Continents: Asia

Asia makes up about one third of the world's land area and is home to over half of the world's population. There are big differences across the continent in both the climate and the way people live. There is enormous diversity! When you look at a map, there is no obvious boundary between Europe and Asia. Both occupy the same large landmass: Eurasia.

Their division into two continents is based more on history and culture than on the landscape, environment, or other physical geography. Most geographers consider the border to run from the Arctic Ocean along the Ural Mountains, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Caspian and Black Seas. In the southeast, the border between Asia and Oceania usually follows the political border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Despite this, the number of countries considered to be in Asia can vary. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are sometimes considered European countries, sometimes Asian.

Turkey and Russia are located in both Europe and Asia. Additionally, several countries have disputed borders. So there are between 46 and 50 countries in Asia. To study this large continent, Geographers often divide Asia into regions: West Asia includes the countries on the Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula, and Iran. Central Asia is usually considered to be Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and the countries in between.

The countries of Central Asia all have names ending with "-stan,” meaning "land of" in Persian. South Asia consists of India, its neighbours, and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. East Asia is dominated by the Chinese region, Japan, and Korea. Southeast Asia consists of the countries located south of China and southeast of India. North Asia consists only of Siberia, which was colonised by Russia in the 1600s.

The Siberian city of Yakutsk has an average annual temperature of minus 8.8 degrees Celsius, making it the world’s coldest city. But, if you travel around Asia, you won’t only experience cold temperatures! Back in West Asia on the Arabian Peninsula, Aden in Yemen is considered to be the continent’s hottest city. It has an average annual temperature of 29 degrees celsius. This part of Asia is usually hot and very dry.

It has some of the world’s largest deserts. Over in south and southeast Asia, the opposite is true. During the summer rainy season there, large amounts of rain are brought by seasonal wind systems called monsoons. Mawsynram, India, is the world’s rainiest city; it rains an average of 12 metres each year. This is the perfect environment for tropical rainforests!

But across the northern border stretches the Himalayas, the world’s tallest mountain range. The Himalayas experience very heavy snowfall in the winter. The vast and varied climate and geography of Asia means that the animal and plant life is diverse. China has the most varied plant life of any country in the world, with about 30,000 species. But in the northmost part of Siberia, only low-lying vegetation that can withstand the cold tundra survives.

North Asia’s harsh climate means that it is one of the areas of Asia that is almost totally uninhabited. But go a bit further south and you reach the world's two most populous countries, China and India. Each has more than one billion people. Asia is also home to eight of the world's ten largest megacities, each with populations of more than 20 million. It’s likely the majority of the world’s population will continue to live there through 2050 and beyond.