Due to its immense size and diverse populations, it is nearly impossible to offer a unified history of Asia. The continent is the birthplace of nearly all major religions in the world today, as well as a vast number of technological and civilizational advancements. The West Asia was also home to the first known human civilizations, such as Ancient Sumer and the ancient Assyrian, Babylonian, and Akkadian empires.
With a population of roughly 4. The most populous countries in Asia are China 1. If Hong Kong and Macau are included as countries, then Macau thousand people becomes the third-least populous country in Asia. Several different religions are widely spread throughout the Asian continent.
This being said, Islam is followed by about 1. However, most Muslims actually live in South and Southeast Asia. Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan have Muslim populations of well over million, while the Southeast Asian country of Indonesia has more adherents to Islam than any other country, with over million Muslims. The second-largest religion in Asia is Hinduism, which follows close behind Islam with roughly 1 billion adherents. Christianity is also fairly widespread, with the majority of people in Armenia, Georgia, and Russia following various Orthodox churches, East Timor and the Philippines adhering to Roman Catholicism, and South Korea largely following Protestantism though with a sizeable minority of Roman Catholics.
Other notable religions in Asia include Sikhism and Jainism which are found mostly in India and Pakistan , Judaism with Israel being the only country in the world with a majority Jewish population , and Zoroastrianism the first Iranian religion and still practiced in parts of modern Iran and other countries.
This fact can be partly explained by Communist state policies in China and North Korea regarding religion, but also by the nature of the traditionally prevalent religions of East Asia. Asia is home to a staggering number of languages ranging from local tongues spoken by only a few inhabitants to international languages used in entire regions.
Regarding international languages, the most widely spoken language on the continent is Mandarin, which is spoken by 1. Russian also crosses official language borders, being the official language of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan alongside various other state and regional languages and having roughly million speakers.
Arabic is perhaps the third major international language, recognized as official in most of the countries in West Asia and spoken by about million people. It is also worth mentioning that English is internationally popular throughout Asia. Though it does not have many recognized native speakers, it is recognized as an official or regional language in Hong Kong, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Singapore.
Other populous national languages include Indonesian million speakers , Bengali million speakers , Japanese million speakers , and Filipino 90 million speakers , though most other countries in Asia also have their own national languages.
Burma: Military authorities have promoted the name Myanmar since as the conventional name for their state. That decision was not and is not approved by any sitting legislature in Burma , and is not accepted by the U.
However, Myanmar is widely accepted by numerous countries, and by the United Nations. China, Indonesia, and Malaysia make up more than half of the forested lands in Asia. China is a major exporter of wood products, ranking first globally in wood-based panel production, paper, and wood furniture. Both Indonesia and Malaysia are top producers of tropical timber s. These tropical woods, such as teak, are primarily used in high-quality furniture and flooring. During the past 10 years, Asia has increased its forest cover by 30 million hectares 74 million acres to create forest plantation s where trees can be intensively managed for higher-yield production.
The timber industry estimates that Asia will produce roughly 45 percent of wood from forest plantations by These plantations will become increasingly important as natural forest resources continue to be deplete d. Rapidly rising populations have dramatically increased demand for forest products. This is especially true in Southeast Asia, where high-value species are found.
As a result, Asian countries have some of the worst deforestation rates in the world. Asia represents the most important region for fisheries and aquaculture production in the world. Aquaculture is the rearing of fish and other aquatic animals in controlled environments.
Seafood is extremely important to the lifestyle of many Asian peoples. This is because China, along with many countries in Southeast Asia, is experiencing a rapid expansion of its middle class population. More people can afford expensive food. Mining and Drilling Extractive activities are an important part of the economies of many Asian countries. These countries extract many of the same mineral s.
India is also a major producer of aluminum and iron ore , along with other minerals such as barite used in drilling fluid s , chromium used in steel production and dyes , and manganese used in steel production. Russia is a major producer of coal, tungsten used in steel production , diamonds, iron, and steel.
