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Asia's 44 million square kilometers make it the biggest continent. To its west is Europe, separated by the Ural's crests, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus's crests, the Black Sea and the Turkish straits.
Asia's Pacific edge includes the Kamchatka, Korea and Indochina peninsulas and many islands: the Commander Islands, Sakhalin, Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, the Ryuku Islands, Taiwan, the Philippine Islands (including Luzon and Mindinao), Hainan, the Greater Sunda Islands (including Sumatra and Java, which also border the Indian Ocean, and Borneo and the Celebes), the Moluccas, western New Guinea, and the Lesser Sunda Islands, which also border the Indian Ocean. It also includes the mouths of four of Asia's longest rivers: the Chiang (or Yangtse), the Huang (or Yellow), the Mekong and the Amur (or Heilong).
Asia's Indian Ocean edge includes the Sinai, Arabian and Indian peninsulas; the Maldive Islands, Sri Lanka and the Andaman Islands; and the mouth of two of Asia's longest rivers: the Brahmaputra
Asia also borders the seas connected to the Atlantic: the Mediterranean and Black. This edge includes the Anatolian Peninsula and the island of Cyprus.
Asia also borders the world's largest lake: the Caspian Sea. What was once the world's fourth largest lake, the Aral Sea, has split into pieces, one of which receives the last mentioned of Asia's ten longest rivers, the Syr Darya.
Asia's other large natural lakes are Baykal, Balkash and Issyk Kul in Central Asia, Urmia in northwestern Iran, and Taymyr in the middle of the Taymyr Peninsula. Three reservoirs in Россия (Rossija or Russia) are the next largest inland waters.
Asia includes a band of deserts that stretch from Sinai to Mongolia and include Sinai, Arabia, the Syrian Desert, the Iranian Plateau, the Ust' Urt Plateau, the Kara Kum, the Kyzylkum, the Muyunkum, the Thar (or Great Indian) Desert, the Taklimakan, the Ordos and the Gobi.
A great band of high elevations, partly overlapping with these deserts, stretches across all of Asia from Anatolia to the Chukotka Peninsula at the Bering Strait. It is only narrowly separated from more mountains in western Arabia and from the Urals. It centers at the 'roof of the world': the Plateau of Tibet, bounded north by the Kunlun and Qilian, south by the Himalayas and east by the Daxue. The world's tallest mountain, Everest (Oomonlangma or Sagamath) is in the Himalayas. To the east of the Daxue is Sichuan Basin. Beyond the Kunluns is the Tarim Basin, which contains the Taklimakan Desert. Northeast of this basin are the Altun, north of it the Tian (Heavenly) Mountains, and west of it the Pamirs, the Alays and the Karakorum. Beyond the Tian Shan is the Dzungarian Basin, which is bounded north by the Altays. The Altays connect east with the Sayans.
Other mountains over 4,000 meters are found in eastern Turkey, and as the Zagros and Elburz mountains of Iran, the Caucasus ranges between the Black and Caspian seas, a volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula, a southwest extension of the Alays in Uzbekistan, the Dzungarian Alatau, which are west of the basin but parallel to the westward passes, the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan, two ranges exclusively in western Mongolia, and as mountains in northernmost Myanmar. The only mountains this tall that are outside the great band are in northeast Borneo and in New Guinea's Maoke chain.
Other features of note are the vast flats of the West Siberian Plain, fading southward into steppes (high grasslands); the Central Siberian Plateau, a northward protruberance from the high band; the Turanian Lowland southeast of the Aral Sea, which contains some of the deserts previously mentioned; the Deccan plateau of peninsular India (bounded on each side by the Ghats), the Manuchurian Plain; and the North China Plain.
Asia has well over half the world's population, which has now topped 6.6 billion.
