20 Points About Asia: Geographical Features and Facts
① Asia is the largest of the world’s continents, covering approximately 30 per cent of the Earth’s land area. The Equator, Tropic of Cancer and Arctic Circle passes through Asia.
② Most populated continent (roughly 60 per cent of the total population)
③ Asia borders with Europe are not well-defined. Asia is bordered by the Arctic, Pacific, Indian Oceans, the Ural Mountains, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Caspian and Black Seas.
④ Asia can be divided into five major physical regions:
- mountain systems;
- plateaus;
- plains,
- steppes, and
- deserts.
⑤ The Himalayas mountains extend for about 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles), separating the Indian subcontinent from the rest of Asia.
⑥ The Himalayas are so vast that they are composed of three different mountain belts. The northernmost belt, known as the Great Himalayas, has the highest average elevation at 6,096 meters (20,000 feet). The belt contains nine of the highest peaks in the world, which all reach more than 7,925 meters (26,000 feet) tall. This belt includes the highest mountain summit in the world, Mount Everest, which stands at 8,850 meters (29,035 feet).
⑦ The Tien Shan mountain system (also called Celestial Mountains) stretches for about 2,400 kilometres (1,500 miles), straddling the border between Kyrgyzstan and China.
⑧ The Ural Mountains run for approximately 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles) in an indirect north-south line from Russia to Kazakhstan.
⑨ Asia is home to many plateaus. The Iranian plateau covers more than 3.6 million square kilometres (1.4 million square miles), encompassing most of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
The Deccan Plateau makes up most of the southern part of India.
The Tibetan Plateau is usually considered the largest and highest area. The Tibetan Plateau is extremely important to the world’s water cycle because of its tremendous number of glaciers.
⑩ The West Siberian Plain, located in central Russia, is considered one of the world’s largest areas of continuous flatland.
Central Asia is dominated by a steppe landscape, a large area of flat, unfrosted grassland.
The Rub’ al Khali desert, considered the world’s largest sand sea, covers an area larger than France across Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Pamir Plateau is known as ‘Roof of the World’ situated in Central Asia.
⑪ Lake Baikal, located in southern Russia, is the deepest lake in the world, reaching a depth of 1,620 meters (5,315 feet)
The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and the third-longest in the world.
The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers begin in the highlands of eastern Turkey and flow through Syria and Iraq, joining in the city of Qurna, Iraq, before emptying into the Persian Gulf.
⑫ The Persian Gulf has an area of more than 234,000 square kilometres (90,000 square miles). It borders Iran, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Iraq.
The Bay of Bengal is the largest bay hi the world, covering almost 2.2 million square kilometres (839,000 square miles) and bordering Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Burma.
⑬ China has such diverse landscapes, from the arid Gobi Desert to the tropical rain forests of Yunnan Province, many flowers can adapt to climates all over the world. That's why botanists refer to China as the 'Mother of Gardens'.
⑭ Lake Baikal’s age and isolation make it a unique biological site. Hundreds of Lake Baikal’s species are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else on Earth.
⑮ The Bay of Bengal, on the Indian Ocean, is one of the world’s largest tropical marine ecosystems. The bay is home to dozens of marine mammals, including the bottlenose dolphin, spinner dolphin, spotted dolphin, and Bryde’s whale.
⑯ The Sundarbans is a wetland area that forms at the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. The Sundarbans is a huge mangrove forest. Hundreds of species of fish, shrimp, crabs, and snails live in the exposed root system of the mangrove trees. The Sundarbans supports more than 200 species of aquatic and wading birds.
⑰ In the Himalayas, communities use yaks as beasts of burden. In the Mongolian steppe, the two-humped Bactrian camel is the traditional beast of burden.
⑱ Mount Everest at 29,029 ft (8,848 m) is not only the highest peak in the Himalayas but the highest peak on the entire planet.
The deepest trench of the world: Mariana Trench lies in the Pacific Ocean near the Philippines.
⑲ Asia is made up of 49 countries. It is the birthplace of the oldest civilizations of the World, i.e. Indus Valley Civilisation, Mesopotamia, and Chinese Civilization.
⑳ Asia is home to two of the three largest economies in the world: China (2nd largest) and Japan (3rd largest). Russia and India are also top 10 world economies. Asia contributes 20 per cent of global GDP. The major economic activities of Asia are agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, industries mining minerals, exhuming etc.
👉See Also:
Crops Favourable Soil and Climate Conditions
World Geography - International Boundary Lines
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