Asia

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Largest of the continents, occupying one-third of the total land surface of the world. The origin of the name is unknown, though it seems probable that it was at first used with a restricted local application, gradually extended to the whole continent.

Area
44,000,000 sq km/17,000,000 sq mi

Largest cities
(population over 5 million) Bangkok, Beijing, Chennai (formerly Madras), Delhi, Dhaka, Hong Kong, Hyderabad, Istanbul, Jakarta, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), Karachi, Lahore, Manila, Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Osaka, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenyang, Tehran, Tianjin, Tokyo

Features
Mount Everest, at 8,872 m/29,118 ft is the world's highest mountain; the Dead Sea at -394 m/-1,293 ft is the world's lowest point below sea level; rivers (over 3,200 km/2,000 mi) include Chang Jiang (Yangtze), Huang He (Yellow River), Ob-Irtysh, Amur, Lena, Mekong, Yenisey; lakes (over 18,000 sq km/7,000 sq mi) include the Caspian Sea (the largest lake in the world), the Aral Sea, Lake Baikal (largest freshwater lake in Eurasia), Balkhash; deserts include the Gobi, Takla Makan, Syrian Desert, Arabian Desert, Negev

Physical
lying in the eastern hemisphere, Asia extends from the Arctic Circle to just over 10° south of the Equator. The Asian mainland, which forms the greater part of the Eurasian continent, lies entirely in the northern hemisphere and stretches from Cape Chelyubinsk at its northern extremity to Cape Piai at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. From Dezhneva Cape in the east, the mainland extends west over more than 165° longitude to Cape Baba in Turkey

Climate
showing great extremes and contrasts, the heart of the continent becomes bitterly cold in winter and extremely hot in summer. When the heated air over land rises, moisture-laden air from the surrounding seas flows in, bringing heavy monsoon rains to all Southeast Asia, China, and Japan between May and October

Industries
62% of the population are employed in agriculture; Asia produces 46% of the world's cereal crops (91% of the world's rice); other crops include mangoes (India), groundnuts (India, China), 84% of the world's copra (Philippines, Indonesia), 93% of the world's rubber (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand), tobacco (China), flax (China, Russia), 95% of the world's jute (India, Bangladesh, China), cotton (China, India, Pakistan), silk (China, India), fish (Japan, China, Korea, Thailand); China produces 55% of the world's tungsten; 45% of the world's tin is produced by Malaysia, China, and Indonesia; Saudi Arabia is the world's largest producer of oil

Population
(2000 est) 3,672 million; the world's largest population, amounting to more than half the total number of people in the world; between 1950 and 1990 the death rate and infant mortality were reduced by more than 60%; annual growth rate 1.6% (exceeded only by Africa)

Language
predominantly tonal languages (Chinese) and Japanese in the east, Indo-Iranian languages (Hindi, Urdu, Persian) in South Asia, Altaic languages (Mongolian, Turkish) in West and Central Asia, Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew) in the southwest

Religion
the major religions of the world had their origins in Asia – Judaism and Christianity in the Middle East; Islam in Arabia; Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism in India; Confucianism in China; and Shintoism in Japan

The red disc, set towards the hoist, recalls the fight for independence. Green represents Islam, fertility, and the country's youth. Effective date: 25 January 1972. >>