Asia

== Definition and boundaries ==
{{Further|topic=Asian borders|Geography of Asia#Boundary|Boundaries between the continents|List of transcontinental countries#Asia and Europe|Copenhagen criteria}}

=== Asia–Africa boundary ===
The boundary between Asia and Africa is the [[Suez Canal]], the [[Gulf of Suez]], the [[Red Sea]], and the [[Bab-el-Mandeb]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Suez Canal: 1250 to 1920: Middle East|encyclopedia=Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, & Africa: An Encyclopedia|year=2012|publisher=Sage Publications, Inc.|doi=10.4135/9781452218458.n112|isbn=978-1-4129-8176-7|s2cid=126449508 }}</ref> This makes [[Egypt]] a [[list of transcontinental countries|transcontinental country]], with the [[Sinai peninsula]] in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa.

=== Asia–Europe boundary ===
[[File:Possible definitions of the boundary between Europe and Asia.png|thumb|Definitions used for the boundary between Asia and Europe in different periods of history. The commonly accepted [[Asia#Ongoing definition|modern definition]] mostly fits with the lines "'''B'''" and "'''F'''" in this image.]]

The threefold division of the [[Old World]] into Africa, Asia, and Europe has been in use since the 6th century BCE, due to [[list of Graeco-Roman geographers|Greek geographers]] such as [[Anaximander]] and [[Hecataeus of Miletus|Hecataeus]].{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the [[Phasis River]] (the modern Rioni river) in [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] of Caucasus (from its mouth by [[Poti]] on the [[Black Sea]] coast, through the [[Surami Pass]] and along the [[Kura (Caspian Sea)|Kura River]] to the Caspian Sea), a convention still followed by [[Herodotus]] in the 5th century BCE.<ref>''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'' 4.38. C.f. James Rennell, ''The Geographical System of Herodotus Examined and Explained'', Volume 1, Rivington 1830, [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_enQ-AAAAcAAJ/page/n274 <!-- quote=Herodotus Phasis. --> p. 244]</ref> During the [[Hellenistic period]],<ref>according to Strabo (''[[Geographica]]'' 11.7.4) even at the time of [[Alexander the Great|Alexander]], "it was agreed by all that the Tanais river separated Asia from Europe" ({{lang|grc|ὡμολόγητο ἐκ πάντων ὅτι διείργει τὴν Ἀσίαν ἀπὸ
τῆς Εὐρώπης ὁ Τάναϊς ποταμός}}; c.f. Duane W. Roller, ''Eratosthenes' Geography'', Princeton University Press, 2010, {{ISBN|978-0-691-14267-8}}, {{cite book| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8peKyWK_SWsC&pg=PA57| title = p. 57| isbn = 978-0-691-14267-8| author1 = Eratosthenes| date = 24 January 2010| publisher = Princeton University Press| access-date = 21 January 2020| archive-date = 26 March 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220326125152/https://books.google.com/books?id=8peKyWK_SWsC&pg=PA57| url-status = live}})</ref> this convention was revised, and the boundary between Europe and Asia was now considered to be the [[Don River (Russia)|Tanais]] (the modern Don River). This is the convention used by Roman era authors such as [[Posidonius]],<ref>W. Theiler, ''Posidonios. Die Fragmente'', vol. 1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982, fragm. 47a.</ref> [[Strabo]]<ref>I. G. Kidd (ed.), ''Posidonius: The commentary'', Cambridge University Press, 2004, {{ISBN|978-0-521-60443-7}}, {{cite book| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_iXs1aCr1ckC&pg=PA738| title = p. 738| isbn = 978-0-521-60443-7| author1 = Posidonius| year = 1989| publisher = Cambridge University Press| access-date = 21 January 2020| archive-date = 1 August 2020| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200801115807/https://books.google.com/books?id=_iXs1aCr1ckC&pg=PA738| url-status = live}}</ref> and [[Ptolemy]].<ref>''[[Geography (Ptolemy)|Geographia]]'' 7.5.6 (ed. Nobbe 1845, {{cite web| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=vHMCAAAAQAAJ| title = vol. 2| last1 = Ptolomeo| first1 = Claudio| year = 1845| access-date = 21 January 2020| archive-date = 24 May 2020| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200524011208/https://books.google.com/books?id=vHMCAAAAQAAJ| url-status = live}}, p. 178) {{lang|grc|Καὶ τῇ Εὐρώπῃ δὲ συνάπτει διὰ τοῦ μεταξὺ αὐχένος τῆς τε Μαιώτιδος λίμνης καὶ τοῦ Σαρματικοῦ Ὠκεανοῦ ἐπὶ τῆς διαβάσεως τοῦ Τανάϊδος ποταμοῦ. }}
"And [Asia] is connected to Europe by the land-strait between Lake Maiotis and the Sarmatian Ocean where the river Tanais crosses through."</ref>