Languages:
See भारत (Bhārat or India)'s languages
The majority languages in various other areas are shown:
| Area | Language or group |
| Arabian Peninsula | Arabian spoken Arabic |
| Türkiye | Turkish |
| لبنان (Lubnān or Liban or Lebanon), الادنن (al-'Urdunn or Urdun or Jordan), سورية (Suriyah or Syria) | Syro-Lebano-Palestinian spoken Arabic |
| الراق and الكويت (al-'Īrāq or Iraq, and al-Kuwayt or Kuwait) | Mesopotamian spoken Arabic |
| central and southern Iran, Tajikistan | Persian |
| northern Iran | Western Iranian group |
| western Iran, Afghanistan | Iranian group |
| northwestern Iran | Azeri |
| Trancaucasia | no majority group |
| Ural Federal District, Siberian Federal District (excluding Tuva), Far Eastern Federal District (excluding northern Sakha), northern and eastern Qazaqstan | Russian |
| Tuva | Tuvan |
| northern Sakha | Yakut |
| Qazaqstan, excluding the north and east | Kazakh |
| Uzbekistan | Uzbek |
| Kyrgyzstan | Western Turkic group |
| Turkmenistan | Turkmen |
| Pakistan | Western Panjabi |
| Nepal | Indo-Aryan group |
| Myanmar | Burmese |
| Thailand | East Central Thai group |
| Laos | Lao |
| Cambodia | Central Khmer |
| Vietnam | Vietnamese |
| Mongolia, except the very west | Mongolian |
| westernmost Mongolia | Altaic group |
| North and South Korea | Korean |
| ⽇夲 (Nippon or Japan) | Japanese |
| Pilipinas | Western Malayo-Polynesian group |
| Kalimantan provinces of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei | Malay |
| Jawa | Javanese |
| Sulawesi | South Sulawesi group |
| Lesser Sundas and Malukus | Sundic group |
| Sumatera | Austronesian group |
| Papua Province | Central and Western Main Section of the Trans-New Guinea Group |
Religions:
Islam prevails in the Arabian peninsula, Türkiye, لبنان (Lubnān or Liban or Lebanon), الادنن (al-'Urdunn or Urdun or Jordan),
See Indian cities, Chinese cities, South Korean cities, Japanese cities, Javanese cities, Iraqi and Kuwaiti cities, Syrian cities, Table of Israel, Lebanese, Jordanian and Palestinian cities, Turkish cities and Saudi Peninsula cities. Those over ten million metropolitan residents that are wholly in Asia in these lists are डिलली
Other cities and metropolises with a million or more people:
| Name | Nation |
| Tehran* | Iran |
| Karaj | Iran |
| Esfahan | Iran |
| Mashdad | Iran |
| Shiraz | Iran |
| Qom | Iran |
| Tabriz | Iran |
| Baku* | Azerbaijan |
| Jerevan* | Armenia |
| Tbilisi* | Georgia |
| Chelyabinsk | Россия (Rossija or Russia) |
| Yekaterinburg | Россия (Rossija or Russia) |
| Novosibirsk | Россия (Rossija or Russia) |
| Omsk | Россия (Rossija or Russia) |
| Almati* | Qazaqstan |
| Tashkent* | Uzbekistan |
| Kabul* | Afghanistan |
| Karachi | Pakistan |
| Lahore | Pakistan |
| Rawalpindi | Pakistan |
| Faisalabad | Pakistan |
| Gujranwala | Pakistan |
| Hyderabad | Pakistan |
| Multan | Pakistan |
| Peshawar | Pakistan |
| Chattagam | Bangladesh |
| Dhaka* | Bangladesh |
| Khulna | Bangladesh |
| Kathmandu* | Nepal |
| Kolamba (Colombo)* | Sri Lanka |
| Yangon (Rangoon)* | Myanmar |
| Mandalay | Myanmar |
| Krung Thep (Bangkok)* | Thailand |
| Phnom Penh* | Cambodia |
| Hanoi* | Vietnam |
| Ho Chi Minh City | Vietnam |
| Hai Phong | Vietnam |
| 평양 (P'yŏngyang*) | 조선 (Chosŏn or North Korea) |
| T'aipei* | Taiwan |
| Kaohsiung | Taiwan |
| Taichung | Taiwan |
| Manila* | Philippines |
| Davao | Philippines |
| Cebu | Philippines |
| Singapore* | Singapore, Malaysia |
| Kuala Lumpur* | Malaysia |
| Klang | Malaysia |
| Subang Jaya | Malaysia |
| Bandar Lampung | Indonesia |
| Denpassar | Indonesia |
| Mataram | Indonesia |
| Samarinda | Indonesia |
| Medan | Indonesia |
| Palembang | Indonesia |
| Ujungpandang | Indonesia |
Afghanistan Asian Turkey British Indian Ocean Territory 1. Some geographies put all of Россия (Rossija or Russia) in Europe, all of Qazaqstan (Kazakhstan) in Asia and all of Türkiye (Turkey) in Asia, mostly for statistical convenience. Some include some of Россия's Black Sea litoral in Asia. Some divide Россия and Türkiye, but not Qazaqstan. Cyprus is sometimes included with Europe.
