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Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Seven-Continent and Largest Continent Of Asia's Popularity-
The term "Asia" is originally a concept exclusively of Western civilization. The peoples of ancient Asia (Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Persians, Arabs etc.) never conceived the idea of Asia, simply because they did not see themselves collectively. In their perspective, they were vastly varied civilizations, contrary to ancient European belief.
The word Asia originated from the Greek word Ἀσία, first attributed to Herodotus (about 440 BC) in reference to Anatolia or—in describing the Persian Wars—to the Persian Empire, in contrast to Greece and Egypt. Herodotus comments that he is puzzled as to why three women's names are used to describe one enormous and substantial land mass (Europa, Asia, and Libya, referring to Africa), stating that most Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of Prometheus (i.e. Hesione), but that the Lydians say it was named after Asias, son of Cotys, who passed the name on to a tribe in Sardis. Even before Herodotus, Homer knew of two figures in the Trojan War named Asios; and elsewhere he describes a marsh as ασιος (Iliad 2, 461). In Greek mythology, "Asia" (Ἀσία) or "Asie" (Ἀσίη) was the name of a Nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia.
Usage of the term soon became common in ancient Greece, and subsequently by the ancient Romans. Ancient and medieval European maps depict the Asian continent as a "huge amorphous blob" extending eastward. It was presumed in antiquity to end with India—the Greek king Alexander the Great believing he would reach the "end of the world" upon his arrival in the East.
The word Asia originated from the Greek word Ἀσία, first attributed to Herodotus (about 440 BC) in reference to Anatolia or—in describing the Persian Wars—to the Persian Empire, in contrast to Greece and Egypt. Herodotus comments that he is puzzled as to why three women's names are used to describe one enormous and substantial land mass (Europa, Asia, and Libya, referring to Africa), stating that most Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of Prometheus (i.e. Hesione), but that the Lydians say it was named after Asias, son of Cotys, who passed the name on to a tribe in Sardis. Even before Herodotus, Homer knew of two figures in the Trojan War named Asios; and elsewhere he describes a marsh as ασιος (Iliad 2, 461). In Greek mythology, "Asia" (Ἀσία) or "Asie" (Ἀσίη) was the name of a Nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia.
Usage of the term soon became common in ancient Greece, and subsequently by the ancient Romans. Ancient and medieval European maps depict the Asian continent as a "huge amorphous blob" extending eastward. It was presumed in antiquity to end with India—the Greek king Alexander the Great believing he would reach the "end of the world" upon his arrival in the East.
Animated, color-coded map showing the various continents. Depending on the convention and model. Landmasses can be divided in different ways. For example, what is known as Eurasia is often subdivided into Europe and Asia (red shades), while North and South America are sometimes recognized as one American continent (green shades).
Dymaxion map shows land masses with minimal distortion.
A continent is one of several large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents – they are (from largest in size to smallest): Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.
Plate tectonics is the geological process and study of the movement, collision and division of continents, earlier known as continental drift.
The expression "the Continent" may also refer to Continental Europe, that is, the mainland of Europe, excluding the British Isles, Iceland and some other islands.
Definitions and application-
Conventionally, "Continents are understood to be large, continuous, discrete masses of land, ideally separated by expanses of water." Many of the seven most commonly recognized continents identified by convention are not discrete landmasses separated by water. The criterion 'large' leads to arbitrary classification: Greenland, with a surface area of 2,166,086 square kilometres (836,330 sq mi) is considered the world's largest island, while Australia, at 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi) is deemed to be a continent. Likewise, the ideal criterion that each be a continuous landmass is often disregarded by the inclusion of the continental shelf and oceanic islands, and contradicted by classifying North and South America as one continent; and/or Asia, Europe and Africa as one continent, with no natural separation by water. This anomaly reaches its extreme if the continuous land mass of Europe and Asia is considered to constitute two continents. The Earth's major landmasses are washed upon by a single, continuous World Ocean, which is divided into a number of principal oceanic components by the continents and various geographic criteria.
Number of continents-
There are numerous ways of distinguishing the continents:
| Models- | ||||||||
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| 7 continents | ||||||||
| 6 continents | ||||||||
| 6 continents | ||||||||
| 5 continents | ||||||||
| 5 continents | ||||||||
| 4 continents | ||||||||
The seven-continent model is usually taught in China and most English-speaking countries. The six-continent combined-Eurasia model is preferred by the geographic community, the former states of the USSR (including Russia), and Japan. The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Latin America, and some parts of Europe, including Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. This model may be taught to include only the five inhabited continents (excluding Antarctica) — as depicted in the Olympic logo.
The terms Oceania or Australasia are sometimes substituted for Australia. For example, the Atlas of Canada names Oceania, as does the model taught in Latin America and Iberia.
Area and population-
Comparison of area and population
The following table summarises the area and population of each continent using the seven continent model, sorted by decreasing area.
European arrival in the Americas-
Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies in 1492, sparking a period of European exploration of the Americas. But despite four voyages to the Americas, Columbus never believed he had reached a new continent – he always thought it was part of Asia.
