Asia guide

traveler — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 08:29:36 +0000

Asia is the largest of all the continents and includes within its limits an area of 44,444,100 sq km (17,159,995 sq mi), or about 33% of the world’s total land surface and the greater part of the Eurasian landmass. The border between Europe is traditionally drawn as an imaginary zigzag line passing down the spine of the Ural Mountains and through the Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and Black Sea. The boundary dividing Asia and Africa is generally placed along the Suez Canal, and the boundary between Asia and Australasia is usually placed between the island of New Guinea and Australia. Asia is by far the most populous of all the continents, with an estimated population in 1992 of 3,275,200,000, or more than 60% of the world’s total population. The population is, however, diverse and divided by language, race, religion, politics, economics, and cultural origins into a complex cultural mosaic. The nations of Asia are usually grouped into five main geographical and political-cultural subdivisions: 1. Southwest Asia, which includes Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, plus Asian Turkey and Egypt east of the Suez Canal (Sinai Peninsula). 2. South Asia, which includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). 3. East Asia, which includes most of the People’s Republic of China, Japan, North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), South Korea (Republic of Korea), and Taiwan (Republic of China). 4. Southeast Asia, which includes Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Indonesia, Kampuchea (Cambodia), Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. 5. Central and North Asia, which includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, plus Asian Russia (Siberia) and three of the five autonomous regions of China (Inner Mongolia, Sinkiang-Uighur, Tibet) The topography of Asia comprises a series of high mountain belts, which are the dominant landforms, and a related complex of plateaus, basins, island arcs, and alluvial lowlands. The highest point is Mount Everest, which towers to 8,848 m (29,028 ft) in Nepal; the lowest point is 395 m (1,296 ft) below sea level along the shores of the Dead Sea in Israel and Jordan. The Ural Mountains on the western edge of Asia trend in a north-south direction, but most other belts extend across the continent in a general west-east direction and converge in a knot of high mountains in the Pamirs, located where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, China, and Afghanistan come together. West of the Pamirs, two main mountain belts are discernible. The southern one crosses the island of Cyprus, enters the mainland to form the Taurus Mountains along the southern edge of Turkey, swings along the southern edge of the Iranian Plateau to form the Zagros Mountains, and on into Pakistan before turning north to become the Hindu Kush and join the Pamirs. The northern mountain belt in Asia west of the Pamirs enters the continent at the Crimean Peninsula, swings eastward to form the Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian seas, continues south of the Caspian Sea as the Elburz Mountains of Iran and the Kopet Mountains on the Iran-Azerbaijan border, and crosses into Afghanistan to merge with the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs. East of the Pamirs, three mountain belts are discernible. One belt trends northeastward toward the Pacific Ocean and forms the Alai Range in Kyrgyzstan, the Tian Shan (Tien Shan) and Da Hinggan (Greater Khinghan) Range in China, the Altai Mountains in Kazakhstan, and the Sayan, Yablonovy, and Stanovoi mountains in Russia. A second mountain belt, located farther south, extends eastward from the Pamirs to form the Kunlun Mountains, Astin Tagh, and Nan Shan in China. This belt continues across the middle of China, separating North China from South China, as the Qin Ling (Tsinling). The third and most southerly of the mountain belts radiating eastward from the Pamirs turns southeastward to form the Karakoram Range and the Himalayas and then abruptly southward at the eastern end of the Tibetan Plateau, where it splits into lesser ranges that continue southward as the Arakan Yoma in Burma, the mountainous rib of the Malay Peninsula, and the Annam Mountains (Annamitic Cordillera) in Vietnam. Numerous plateaus and structural basins are located within or along the margins of these mountain ranges. The highest is the Tibetan Plateau, which has an average elevation of over 4,000 m (13,000 ft) and is bordered by some of the world’s highest mountains, including the Himalayas on the south, the Karakoram on the west, and the Kunlun Mountains on the north. This entire complex of high mountains and plateaus is often referred to as the “roof of the world.” To the north of Tibet are three important Chinese basins: the Qaidam (Tsaidam) Basin, the Tarim Basin (see Taklimakan), and the Junggar (Dzungarian) Basin. Also important to China are the Sichuan (Szechwan, or Red) Basin, located in the western province of Sichuan; the Gobi Plateau, a vast, semidesert upland located in Mongolia and China’s Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (see Gobi); and the Loess Plateau, located south of the Gobi, which is covered with an immense thickness of windblown loess deposits derived from the Gobi. Other plateaus in Asia are the Anatolian Plateau, in Turkey; the Arabian Plateau, mainly in Saudi Arabia; the Deccan Plateau, in peninsular India; and the Vitim and Aldan plateaus, in Russia. Numerous islands, arranged in a series of arcs, fringe the Southeast Asian and Pacific coasts of the continent. The islands of the Southeast Asian archipelago pick up the main trend lines of Burma’s Arakan Yoma and continue them through the