer and the Akkadian Empire.
Today, the Tigris-Euphrates river system is under threat from increased
agricultural and industrial use. These pressures have caused desertification and
increased salts in the soil, severely damaging local watershed habitats.
Saltwater
The Persian Gulf has an area of more than 234,000 square kilometers (90,000
square miles). It borders Iran, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Bahrain, Kuwait, and Iraq. The gulf is subject to high rates of evaporation, making
it shallow and extremely salty. The seabed beneath the Persian Gulf contains an
estimated 50 percent of the world’s oil reserves. The countries that border the gulf
have engaged in a number of disputes over this rich resource.
The Sea of Okhotsk covers 1.5 million square kilometers (611,000 square miles)
between the Russian mainland and the Kamchatka Peninsula. The sea is largely
frozen between October and March. Large ice floes make winter navigation almost
impossible.
The Bay of Bengal is the largest bay in the world, covering almost 2.2 million
square kilometers (839,000 square miles) and bordering Bangladesh, India, Sri
Lanka, and Burma. Many large rivers, including the Ganges and Brahmaputra,
empty into the bay. The briny wetlands formed by the Ganges-Brahmaputra on the
Bay of Bengal is the largest delta in the world.
Terrestrial Flora and Fauna
Botanists nickname China the “Mother of Gardens.” It has more flowering plant
species than North and South America combined. Because China has such diverse
landscapes, from the arid Gobi Desert to the tropical rain forests of Yunnan
Province, many flowers can adapt to climates all over the world. From roses to
peonies, many familiar flowers most likely originated in northern China. China is
the likely origin of such fruit trees as peaches and oranges. China is also home to
the dawn redwood, the only redwood tree found outside North America.
Asia’s diverse physical and cultural landscape has dictated the way animals have
been domesticated. In the Himalayas, communities use yaks as beasts of burden.
Yaks are large animals related to cattle, but with a thick fiber coat and the ability to
survive in the oxygen-poor high altitude of the mountains. Yaks are not only used
for transportation and for pulling plows, but their coats are sources of warm, hardy
fiber. Yak milk is used for butter and cheese.
In the Mongolian steppe, the two-humped Bactrian camel is the traditional beast of

burden. Bactrian camels are critically endangered in the wild. The camel’s humps
store nutrient-rich fat, which the animal can use in times of drought, heat, or frost.
Its size and ability to adapt to hardship make it an ideal pack animal. Bactrians can
Page | 28
actually outrun horses over long distances. These camels were the traditional
animals used in caravans on the Silk Road, the legendary trade route linking
eastern Asia with India and the Middle East.
Aquatic Flora and Fauna
The freshwater and marine habitats of Asia offer incredible biodiversity.
Lake Baikal’s age and isolation make it a unique biological site. Aquatic life has
been able to evolve for millions of years relatively undisturbed, producing a rich
variety of flora and fauna. The lake is known as the “Galápagos of Russia” because
of its importance to the study of evolutionary science. It has 1,340 species of
animals and 570 species of plants.
Hundreds of Lake Baikal’s species are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere
else on Earth. The Baikal seal, for instance, is one of the few freshwater seal
species in the world. The Baikal seal feeds primarily on the Baikal oil fish and
the omul. Both fishes are similar to salmon, and provide fisheries for the
communities on the lake.
The Bay of Bengal, on the Indian Ocean, is one of the world’s largest tropical
marine ecosystems. The bay is home to dozens of marine mammals, including the
bottlenose dolphin, spinner dolphin, spotted dolphin, and Bryde’s whale. The bay
also supports healthy tuna, jack, and marlin fisheries.
Some of the bay’s most diverse array of organisms exist along its coasts and
wetlands. Many wildlife reserves in and around the bay aim to protect its
biological diversity.
The Sundarbans is a wetland area that forms at the delta of the Ganges and
Brahamaputra rivers. The Sundarbans is a huge mangrove forest. Mangroves are
hardy trees that are able to withstand the powerful, salty tides of the Bay of Bengal
as well as the freshwater flows from the Ganges and Brahamaputra. In addition to
mangroves, the Sundarbans is forested by palm trees and swamp grasses.
The swampy jungle of the Sundarbans supports a rich animal community.