The border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics.<ref name="NatGeo">{{cite magazine |url=http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/09/geography-in-the-news-eurasias-boundaries/ |title=Geography in the News: Eurasia's Boundaries |first=Neal |last=Lineback |magazine=National Geographic |date=9 July 2013 |access-date=9 June 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508224947/http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/09/geography-in-the-news-eurasias-boundaries/ |archive-date=8 May 2016}}</ref> The [[Don River (Russia)|Don River]] became unsatisfactory to northern Europeans when [[Peter the Great]], king of the [[Tsardom of Russia]], defeating rival claims of [[Sweden]] and the [[Ottoman Empire]] to the eastern lands, and armed resistance by the tribes of [[Siberia]], synthesized a new [[Russian Empire]] extending to the [[Ural Mountains]] and beyond, founded in 1721.{{Citation needed|date=October 2011}}

In Sweden, five years after Peter's death, in 1730 [[Philip Johan von Strahlenberg]] published a new atlas proposing the Ural Mountains as the border of Asia. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg. The latter had suggested the [[Emba River]] as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the [[Ural River]] prevailed in the mid-19th century. The border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects.<ref>{{harvnb|Lewis|Wigen|1997|pp=27–28}}</ref> The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the [[Caucasus Mountains]], although it is sometimes placed further north.<ref name="NatGeo" />

=== Asia–Oceania boundary ===
The border between Asia and the region of [[Oceania]] is usually placed somewhere in the [[Indonesia|Indonesia Archipelago]]. The [[Maluku Islands]] are often considered to lie on the border of southeast Asia, with [[Western New Guinea|Indonesian New Guinea]], to the east of the islands, being wholly part of Oceania. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several vastly different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Indonesian Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the colonial possessions of the various empires there (not all European). Lewis and Wigen assert, "The narrowing of 'Southeast Asia' to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process."<ref name="Myth">{{harvnb | Lewis | Wigen | 1997 | pp=170–173}}</ref>

