Asia Abbreviations

AS is the abbreviation for Asia. There are 51 countries in Asia. Among them, the 10 largest countries are China (Population: 1,387,160,741), India (Population: 1,324,009,101), Indonesia (Population: 255,462,011), Pakistan (Population: 202,785,011), Bangladesh (Population: 158,762,011), Russia (Population: 144,031,011), Japan (Population: 126,891,011), Philippines (Population: 100,699,406), Vietnam (Population: 91,812,011), and Iran (Population: 82,000,011).

Asia Overview

Asia, the world’s largest and most populous continent, which occupies 4/5 of the continent of Eurasia; just over 44 million km ² (33 percent of the land area), 4 586.9 million inhabitants (2019).Asia’s population – about 60 percent of the earth – is distributed to 49 independent states (including the Russian Federation), areas of Palestinian autonomy, and a number of islands under British administration. The border between Asia and Europe consists of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus, the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, the Marmara Sea and the Dardanelles, while the border with Africa has passed through the narrowest part of the Sueznäs. Asia also includes the entire island world in the southeast, between the Asian mainland and Australia.

Asia Facts

• Area: 44 million km²
• Extension (Asian continent): 11,000 km (east-west), 8,500 km (north-south)
• Population: 4 586.9 million inhabitants (2019)
• Population growth: 1.0% per year
• Highest mountain: Mount Everest (8,848 m asl), K2  (Mount Godwin Austen, 8 611 m asl), Kanchenjunga (8 586 m asl), Lhotse (8 516 m asl))
• Longest rivers: Chang Jiang (6,300 km), Huang He (5,460 km), Mekong (4,500 km), Amur (4,480 km), Lena (4,400 km)
• Largest lakes: Caspian Sea (371,860 km²), Lake Aral (originally 64,000 km²; lake surface decreases and was 17,160 km² 2008), Lake Baikal (31,500 km²)

Countries and territories

Prehistory

The prehistoric development in Asia is of very varied nature due to the vast scope of the area and various natural conditions: from the Arctic climate to the tropical and from the coast to high mountain regions. The sparse scattered finds from the Paleolithic do not form a pattern. On the other hand, the sites from the Neolithic to the Iron Age can be categorized into six regions with characteristic features in development: 1) Anterior Orient with neighboring parts of Central Asia; 2) Indian Peninsula; 3) Southeast Asia; 4) China; 5) Siberia; 6) Japanese Islands.

During the Neolithic to the Iron Age, i.e. from about 9000 BC to the time around AD, most of the phenomena that characterize the different forms of civilization in Europe and Asia during historical times: the cultivation of bread and rice, cities with trade and crafts, social classes and political life, metal handling (first with copper and bronze), then with iron), writing and state formations. The Eastern Orient has played a major role for Europe, but it is becoming increasingly clear that development follows several different and largely independent lines in different parts of Asia. A remarkable example is the introduction of pottery, which has long been considered to be associated with the emergence of cultivation at the beginning of the Neolithic period. However, there are now many carbon-14 dates which show that Japanese Jomon ceramics were in use as early as 10,000 BC. in a hunter and fish culture, several thousand years before all other ceramics. On the other hand, there was no pottery in the Ancient Orient when grain cultivation began; there was then a pre-ceramic neolithic. Another special development took place in China at the beginning of the Iron Age, when casting iron, while in other areas iron was first forged and the technique of iron casting was late. Already during the Bronze Age, the most diverse forms of society existed in kingdoms with large cities or in city states in both southwestern, southern and eastern Asia, as well as in the more powerful nomadic empire in Central Asia and in the many scattered hunter tribes in northern and western Asia. while in other areas iron was first forged and late the technique of cast iron was acquired. Already during the Bronze Age, the most diverse forms of society existed in kingdoms with large cities or in city states in both southwestern, southern and eastern Asia, as well as in the more powerful nomadic empire in Central Asia and in the many scattered hunter tribes in northern and western Asia. while in other areas iron was first forged and late the technique of cast iron was acquired. Already during the Bronze Age, the most diverse forms of society existed in kingdoms with large cities or in city states in both southwestern, southern and eastern Asia, as well as in the more powerful nomadic empire in Central Asia and in the many scattered hunter tribes in northern and western Asia.

Paleolithic

The research assumes that early hominids from Africa reached the Far East across the Ancient Orient and South Asia. A form of Homo erectus was found in Java about a million years ago (Java man). In India, Vietnam and Thailand, some finds of people are known from the Pleistocene, but the large amount is found in China. The oldest finds of Homo erectus, from the Lantian south of Huang He, are 1.3 million years old. From Zhoukoudian, a cave complex near Beijing (Beijing), comes a form of Homo erectus, the Beijing man, who lived 600,000-800,000 years ago. Also in other places in China, late forms of Homo erectus and of early Homo sapiens have been found.

In the Ancient Orient, many settlements date to different parts of the Paleolithic according to the typology of the stone implements. From the Middle Palaeolithic, places of residence in Israel, Syria, Iraq and Iran are known. In the cave Shanidar in Iraq, nine excavated skeletons (Homo neanderthalensis) that are more than 50,000 years old were found during excavation. In other places the younger Homo sapiens have been found.

In Siberia, stone tools have been found from the Middle and even older Paleolithic in Central Asia, Altaj, the Amur area and Mongolia. In a cave at Tajik-Tash in Uzbekistan, a tomb with a Neanderthal skeleton has been found. Best known are the settlements of Malta and Buret on the Angara River in southern Siberia. Traces of an approximately 200,000 year old settlement have been found on the Japanese main island of Honshu. Thus, the settlements were spread throughout Asia early and became increasingly common during the younger Paleolithic period.