Indonesia is a major producer of coal, gold, copper, and tin. These fossil fuel s are drilled for energy and fuel, and make the region one of the most important in the international economy. The oil found throughout the Arabian Peninsula and Middle East is of the highest quality: light sweet crude. Light sweet crude oil is used to make gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuels. It is in constant demand throughout the developed world. An oil barrel is liters, or 42 gallons. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates accounted for roughly 57 percent of global liquid fuels production in Russia has oil reserves in Siberia, and massive natural gas reserves throughout the Arctic.
Russia has not aggressively drilled in the Arctic Ocean, but engineers say the area holds millions of barrels of oil and gas reserves. The Built Environment Asia contains some of the most populated and fastest-growing cities of the world. Shanghai, China, and Mumbai, India, are the largest cities in the world.
They are also among the most densely populated. Other cities, such as Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Delhi, India, are growing rapidly. A surge of economic investment, primarily funded by the oil, technology , and pharmaceutical industries, has fueled the development of medium-sized cities into important metropolitan areas.
Hyderabad, India, the capital city of the state of Andhra Pradesh, has a population of more than 5 million people. Hyderabad has aggressively promoted its skilled labor force and cheap investment opportunities. Hyderabad has also invested extensively in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Biotechnology is the manipulation of living things to produce useful products, such as changing genetic material to create medicines.
The city has also developed campuses for the study of nanotechnology and the manufacturing of advanced semiconductor s and solar technologies. This aggressive investment in high-tech industries will most likely continue to bring revenue and jobs into the city.
As a result, Hyderabad must deal with a swelling population in need of more goods and services well into the future. An emirate is a political territory that is ruled by a Muslim monarch called an emir. Urban infrastructure has expanded at a rate unparalleled in modern human history. The Burj Khalifa stands at slightly more than meters 2, feet —almost a kilometer tall.
The Dubai Metro system is the first urban train network on the Arabian Peninsula. Dubai was the 10th most-visited city in the world in Asia has a number of state-of-the-art engineering marvels that solve complex infrastructural problems. Asia is bordered by the Arctic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. 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, kilometers 1, 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 , square kilometers , 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, meters 20, feet.
The belt contains nine of the highest peaks in the world, which all reach more than 7, meters 26, feet tall. This belt includes the highest mountain summit in the world, Mount Everest, which stands at 8, meters 29, feet. The Tien Shan mountain system stretches for about 2, kilometers 1, miles , straddling the border between Kyrgyzstan and China.
Tien Shan also has more than 10, square kilometers 3, 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, kilometers 1, miles in an indirect north-south line from Russia to Kazakhstan. Millions of years of erosion have lowered the mountains significant ly, and today their average elevation is between and 1, meters 3, to 4, feet. The highest peak is Mount Narodnaya at 1, meters 6, feet. Plateaus Asia is home to many plateau s, areas of relatively level high ground.
The Iranian plateau covers more than 3. The plateau is not uniformly flat, but contains some high mountains and low river basin s. The highest mountain peak is Damavand, at 5, meters 18, feet. The plateau also has two large deserts, the Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut. The Deccan Plateau makes up most of the southern part of India. 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.
These glaciers contain the largest volume of ice outside the pole s. It extends from north to south about 2, kilometers 1, miles and from west to east about 1, kilometers 1, miles. 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. 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, meters 5, feet.
The Yangtze is considered the lifeblood of China. 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 habitat s.
Saltwater The Persian Gulf has an area of more than , square kilometers 90, square miles. The gulf is subject to high rates of evaporation , making it shallow and extremely salty. The countries that border the gulf have engaged in a number of disputes over this rich resource. The Sea of Okhotsk covers 1. The sea is largely frozen between October and March. Large ice floe s make winter navigation almost impossible.
The Bay of Bengal is the largest bay in the world, covering almost 2. 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.
Because China has such diverse landscapes, from the arid Gobi Desert to the tropical rain forest s of Yunnan Province, many flower s can adapt to climate s all over the world.
0コメント