Andaman and Nicobar islands of India and the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Bali in the Indonesian archipelago. Near Bali the main trend of the mountainous belt splits into two segments. One segment continues eastward through the islands of Timor, the Moluccas, and New Guinea and eventually forms the mountains of New Zealand; the other segment turns northeastward and passes in a series of arcs through Borneo, the Philippine archipelago, Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands, Japan, and Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands before touching the mainland in the Kamchatka Peninsula (Russia). These island arcs are seismically active, and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions frequently occur. Asia’s most extensive lowlands are located in former Soviet Asia. They are the Western Siberian Plain, a vast, subarctic forested region located east of the Urals, and the Kirghiz Steppe, a semiarid plain located mainly in Kazakhstan. Other important lowlands are mainly in the alluvial valleys and deltas developed by rivers flowing to the south and east. The largest of the alluvial valleys is the Indo-Gangetic Plain, located in the Indian subcontinent between the Himalayas and the Deccan Plateau. Occupying parts of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, it is drained by the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra rivers; river water is diverted extensively across the plain for irrigation, and the region is one of the world’s most intensively cultivated and most densely populated places. Other Asian lowlands are the North China Plain, its soils enriched for centuries by loess sediments spread over the valley and deltas of the Huang He (Hwang Ho, or Yellow River); the alluvial valleys and deltas of the Yangtze (China), Irrawaddy (Burma), and Mekong (Cambodia) rivers; and the Fertile Crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. The climate of South, Southeast, and East Asia is strongly influenced by the immensity of the Asian landmass, the barrier presented by its great highland core, and the monsoon wind system. In summer, the continental interior of Asia heats up rapidly as a result of increased isolation as the overhead sun moves toward the Tropic of Cancer. Warm air above the heart of Asia rises and creates low-pressure centers. The air pressures above the Pacific and Indian oceans are relatively high. Consequently, strong, moisture-laden winds are drawn inland from the oceans into the low-pressure areas of Asia, bringing heavy rainfall wherever they are forced to rise up over low hills, mountains, or other topographic obstacles. The summer monsoon in India interrupts a very hot, dry spell. Elsewhere in Southeast and East Asia the break is not as dramatic, but rainfall in all of monsoon Asia is concentrated in the summer months. In the coastal region of East Asia, tropical cyclones (typhoons) bring additional precipitation and devastating winds. In winter, the land surface in the interior of Asia cools off more rapidly than the surrounding oceans. As a result, cold descending air currents over the heart of Asia generate high-pressure centers facing the relatively low-pressure zones over the Indian and Pacific oceans, where temperatures are higher. From October to about April, cold, dry, continental winds blow offshore from inland Asia. This is the season of the winter monsoon. Places exposed to the monsoons are warmer in summer and colder in winter than places in corresponding latitudes not under their influence. They are also, for the most part, the wettest parts of Asia. Within this large monsoon area, important temperature differences exist between north and south. An equatorial climate predominates over much of Indonesia and Malaysia; average annual temperature is about 20 degrees C (70 degrees F) and average annual rainfall more than 2,030 mm (80 in). North of the equatorial region is a tropical monsoon area, in which summers are hot and humid (average temperatures over 27 degrees C/80 degrees F) and winters cool (10 degrees C/50 degrees F) and dry. Rainfall is more than 1,270 mm (50 in). Climates in the rest of monsoon Asia range from warm temperate in central China and southern Japan to cool temperate in northern China and Japan. Similarly, the length of the growing season, which is the period between killing frosts in the warm half of the year, decreases gradually from almost a full year in Indonesia to about four months in China’s northeast. Dry Asia Parts of Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Mongolia have a wide range of dry climates that range latitudinally from the tropical deserts of the Arabian Peninsula in the west to the subtropical steppe climate present in Iran and Afghanistan and the midlatitude steppe and deserts of Mongolia and northern China. Rainfall varies from a low of less than 25 mm (1 in) in parts of the Gobi Desert to 200 mm (8 in) in Central Asia. Throughout this belt, rainfall is extremely unpredictable. The eastern coastal fringe of the Mediterranean Basin (the Levant) has a typical Mediterranean climate and receives rain in winter; average annual precipitation along this Western edge of dry Asia is about 500 mm (20 in). Cold Asia Most of Asian Russia has a cold climate. The southern regions have a subarctic climate, where summers are mild (21 degrees C/70 degrees F) and short, lasting for less than four months. Rainfall decreases from about 510 mm (20 in) in coastal locations to less than 250 mm (10 in) in the interior. The extreme northern section of Asia is dominated by the polar tundra climate, where the low year-round temperatures (warmest month averages below 10 degrees C/50 degrees F) create a permanently frozen subsoil known as permafrost.

Asia ,guide to Asia and the Asiatic continent

Asia guide