=== Asia–North America boundary ===
The [[Bering Strait]] and [[Bering Sea]] separate the [[landmass]]es of Asia and [[North America]], as well as forming the international boundary between Russia and the United States. This [[National boundary|national]] and continental boundary separates the [[Diomede Islands]] in the Bering Strait, with [[Diomede Islands|Big Diomede]] in [[Russian Federation|Russia]] and [[Diomede Islands|Little Diomede]] in the [[United States]]. The [[Aleutian Islands]] are an island chain extending westward from the [[Alaskan Peninsula]] toward Russia's [[Komandorski Islands]] and [[Kamchatka Peninsula]]. Most of them are always associated with North America, except for the westernmost [[Near Islands]] group, which is on Asia's continental shelf beyond the [[North Aleutians Basin]] and on rare occasions could be associated with Asia, which could then allow the U.S. state of [[Alaska]] as well as the United States itself to be considered a transcontinental state. The Aleutian Islands are sometimes associated with Oceania, owing to their status as remote Pacific islands, and their proximity to the Pacific Plate.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Danver |first1=Steven L. |title=Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues |date=2015 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |pages=185 |isbn=978-1317464006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vf4TBwAAQBAJ&dq=%22aleutians%22+%22part+of+oceania%22&pg=PA185 |access-date=23 April 2022 |archive-date=4 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404181817/https://books.google.com/books?id=vf4TBwAAQBAJ&dq=%22aleutians%22+%22part+of+oceania%22&pg=PA185 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wallace |first1=Alfred Russel |title=Australasia |date=1879 |publisher=The University of Michigan |page=2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e2kcAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22oceania+is+the+word+often%22&pg=PA2 |access-date=12 March 2022 |quote=Oceania is the word often used by continental geographers to describe the great world of islands we are now entering upon [...] This boundless watery domain, which extends northwards of Behring Straits and southward to the Antarctic barrier of ice, is studded with many island groups, which are, however, very irregularly distributed over its surface. The more northerly section, lying between Japan and California and between the Aleutian and Hawaiian Archipelagos is relived by nothing but a few solitary reefs and rocks at enormously distant intervals. |archive-date=30 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730064236/https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Australasia/e2kcAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22oceania+is+the+word+often%22&pg=PA2&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kohlhoff |first1=Dean |title=Amchitka and the Bomb: Nuclear Testing in Alaska |date=2002 |publisher=University of Washington Press |page=6 |isbn=978-0295800509 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kSWn8lbI4q4C&dq=%22aleutian+islands%22+%22oceania%22&pg=PA6 |access-date=12 March 2022 |quote=The regional name of the Pacific Islands is appropriate: Oceania, a sea of islands, including those of Alaska and Hawaii. The Pacific Basin is not insignificant or remote. It covers one third of the globe's surface. Its northern boundary is the Aleutian Islands chain. Oceania virtually touches all of the Western Hemisphere. |archive-date=17 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230517051213/https://books.google.com/books?id=kSWn8lbI4q4C&dq=%22aleutian+islands%22+%22oceania%22&pg=PA6 |url-status=live }}</ref> This is extremely rare however, due to their non-tropical biogeography, as well as their [[Aleut|inhabitants]], who have historically been related to [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous American]]s.<ref name="flick">{{cite book |last1=Flick |first1=Alexander Clarence |title=Modern World History, 1776-1926: A Survey of the Origins and Development of Contemporary Civilization |date=1926 |publisher=A.A. Knopf |page=492 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PhGHAAAAMAAJ&q=Modern%20World%20History,%201776-1926A%20Survey%20of%20the%20Origins%20and%20Development%20of%20Contemporary%20Civilization |access-date=10 July 2022 |archive-date=30 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730064936/https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Modern_World_History_1776_1926/PhGHAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Modern+World+History%2C+1776-1926A+Survey+of+the+Origins+and+Development+of+Contemporary+Civilization |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="handbook">{{cite book |last1=Henderson |first1=John William |title=Area Handbook for Oceania |date=1971 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |page=5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NuOIqt-UQowC&dq=%22oceania%22+%22aleutian+islands%22&pg=PR5 |access-date=11 March 2022 |archive-date=6 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406111120/https://books.google.com/books?id=NuOIqt-UQowC&dq=%22oceania%22+%22aleutian+islands%22&pg=PR5 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[St. Lawrence Island]] in the northern Bering Sea belongs to Alaska and may be associated with either continent but is almost always considered part of North America, as with the [[Rat Islands]] in the Aleutian chain. At their nearest points, [[Alaska]] and [[Russia]] are separated by only {{convert|2.5|mi|0|order=flip|abbr=off}}.

=== Ongoing definition ===
[[File:Afro-Eurasia (orthographic projection).svg|thumb|left|[[Afro-Eurasia]] shown in green]]

Geographical Asia is a cultural artifact of European conceptions of the world, beginning with the [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greeks]], being imposed onto other cultures, an imprecise concept causing endemic contention about what it means. Asia does not exactly correspond to the cultural borders of its various types of constituents.<ref>{{harvnb|Lewis|Wigen|1997|pp=7–9}}</ref>

From the time of [[Herodotus]] a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system (Europe, Africa, Asia) on the grounds that there is no substantial physical separation between them.<ref name=McG-H>{{cite web |title=Asia |url=http://accessscience.com/abstract.aspx?id=054800&referURL=http%3a%2f%2faccessscience.com%2fcontent.aspx%3fid%3d054800 |work=AccessScience |publisher=McGraw-Hill |access-date=26 July 2011 |archive-date=27 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111127141127/http://accessscience.com/abstract.aspx?id=054800&referURL=http%3A%2F%2Faccessscience.com%2Fcontent.aspx%3Fid%3D054800 |url-status=dead }}</ref> For example, Sir [[Barry Cunliffe]], the emeritus professor of European archeology at Oxford, argues that Europe has been geographically and culturally merely "the western excrescence of the continent of Asia".<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/editors-choice |title=Geography Is Destiny |first=Benjamin |last=Schwartz |journal=The Atlantic |date=December 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090930211221/http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/editors-choice |archive-date=30 September 2009}}</ref>

Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of [[Eurasia]] with Europe being a northwestern [[peninsula]] of the landmass. Asia, Europe and Africa make up a single continuous landmass—[[Afro-Eurasia]] (except for the Suez Canal)—and share a common [[continental shelf]]. Almost all of Europe and a major part of Asia sit atop the [[Eurasian Plate]], adjoined on the south by the [[Arabian Plate|Arabian]] and [[Indian Plate]] and with the easternmost part of Siberia (east of the [[Chersky Range]]) on the [[North American Plate]].
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