Hundreds of species of fish, shrimp, crabs, and snails live in the exposed root
system of the mangrove trees. The Sundarbans supports more than 200 species of
aquatic and wading birds. These small animals are part of a food web that includes
wild boar, macaque monkeys, monitor lizards, and a healthy population of Bengal
tigers.
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1. How will you describe the physical geography of Asia? Explain your answer.
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2. What are Asia’s five major physical regions? Explain each region.
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3. How is Asia different from the other continents of the world? Justify your
answer.
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REFERENCE
(Unknown author and date). Asia: Physical Geography. National Geographic.
Resource Library. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/asia-
human/
UNIT 4: THE PEOPLE OF ASIA
People
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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 cannot entirely

exclude other parts of the Old World. The relatively recent,
Western conceptual division of the Eurasian landmass into “Europe” and “Asia”
has only minor significance in relation to the 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
Page | 31
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
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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 structures out

of Arabia westward into Africa and Spain, northward through
the Levant into Anatolia, and eastward into Central Asia, Persia, India, and
the Malay Archipelago. Beginning in the 7th century CE and lasting until the 16th
century, those efforts brought a 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
Page | 33
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,
ethnolinguistic recognition occurs only at the state level. The boundaries of many
Indian states now roughly follow linguistic limits. Many minorities have not been
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.
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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 numerous other
languages, including those in the Austroasiatic, Tai, 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 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, the larger
regional languages are not losing ground, despite 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 languages, have
adopted national languages to facilitate communication. 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,
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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 flux continue
to complicate language patterns in many parts of Asia. 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.
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 practices in the 6th

and 5th centuries BCE, respectively. Although Jainism never spread significantly
beyond two present-day states of northwestern India, its principles of nonviolence
and asceticism have deeply influenced Indian thought.
Buddhism arose in northeastern India as a “universal” alternative to hierarchical

religion, offering nirvana, or enlightenment, to individuals regardless of culture or
social station. In the centuries following its foundation, Buddhism gave rise to two
main divergent schools: Theravada, which claimed orthodox adherence to the
teachings of the religion’s founder, the Buddha, and Mahayana, which held its
teachings to be the fullest account of the Buddha’s message. The monastically
oriented Theravada predominates today in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia,
while the more liberal 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
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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.
Southwest Asia
Southwest Asia (the Middle East) is the cradle of three great monotheistic

systems: Judaism and its offshoots Christianity and 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 ago, came to
have the largest number of believers among the world’s religions. After it was
adopted by the Roman and Byzantine 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.
Islam dominates as the state religion of most Southwest Asian countries, and a

substantial majority of Muslims live in Asia. From the Arabian Peninsula, where it
was founded in the 7th century, Islam spread throughout the Middle East,
into Central Asia and 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.
East Asia
Ancient Chinese religious and philosophical traditions survive in the form of two
main schools, Daoism (Taoism) and Confucianism, 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
Page | 37
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 the Japanese

people. Although among some practitioners that tradition has absorbed the
influences of other belief systems, such as Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism,
its fundamental principles linking sacred power, ritual observance, and imperial
nationhood remain unique to Japanese culture.
Other religions
In addition to the major religions discussed above, numerous 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.
1. How will you describe the people of Asia?

__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
2. How will you describe the languages of Asia?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
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Page | 38
3. Why is Asia considered to be the birthplace of the major religions of the world?
Explain your answer.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/place/Asia/Religion
Page | 39
FINALS
UNIT 5: THE SETTLEMENT PATTERNS OF ASIA
Ecological factors
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 productivity and

population density vary markedly with the regional pattern of precipitation or the
availability of water from humid highlands nearby. In the Central Asian republics
the older pastoral nomadism has been transformed into
Page | 40
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 programs have
moved peoples from heavily populated regions into 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.
Urban settlement
Page | 41
More than two-fifths of all Asians live in and around cities and 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.
Demographic trends
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.
Page | 42
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,
Page | 43
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
Page | 44
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.
1. What is the importance of agriculture to the people of Asia? Explain your

answer.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Page | 45
2. What are the differences and similarities between urban settlement and rural
settlement? Provide examples to support your answer.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
3. Explain the variation in population growth rates in Asia.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
4. Explain the demographic trends of Asia.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/place/Asia
UNIT 6: THE ECONOMY OF ASIA
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
Page | 46
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.
Page | 47
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
Page | 48
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.
1. What is the significance of a flourishing economy to the lives of Asian people?

Provide examples to support your claim.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
2. What was the role of industrialization in development of Asian countries?

