Asia

Asia is the landmass of Africa-Eurasia "with the western portion of the latter occupied by Europe" lying east of the Suez Canal, east of the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the Indian Ocean, and to the north by the Arctic Ocean. It is the largest of the world's continents constituting nearly one-third of the landmass. It is connected to Africa by the Isthmus of Suez and borders Europe (part of the same landmass) along the Ural Mountains and across the Caspian Sea.

Lying entirely north of the equator except for some Southeast Asian islands, it is the largest of the four quarters of the globe, and as good as in touch with the other three. The land it contains froms a centre of high elevations, extensive plains, and deep depressions, stretches southward into three large peninsulas separated by three immense arms of the sea, and eastward into three bulging masses and three pronounced peninsulas forming seas, protected by groups of islands.

With rivers the largest in the whole world, of which four flow north, two southeast, and eight south. With a large continental basin, it is also the largest in the world, and with lakes which though they do not match those of America and Africa, strikingly stand at a higher level as we go east. It has every variety of climate, and a richly varied flora and fauna. It is the most populated region of the word. There are chiefly three races in the region - Caucasian, Mongolian, and Malay, at different stages of civilisation, and as regards religion, by far the majority of them professing the faith of Brahma, Buddha, Mahomet, or Christ.

Asia is divided in the regions called North Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.