Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

I am on a mission to know/learn/share more about the continent I write about and where I lived for almost 20 years.

Here are 15 fun facts about Asia.

1. Asia is the largest continent by landmass and human population. The area of Asia is larger than the land area of the moon.  (44.6K sq.km – 37k sq.km respectively.)

2. Asia has a population of over 4 billion people or better than 60% of the world’s population. This many people standing side by side holding hands would reach around the world at the equator more than 100 times.

3. More than half of Asia’s population is in two countries in Asia – China (1.3 billion) and India (1.1 billion). India is guestimated to take over China in about 20 years or so.

4. Asia’s boundaries extend from the Suez Canal and Ural Mountain in the west to the south of the Caucasus Mountains and Caspian and Black Seas. Also to the South is the Indian Ocean, to the North the Arctic Ocean and to the Far East the Pacific Ocean.

5. Asia can be divided into 6 subcontinents –

• Central Asia – Kazakhstan Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
• East Asia – China, Japan, Mongolia, Taiwan, North, and South Korea.
• North Asia – Russia.
• India Subcontinent – India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.
• Southeast Asia – Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar [Burma], Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
• Southwest Asia – The Middle East including Turkey, Iran, Cyprus, Israel, and Lebanon.

Here is my List of Countries in Asia.

6.  Three of the top four economies in the world are in Asia – China, Japan, and India. They are numbers 2, 3 and 4 respectively. However, tiny Japan has less than 1/10th of the population of China or India. Yet Asia’s economy as a continent trails North America and Europe.

7. Asia’s three dominant financial centers are Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

8. Asia‘s dominant religions are Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucian/Taoism and Islam.

9. Asia’s most western point is Cape Baba in Northwestern Turkey.

10. Asia‘s most eastern point is Cape Chelyuskin in Siberia.

11. Asia is 5,300 miles wide

12. Asia is home to the highest (Mount Everest 8,848m) and lowest Dead Sea (-395m) points on Earth.

13. Asia is home to the birth of the human species and civilization. Somewhere near where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers meet.

14. The ten longest rivers in Asia –

1. Yangtze (Chang Jiang) – 6,300 km – 3,915 miles
2. Yellow River (Huang He) – 5,464 km – 3,395 miles
3. Lena River – 4,400 km – 2,734 miles
4. Mekong River – 4,350 km – 2,703 miles
5. Irtysh River – 4,248 km – 2,640 miles
6. Yenisei River – 4,090 km – 2,540 miles
7. Ob River – 3,650 km – 2,268 miles
8. Nizhnyaya Tunguska River – 2,989 km – 1,857 miles
9. Indus River – 2,900 km – 1,800 miles
10. Brahmaputra River – 2,900 km – 1,800 miles

if linked end to end would reach around the world at the equator.

15. The ten tallest mountains in Asia –

1.  Everest (8,848 m), Nepal-Tibet

2.  K2 (8,611 m), Pakistan-China

3.  Kangchenjunga (8,586 m), Nepal-Sikkim, India

4.  Lhotse (8,516 m), Nepal-Tibet, China

5.  Makalu (8,462 m), Nepal-Tibet, China

6.  Cho Oyu (8,201 m), Nepal-Tibet, China

7.  Dhaulagiri (8,167 m), Nepal

8.  Manaslu (8,156 m), Nepal

9.  Nanga Parbat (8,125 m), Pakistan

10.  Annapurna (8,091 m), Nepal

if stacked one on top of the other would reach into space. By contrast Mount Fuji at 3,776 meters is less than half as tall as the shortest in this list.

These are some of the facts about Asia that I think are worth knowing.

How about you? What about Asia do you think is fun to know? Send me a comment or email me at wcbelew (at) Gmail (dot) com.

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