Neolithic and Bronze Age

By the end of the Paleolithic there were already villages in the Ancient Orient with round huts and a population that lived by hunting, sometimes specialized in a particular animal species. Plant parts, which were milled on millstones, were also collected, and cuts with flint eggs were found. The earliest cultivated plants, wheat and barley, are dated about 9000 BC. Taurus, sheep and goat etc. animals that were hunted at that time were in domesticated forms somewhat later. Pottery was used from the 7000s. The villages developed, and cities arose. In the 5000s, there were centers on more than ten hectares and with over 1,000 inhabitants, eg. Goddess Tepe and Susa in Iran, Ur and Uruk in Iraq. Then copper and some later bronze were already used.

Already from about 6000 BC traces of cultivation and livestock are found in the northwestern part of the Indian Peninsula, and from the middle of the fourth millennium BC. prevailed in the copper age in Pakistan, probably as a result of relations with Iran. You could rotate and paint ceramics, techniques that, like copper handling, spread across Deccan. In southern India, Neolithic economics only existed in the latter half of the third millennium BC From a native development in the Indus area, a rich urban culture, the Indus culture, emerged during the 2000s with the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, which had connections with the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia. Indus culture disappeared in the middle of the second millennium BC. At the same time, the Indians are believed to have immigrated from the northwest. Archaeologically, the period is little known. During the millennium BC new cities began to emerge.

In China, the Neolithic is estimated to comprise around 6000–2000 BC From the older part of the period there are few finds, in the younger one dominating two peasant cultures, Yangshao from the 4000s to the early 2000s with handmade ceramics, painted in geometric style, followed by Longshan to the beginning of the 1000s with turned pottery with black surface. Rice then became more important than millet as a nutritional base. After 1600 BC appeared to mediate an advanced bronze casting technique. A strong central power was developed during the Shang Dynasty (c. 1500–1040 BC) with the oldest capital Zhengzhou and then Anyang. During the following Zhou period (1040–256 BC), the Chinese sphere of power was widened, but until the middle of the first millennium BC. prevailed Bronze Age.

The future important rice cultivation in China probably originated in Southeast Asia, where rice was certainly grown as early as 3500 BC. and possibly several thousand years earlier. Judging from plant finds in Spirit Cave in Thailand, nuts and root vegetables have been utilized even before 6000 BC. This cave also contains the oldest ceramics and the first Neolithic types of stone implements in Southeast Asia, dating to around 6000 BC.

In the Amur region of eastern Siberia, a rich Neolithic culture emerged around 3000–2000 BC. with a resident population living off fishing. In southern Siberia, at Minusinsk and in Altaj, the Afanacia vocals from the end of the third millennium BC existed. copper technology, livestock management and probably some agriculture. In the middle of the second millennium BC the aboriginal andronovo culture of the Bronze Age was developed, followed by the semi-nomadic Karasuk culture around 1300–700 BC. Then a transition to nomadism took place, still with a highly developed bronze technique at Minusinsk and Altaj. A vast area of ​​neolithic trapping culture was located in western Siberia, in the forest land at Upper Ob and Irtysh, a culture that was associated with groups in the Ural Mountains in the west and Kazakhstan in the southeast. During the Bronze Age, the elements of the Andronovoculture were strong.

Siberia is one of the world’s richest pouring areas, with carvings and paintings from the Paleolithic to historical times. Among the strangest are the carvings of wild horses and bison at Shishkino at Upper Lena and the many human masks at Amur. The likely Paleolithic rock paintings in a cave in western Mongolia are also worth noting.

A very special development took place on the Japanese islands. Already during the Late Paleolithic period about 10,000 BC. pottery was made, the earliest in the world. Ceramics were then produced in a fixed tradition in the Jomon culture from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Fishing and collection of edible plant parts dominated the industries. With the Yayoic culture, around 250 BC – 250 AD, rice cultivation became the most important and only during this late period were objects of bronze and iron common.

The Iron Age

Iron began to be used as a working metal in the Ancient Orient as early as the second millennium BC. and in the rest of Asia at various times during the first millennium BC. The Iron Age in the Ancient Orient was a time when scripture has long been in use. There are documents of various kinds and in a variety of languages. Nevertheless, the archaeological finds play a major role, e.g. for the knowledge of urban development, architecture, art and commerce. Similar conditions apply in China and India. States developed across almost all of Asia, and in a broad perspective, the development of the nomadic empires had major consequences for both Asia and Europe. Among the strangest archaeological finds ever counted are the frozen prince tombs at Pazyryk in Altai, which belong to the early nomads in southern Siberia from the fifth and fourth centuries BC. At the same time, the transition to the Iron Age took place. During the centuries BC the females appeared and ruled for a time over an empire from the Caspian Sea to Xinjiang in western China. At the end of the 20th century BC the great wall in the north was completed to prevent the nomad people from entering China. In contrast to the developed states of southern and eastern Asia and the nomadic empires in the interior of Asia around Kr.f. stands the simultaneous reindeer hunter settlements at Ust-Poluj at Ob in the north.

List of Asia Acronyms

The most commonly used abbreviations about Asia are AS which stands for Asia. In the following table, you can see all acronyms related to Asia, including abbreviations for associations, airlines, funds, non-profit organizations, and etc.