Asia is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometers, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Its 4.7 billion people constitute roughly 60% of the world's population.
The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including East, North and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term.
The history of Southeast Asia covers the people of Southeast Asia from prehistory to the present in two distinct sub-regions: Mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia. Mainland Southeast Asia comprises Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam whereas Maritime Southeast Asia comprises Brunei, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island, East Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore.
The East Indies is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around the Indian Ocean by Portuguese explorers, soon after the Cape Route was discovered. Nowadays, this term is broadly used to refer to the Malay Archipelago, which today comprises the Philippine Archipelago, Indonesian Archipelago, Borneo, and New Guinea. Historically, the term was used in the Age of Discovery to refer to the coasts of the landmasses comprising the Indian subcontinent and the Indochinese Peninsula along with the Malay Archipelago.
The Orient is a term referring to the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of the term Occident, which refers to the Western world.
The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth.
A subregion is a part of a larger region or continent. Cardinal directions are commonly used to define subregions. There are many criteria for creating systems of subregions; this article is focusing on the UN statistical geoscheme, which is a changing, constantly updated, UN tool based on specific political geography considerations relevant in UN statistics.
Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and East Timor.
Geography of Asia reviews geographical concepts of classifying Asia, the central and eastern part of Eurasia, comprising 58 countries and territories.
The Asia–Pacific (APAC) is the region of the world adjoining the western Pacific Ocean. The region's precise boundaries vary depending on context, but countries and territories in Australasia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia are often included. In a wider context, Central Asia, North Asia, the Pacific Islands, South Asia, West Asia, and even Pacific-adjoining countries in the Americas can be included. For example, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) includes five countries in the New World. The term has become popular since the late 1980s in commerce, finance, and politics. Despite the heterogeneity of the regions' economies, most individual nations within the zone are emerging markets experiencing rapid growth. Sometimes, the notion of "Asia–Pacific excluding Japan" (APEJ) is considered useful.
The Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), formerly known as the Indian Ocean Rim Initiative (IORI) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC), is an international organisation consisting of 23 states bordering the Indian Ocean. The IORA is a regional forum, tripartite in nature, bringing together representatives of Government, Business and Academia, for promoting co-operation and closer interaction among them. It is based on the principles of for strengthening Economic Cooperation particularly on Trade Facilitation and Investment, Promotion as well as Social Development of the region. The Coordinating Secretariat of IORA is located at Ebene, Mauritius.
The Act East policy is an effort by the government of India to cultivate extensive economic and strategic relations with the nations of Southeast Asia to bolster its standing as a regional power and a counterweight to the strategic influence of the People's Republic of China. Initiated in 1991, the Look East policy by Indian government marked a strategic shift in India’s perspective of the world. It was developed and enacted during the government of Prime Minister Narsimha Rao (1991–1996) and rigorously pursued by the successive administrations of Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998–2004) and Manmohan Singh (2004–2014).
Asian people are the people of Asia. The term may also refer to their descendants. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an Asian is “a person of Asian descent”.
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia, mostly situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it spans major landmasses from the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Although the terms "Indian subcontinent" and "South Asia" are often used interchangeably to denote the region, the geopolitical term of South Asia frequently includes Afghanistan, which is not considered part of the subcontinent.
The String of Pearls is a geopolitical hypothesis proposed by United States political researchers in 2004. The term refers to the network of Chinese military and commercial facilities and relationships along its sea lines of communication, which extend from the Chinese mainland to Port Sudan in the Horn of Africa. The sea lines run through several major maritime choke points such as the Strait of Mandeb, the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Lombok Strait as well as other strategic maritime centres in Somalia and the littoral South Asian countries of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Maldives.
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethnic-cultural terms. As commonly conceptualized, the modern states of South Asia include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. South Asia borders East Asia to the northeast, Central Asia to the northwest, West Asia to the west and Southeast Asia to the east. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian subcontinent and is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Pamir Mountains in the north.
Indian Ocean trade has been a key factor in East–West exchanges throughout history. Long-distance trade in dhows and proas made it a dynamic zone of interaction between peoples, cultures, and civilizations stretching from Southeast Asia to East and Southeast Africa and East Mediterranean in the West in prehistoric and early historic periods. Cities and states on the Indian Ocean rim focused on both the sea and the land.
Humans lived in the region that is now Burma as early as 11,000 years ago, but archeological evidence dates the first settlements at about 2500 BCE with cattle rearing and the production of bronze. By about 1500 BCE, ironworks were in existence in the Irrawaddy Valley but cities, and the emergence of city-states, probably did not occur until the early years of the Common era when advances in irrigation systems and the building of canals allowed for year-long agriculture and the consolidation of settlements, although local mythology dates back to c. 1000-600 BC with the immigration of some people from janapadas, ancient countries in modern-day India.
Eastern South Asia is a geographical area in the Southern Asian subregion, precisely the eastern region of the subcontinent. It includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and India. Geographically, it lies between the Eastern Himalayas and the Bay of Bengal. Two of the world's largest rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, flow into the sea through the Bengal region. The region includes the world's highest mountainous terrain and the world's largest delta, and has a climate ranging from alpine and subalpine to subtropical and tropical. Since Nepal, Bhutan, and northeast India are landlocked, the coastlines of Bangladesh and East India serve as the principal gateways to the region.
The foreign policy of the Indira Gandhi government was the foreign policy of India between 1967 and 1977 during the Indira Gandhi premiership. It included a focus on security, by fighting militants abroad and strengthening border defenses. On 30 October 1981 at the meeting organised to mark silver jubilee celebration of the School of International Studies, Gandhi said, "A country’s policy is shaped by many forces- its position on the map, and the countries which are its neighbours, the policies they adopt, and the actions they take, as well as its historical experiences in the aggregate and in terms of its particular success or traumas."