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia
البحرين (Bahrayn or Bahrain), 'Uman or Oman, قطر (Qatar), العربية السعودية (al-'Arabīyah as-Su'ūdīyah or Saudi Arabia) and al-Yaman (Yemen)
Bangladesh
Bhutan
Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore
Cambodia
The 中华
Cyprus
East Timor, Palau
भारत (Bhārat or India)
Indonesia
Iran
الراق and الكويت (al-'Īrāq or Iraq, al-Kuwayt or Kuwait)
ישראל ,الادنن ,لبنان ,سورية and the غزة Strip (Yisra'el or Israel, al-'Urdunn or Urdun or Jordan, Lubnān or Liban or Lebanon, Suriyah or Syria and the Ghazzah (Gazzah or Gaza) Strip)
⽇夲 (Nippon or Japan)
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Maldives, Sri Lanka
Mongolia
Myanmar
Nepal
조선 and 대한 (Chosŏn or North Korea and Daehan or South Korea)
Pakistan
Philippines
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Thailand
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
Parts of Nations
Sinai
Ural Federal District, east of the Urals
Siberian Federal District
Far Eastern Federal District
Western Qazaqstan, east of the Ural River
Atyrau, east of the Ural River, and Mangistau
Astana Province
Qaragandi and Almati provinces
Akmecet, South Qazaqstan and Taraz provinces
easternmost Orenburg Oblast
Possessions
Paracel Islands
Spratly Islands
Footnotes
2. Some include all of مصر (Miṣr or Egypt) in Africa. Some would assign Socotra Island of Yemen to Africa. I include the Seychelles with Africa.
3. I put Palau in Asia; some do not. I include Australia's Christmas and Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean with Oceania. I include all the Japanese islands with Asia.
4. I include the southern islands of the Indian Ocean with Antarctica in most cases, with Africa, in one case.
5. It shares distributaries with other rivers in a vast delta.
6. Bhutan, the Maldives, the British Indian Ocean Territory, and Sri Lanka are grouped statistically with parts of India. Bangladesh speaks Bengali, like the Bangla State of India.
7. Zhōnghuá or Chung-hua or Junghwa in transliterated Pŭtōnghuà Chinese. The first character means central and the second means Chinese/ illustrious/ flowery. China is its English name. In the Wu dialect group it transliterates as Tsonkoh. Fujian Province and Taiwan are grouped together. Min Chinese is used by the majority in both.
8. Some count all Arabian dialects as one language; others concentrate on urban-rural distinctions instead of regional ones; others would break up my regional groupings into several languages.
9. The island of Cyprus is grouped statistically with Türkiye (Turkey).
10. ישראל (Yisra'el or Israel) is grouped statistically with لبنان (Lubnān or Liban or Lebanon) and الادنن (al-'Urdunn or Urdun or Jordan).
11. الكويت (al-Kuwayt or Kuwait) is grouped statistically with الراق (al-'Īrāq or Iraq).
12. Also called Farsi, or in Tajikistan, Tajik.
13. Kazakh is also spoken in a small part of Xinjiang Province, Zhongguo (China).
14. Singapore is statistically grouped with Malaysia.
15. Called Malaysian in Malaysia and Indonesian in Indonesia.
16. Also called the Celebes.
17. Palau is statistically grouped with these Indonesian provinces, which also include East Timor.
18. Azerbaijan is grouped statistically with them. Both of the other countries follow a national form of Orthodox Christianity.
19. An uncertain degree of aetheism or agnosticism exists there. The Russian Orthodox form is followed otherwise.
20. Roman Catholic Christianity.
21. Protestant Christianity.
22. Lamist.
23. Theravada.
24. Among the Chinese, Mahayana Buddhism blends with Chinese folk religions, Confucianism and Taoism. The Tibetans follow Lamist Buddhism.
25. Mahayana Buddhism blended with Chondokyo.
26. Mahayana Buddhism blended with Shintoism.
27. Proper rendering creates a composite letter out of the two ल letters, with a single vertical line on the right.
28. Principle nation underlined, when more than one.
28. The metropolitan area includes Islamabad, the national capital.
30. Kuala Lumpur metropolitan area.
31. Also called Tanjungkarang Telukbetung.
32. Zhōnghuá or Chung-hua or Junghwa in transliterated Pŭtōnghuà Chinese. The first character means central and the second means Chinese/ illustrious/ flowery. China is its English name. In the Wu dialect group it transliterates as Tsonkoh.