In 1501, Amerigo Vespucci and Gonçalo Coelho attempted to sail around what they considered to be the southern end of the Asian mainland into the Indian Ocean, passing through the Matsackson Islands. After reaching the coast of Brazil, they sailed a long way further south along the coast of South America, confirming that this was a land of continental proportions and that it also extended much further south than Asia was known to. On return to Europe, an account of the voyage, called Mundus Novus ("New World"), was published under Vespucci’s name in 1502 or 1503, although it seems that it had additions or alterations by another writer. Regardless of who penned the words, Mundus Novus attributed Vespucci with saying, "I have discovered a continent in those southern regions that is inhabited by more numerous people and animals than our Europe, or Asia or Africa", the first known explicit identification of part of the Americas as a continent like the other three.
Universalis Cosmographia, Waldseemüller's 1507 world map which was the first to show the Americas separate from Asia
Within a few years the name "New World" began appearing as a name for South America on world maps, such as the Oliveriana (Pesaro) map of around 1504–1505. Maps of this time though still showed North America connected to Asia and showed South America as a separate land.
In 1507 Martin Waldseemüller published a world map, Universalis Cosmographia, which was the first to show North and South America as separate from Asia and surrounded by water. A small inset map above the main map explicitly showed for the first time the Americas being east of Asia and separated from Asia by an ocean, as opposed to just placing the Americas on the left end of the map and Asia on the right end. In the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, Waldseemüller noted that the earth is divided into four parts, Europe, Asia, Africa and the fourth part which he named "America" after Amerigo Vespucci's first name. On the map, the word "America" was placed on part of South America.
Asia-
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area (or 29.9% of its land area) and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population. During the 20th century Asia's population nearly quadrupled.
Asia is traditionally defined as part of the landmass of Eurasia—with the western portion of the latter occupied by Europe—located to the east of the Suez Canal, east of the Ural Mountains and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma-Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Given its size and diversity, Asia—a toponym dating back to classical antiquity—is more a cultural concept incorporating a number of regions and peoples than a homogeneous physical entity (see Subregions of Asia, Asian people). The wealth of Asia differs very widely among and within its regions, due to its vast size and huge range of different cultures, environments, historical ties and government systems.
Political geography-
Russia
Mongolia
China
Japan
South Korea
North Korea
Taiwan
India
Pakistan
Nepal
Bhutan
Bangladesh
Maldives
British Indian Ocean Territory
Sri Lanka
Vietnam
Hong Kong
Thailand
Laos
Cambodia
Burma
Malaysia
Brunei
Singapore
Philippines
Indonesia
East Timor
Kazakhstan
Uzbekistan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Egypt
Afghanistan
Iran
Saudi Arabia
Oman
Yemen
UAE
Qat.
Bah.
Kuw.
Iraq
Jordan
Isr.
Syria
Leban.
Turkey
Greece
Cyp.
Georgia
Azerbaijan
Armenia
Economy-
Main article: Economy of Asia
Singapore has one of the busiest ports in the world and is the world's fourth largest foreign exchange trading centre.
Mumbai, one of the most populous cities in the continent, a hub for infrastructure & tourism plays a crucial role in the Economy of India
Founded in 1893, Novosibirsk is the largest city in Siberia, with a population of about 1.5 million.
China was the largest and most advanced economy on earth for much of recorded history, until the British Empire (excluding India) overtook it in the mid 19th century. Japan has had for only several decades after WW2 the largest economy in Asia and second-largest of any single nation in the world, after surpassing the Soviet Union (measured in net material product) in 1986 and Germany in 1968. (NB: A number of supernational economies are larger, such as the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or APEC).
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP was almost as large (current exchange rate method) as that of the rest of Asia combined. In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equaled that of the USA to tie as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 yen/dollar. Economic growth in Asia since World War II to the 1990s had been concentrated in Japan as well as the four regions of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore located in the Pacific Rim, known as the Asian tigers, which have now all received developed country status, having the highest GDP per capita in Asia.
It is forecasted that India will overtake Japan in terms of nominal GDP by 2020. In terms of GDP per capita, both nominal and PPP-adjusted, South Korea will become the second wealthiest country in Asia by 2025, overtaking Germany, the United Kingdom and France. By 2027, according to Goldman Sachs, China will have the largest economy in the world.
Natural resources-
Asia is the largest continent in the world by a considerable margin, and it is rich in natural resources, such as petroleum, forests, fish, water, rice, copper and silver.Manufacturing-
Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, India, Philippines and Singapore. Japan and South Korea continue to dominate in the area of multinational corporations, but increasingly mainland China, and India are making significant inroads. Many companies from Europe, North America, South Korea and Japan have operations in Asia's developing countries to take advantage of its abundant supply of cheap labour and relatively developed infrastructure.
Financial and other services-
Asia has four main financial centres: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. Call centres and business process outsourcing (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly skilled, English-speaking workers. The increased use of outsourcing has assisted the rise of India and the China as financial centres. Due to its large and extremely competitive information technology industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.Australia
From Wikipedia-
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