Asia

history:

Since the discovery of the sea route to India in 1498, the Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish, since the 18th century the British and since the 19th century the French have opened up Asia as a colonial territory. With the decline of the influence of the Ottoman Empire, the Safavids in Iran and the Mughal emperors in India, Russia became a power factor in North and East Asia. China lost parts of its territory in the north and west to Russia in the 19th century.

Internal strife, wars and uprisings revealed China's weakness, which persisted despite attempts at internal transformation. After being forced to open up to Americans and Europeans in 1854 and the social modernization that began in 1868, Japan quickly rose to become a major power. It maintained its position in various wars and expanded its sphere of influence in East Asia. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Palestine and Iraq came under British influence and Syria came under French rule.

Turkey and Iran experienced an inner renewal oriented towards Europe, Arabia was largely unified by Ibn Saud. In the colonial areas of South and Southeast Asia, the national movements that had emerged since the beginning of the 20th century gained strength, especially during the two world wars.

During World War II, Japan used the weakness of the European colonial powers to occupy Indochina, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies and parts of the Malay Peninsula, and was only defeated by the militarily superior USA. During decolonization and the withdrawal of the European powers from their dominions, new states emerged there (including India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia). The countries of Indochina (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) gained state independence. After their independence, a number of Asian countries were confronted with major economic problems and a large number of ethnic-religious conflicts. The reorganization in different regions of Asia led to large movements of refugees.

European influence in Asia was pushed back by a growing political-military weight of the USA. To this day, the United Nations (UN) has attempted to maintain or promote peace in a variety of missions.

Since the Bandung Conference in 1955, the non-aligned states of Asia, together with those of Africa, have been striving for their own weight in world politics within the framework of the movement of non-aligned states. ASEAN was formed in 1967 as a regionally important association of Southeast Asian countries. Despite its defeat in World War II, Japan was able to regain an important position in East Asia and develop into an economic superpower in the course of the 1950s and 1960s

In addition to Japan, the so-called "Four Little Dragons" (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and what was then the Crown Colony of Hong Kong), and in the 1980s the "Three Little Tigers" (Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand) to "Newly industrializing countries". The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was established in 1983 and the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation was established in 1989 to support regional cooperation in Asia.

China became a power of global political significance and, since 1958, had a conflict of interests with the Soviet Union. In addition to the People's Republic of China and the Mongolian People's Republic, communist systems of government were first established in North Korea (1948) and North Vietnam (since 1955), and later also in Laos and Cambodia.

Natural space:

With around 44.4 million km², Asia is the largest continent and part of Eurasia, it comprises approx.a third of the landmass of the earth. Asia is bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the east, and the Indian Ocean to the south. In the Himalayas, the largest mountain range in the world in terms of extent, is the highest peak, Mount Everest, at 8,848 m.

In the west, the border with Europe is formed from north to south by the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus, the southern coast of the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, the Sea of ​​Marmara and the Dardanelles. From the Barents Sea to the Black Sea, this border is about 2,700 km long. Asia is connected to Africa north of the Red Sea via the Sinai Peninsula.

In the northeast, the mainland masses of Asia and North America lie about 80 km apart along the Bering Strait. In the southeast, the Indonesian archipelago forms the connection to Australia. The coastline of Asia is around 82,300 km, of which 15,900 km are in the Arctic Ocean, 27,300 km in the Pacific Ocean, 33,600 km in the Indian Ocean and around 5,500 km in the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea together.

Climate:

The large extent and the changing altitude result in strong climatic differences. The climate in large parts of Asia is continental with large daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations. Eastern Siberia has extreme winter cold with moderately warm summers. Central Asia and the Arabian Peninsula have hot summers and extreme dryness, while winters in western Asia are moderately wet.

The southern and south-eastern outskirts are under the influence of the monsoons (with alternating rainy and dry seasons) and on the rainy side of the mountains there are sometimes high levels of precipitation. The southern tip of continental Southeast Asia, Ceylon and the Malay Islands have hot, always humid tropical climates.

Vegetation and wildlife:

The vegetation of Asia is very diverse. In the tundra bordering the Arctic Ocean, the flora is predominantly characterized by lichens and mosses. The growing season here is very short at around 3 months. In the Near East tree growth is only possible at higher altitudes. Dry savannah is common in the wetter regions.

The Indian subcontinent is mainly covered by savannah of various types, which changes to rain forest to the east. In Southeast Asia there are extensive areas covered with subtropical or tropical rainforest. Extensive mangrove forests grow in the coastal areas.

The extreme north of Asia harbors a species-poor tundra fauna that has adapted to arctic conditions. There live reindeer, lemming, mountain hare, polar bear. The forest region to the south is far richer in species with bears, wolves, mooses and many fur-bearing animals. In the steppes of Central Asia there are antelopes, wild donkeys, wolves, rodents, wild camels. In the high mountains, wild sheep, wild goats, snow leopards, etc. on.

The animal world of West Asia is closely related to the Mediterranean fauna. In South Asia and Southeast Asia, this is consistently tropical with prosimians, monkeys, rhinos, elephants, Bengal tigers, many snakes, monotremes, tropical birds and insects.

Population:

Around 4 billion people live in Asia, around 60% of the world's population. Asia is the home and main area of ​​distribution of the Mongoloids, country of origin of the Indianids and Eskimids. Europids advanced far into Asia from the west and south-west. They reached the extreme north-east of the continent through prehistoric migrations.

Europids play a significant part in the population structure of South Asia with Armenian and Orientalid-Mediterranean elements from West Asia to India. The "Turkic peoples" of the Asian steppe belt are a Europid-Mongoloid intermediate and transitional form that arose through mixing processes.In South Asia and Southeast Asia there are remains of older settlement layers alongside elements of European and Mongolian origin.

The population of Asia was only 830 million in 1895; in 1950 it was already 1.3 billion. Since then it has increased almost explosively and in 2004 it was more than 3.89 billion inhabitants. The reasons for this are the high birth rates, the decline in infant mortality and higher life expectancy. The most populous countries are China, India, Indonesia, Japan.

Economy:

Countries lacking in raw materials or countries thrown back by wars and corrupt governments such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and the former Soviet republics in Central Asia are still characterized by agriculture according to their topography. In particular, rice cultivation and fishing are of great importance here.

Most of today's Central and North Asian states were part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1990/91 and were therefore organized according to a planned economy. The economy of these countries is largely characterized by agriculture and heavy industry.

The abundance of raw materials in some regions, such as oil and gas in the Caspian Sea region or those in the Siberian tundra, are gaining importance in the intensifying global struggle for these resources.