Justify your answer.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
3. How did the Asian economic interdependence grew significantly during the late
20th century? Explain your answer.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
REFERENCE

Page | 49
UNIT 7: THE NATURAL RESOURCES OF ASIA

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
Page | 50
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
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politically unstable Caucasus region to the Black Sea, or to the Mediterranean ports

of Turkey.
Uranium
Reserves of uranium ore are found in Asia’s ancient crystalline rocks. The richest
ore fields are found in Kyrgyzstan, between Osh 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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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.
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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 cultivated with several
grains, of which wheat is the most important. Wheat is also the dominant crop in
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Central Asia (notably Kazakhstan), the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Grain crops, chiefly wheat, are cultivated in North China—where soybeans are
also grown—and in Japan. Barley is grown in China and India, among other
countries. Corn (maize) is raised in China, 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
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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.
1. What is the importance of the natural resources in the development of a

country? Explain your answer.
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2. How can we make our natural resources sustainable? Give at least three (3)
examples.
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3. What is the most abundant natural resource in your place? How did it help in the
development of your locality?
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__________________________________________________________________
4. What is agricultural technology based on your own understanding? What are its
effects to the growth and development of a country? Support your claim by giving
examples.
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REFERENCE

UNIT 8: THE TRADING SYSTEM AND TRANSPORTATION OF ASIA
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 BCE), 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 CE 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
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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.
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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,
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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 replacing draft
animals for internal traffic, as roads and highways have been extended in most
countries. Motorbikes and motorcycles have also become common in many areas
for hauling goods short 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)
Page | 64
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.
1. Explain the historical background of Asia’s trading system.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
2. What is the importance of trade among nations? Explain your answer.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
3. How will you define transportation based on your own words? How important is
it to the nation’s development?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
4. What is agricultural technology based on your own understanding? What are its
effects to the growth and development of a country?
Page | 65
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
REFERENCE

Page | 66

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LICEO DE MASBATE

NIKKO MARK JOSEPH F. ENDRINA, LPT, Dip. SSE

As an undergraduate student of Education, the course is an introduction to

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

countries, cultures, and values as well as issues and challenges, historical

WORKING THROUGH THIS COURSE

It is important for you to be determined to complete this course by reading through

To pass this course, you must be able to:

COURSE MARKING SCHEME

SUMMATIVE COMPONENTS PERCENTAGE WEIGHT

Nikko Mark Joseph F. Endrina, LPT, Dip. SSE

August 16, 2021 Start of Regular Classes

August 16, 2021-

October 28-29, 2021 MIDTERM EXAMINATION -Examination Permit

-Deadline of Submission of -Midterm Output and

December 16-17, 2021 FINAL EXAMINATION -Examination Permit

December 20, 2021 Start of Christmas Break

-Deadline of Submission of Final

January 17, 2022 Start of Second Semester

UNIT 1: THE CONTINENT OF ASIA

The Map of Asia

between them. Two narrow straits, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, separate

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

active volcanism; thermal abrasion of permafrost (caused by a combination of the

Asia’s population is unevenly distributed, mainly because of climatic factors.

Asia is the birthplace of all the world’s major religions—

The morphology of Asia masks an extremely complex geologic history that

Continuing convergence following collision may further disrupt an already

The Precambrian continental nuclei were formed by essentially the same plate

The paleotectonic evolution of Asia terminated some 40 to 50 million years ago as

In the North China paraplatform, Chinese geologists have identified a period of

Geologic and climatic influences

eastern margin of the highlands, meanwhile, underwent subsidences of up to 2,300

Erosional dissection transformed many ancient plateaus into mountainous regions.

The mantle of glaciation from the Pleistocene Epoch (i.e., about 2,600,000 to

An enormous area of permafrost—some 4.25 million square miles (11 million

Philippines, and the Sunda Islands. The highest active volcano in

Geologically recent volcanism is also characteristic of the West Asian highlands,

The Regions of Asia

It is common practice in geographic literature to divide Asia into large regions,

Physiographic regions of Asia and New Guinea.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Northeastern Siberia comprises faulted and folded mountains of moderate height,

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

The West Siberian Plain is stratified and is composed of Cenozoic sediments

The mountains of southeastern China were formed from Precambrian and

Kamchatka is a mountainous peninsula formed from fragments of the Kamchatka-

Central Asia and South Siberia

Central Asia consists of mountains, plateaus, and tablelands formed from

The Alpine mountains—the Altai, Sayan, and Stanovoy mountains—are

Alpine Asia—sometimes known as High Asia—includes the Pamirs and the

The Plateau of Tibet represents a fractured alpine zone in which Mesozoic and

Archipelagoes border the southeastern margin of Asia, consisting mainly of island

Borneo and the Malay Peninsula are formed from fractured continental land

The Pacific Ocean island arcs, including Celebes (Sulawesi),

West Asia includes the highlands of Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the Armenian and

The highlands of Anatolia—the Pontic Mountains that parallel the Black Sea, and

The Iranian highlands comprise mountain arcs (the Elburz, the Kopet-Dag, the

Southwest Asia, like much of southern Asia, is made up of an ancient platform—

Mesopotamia consists of the Tigris and Euphrates floodplains and of the deltas

(Unknown author and date). Asia. Brittanica. Retrieved from

UNIT 2: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY OF ASIA

Asia is the largest of the world’s continents, covering approximately 30 percent of