East_asia

This article is about the geographical region. For the Miyuki Nakajima album, see East Asia (album). For the fictional superstate, see Eastasia (Nineteen Eighty-Four).

East Asia

East Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographicalEast Asia. encarta. Micosoft. Retrieved on 2008-01-12. “East A·sia [ st áyə ] the countries, territories, and regions of China, Hong Kong, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Macau, Mongolia, parts of Russia, and Taiwan.” or culturalColumbia University - "East Asian cultural sphere" "The East Asian cultural sphere evolves when Japan, Korea, and what is today Vietnam all share adapted elements of Chinese civilization of this period (that of the Tang dynasty), in particular Buddhism, Confucian social and political values, and literary Chinese and its writing system." terms. Geographically, it covers about 12,000,000 km², or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe. More than 1.5 billion people, about 40 percent of the population of Asia or a quarter of all the people in the world, live in geographic East Asia, which is about twice the population of Europe. The region is one of the world\'s most crowded places. The population density of East Asia, 131 per km², is about three times the world average of 45 per km².See, List of countries by population density

Historically, many societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, and East Asian languages/scrips are are often derived from Classical Chinese and Chinese script. Major religions include Buddhism (Mahayana and Chan/Zen), Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religion, and Shinto in Japan.

This combination of language, political philosophy, and religion (as well as art, architecture, holidays and festivals, etc.) overlaps with the geographical designation of East Asia for the most part,^{[citation needed]} with a few exceptions, such as the overseas Chinese (including those in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the West).

East Asia and Eastern Asia (the latter form preferred by the United Nations) are both more modern terms for the traditional name the Far EastFar East. encarta. Micosoft. Retrieved on 2008-01-12. “Far East [ fr st ] a former term for the countries of East Asia, sometimes extended to include those of Southeast Asia (dated)”, which describes the region\'s geographical position in relation to Europe rather than its location within Asia. However, in contrast to the United Nations definition, East Asia commonly is used to refer to the eastern part of Asia, as the term implies.

Other uses of the term East Asia

The following political entities are consistently seen as located in geographic East Asia:

•  People\'s Republic of China (including the Special Administrative Regions of  Hong Kong and  Macau)
•  Republic of China (Taiwan)
•  Japan
•  North Korea
•  South Korea

In addition the following countries are sometimes included in the definition of East Asia

•  Mongolia
• Russian Far East (considered either East Asia or North Asia)

Some definitions are even broader and include Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.AusAid, Countries & Regions, accessed on 12 January 2008US Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs - Countries and Other Areas, accessed on 12 January 2008World Bank, East Asia and Pacific, accessed on 12 January 2008ASEAN, Chairman\'s Statement of the 3rd East Asia Summit Singapore, as part of 2007 East Asia Summit 21 November 2007, accessed on 12 January 2007

The following peoples or societies are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia:Columbia University East Asian Cultural Sphere [1]R. Keith Schopper\'s East Asia: Identities and Change in the Modern World [2]Joshua A. Fogel (UC Santa Barbara/University of Indiana) Nationalism, the Rise of the Vernacular, and the Conceptualization of Modernization in East Asian Comparative Perspective [3]United Nations Environment Programme (mentions sinosphere countries) Approaches to Solution of Eutrophication [4]

• Chinese society (including the predominantly Chinese regions outside China proper, such as Singapore and Taiwan)
• Japanese society
• Korean society
• Vietnamese society

Some consider the following countries or regions as part of East Asia, while others do not.^{[citation needed]} Disagreements hinge on the difference between the cultural and geographic definitions of the term. Political perspective is also an important factor. In descending order in terms of the frequency with which they are described as East Asian:^{[citation needed]}

• The parts of China that are not historically dominated by Han Chinese: Qinghai, Tibet, Xinjiang (considered either East Asia or Central Asia or South Asian in the case of TibetCenter for South Asia Studies: University of California, Berkeley [5]Center for South Asia Outreach UW-Madison [6]Department of South Asia Studies: University of Pennsylvania [7]South Asia Language Resource Center: The University of Chicago [8]AIIS Advanced Language Programs in India [9]Tibet is located on the Tibetan Plateau which is in Central Asia .[10]—here the primary question is cultural, with geography also at issue)
•  Mongolia (considered either East Asia or Central Asia—here culture and/or geography may be at issue)
•  Singapore (considered either East Asia or Southeast Asia—here the primary question is geographic)
•  Vietnam (considered either East Asia or Southeast Asia—here the primary question is geographic)
• Russian Far East (considered either East Asia or North Asia—here the primary question is political, with culture and geography also at issue)

In infrequent circumstances, the term East Asia is purposefully used to include all countries in Southeast Asia, especially when used in dualism with the term West Asia, the latter of which is then used to include those regions commonly considered West Asia, Central Asia and Southwest Asia.^{[citation needed]}

Other subregions of Asia

• Southeast Asia
• South Asia
• Central Asia
• Southwest Asia or West Asia (One definition of the Middle East is synonymous with Southwest Asia)
• North Asia (Siberia)
• Northern Eurasia (Extends into part of Europe)
• Central Eurasia (Extends into part of Europe)

See also

• East Asian studies
• Asian Network of Major Cities 21
• East Asian languages
• East Asian calligraphy
• Four Asian Tigers – a label pertinent to the recent economic history of the region.
• East Asia Summit
• History of East Asia
• Indosphere
• Sinosphere
• East Asian Community
• Russian Far East (East Asia north of this area)

Notes and references

External links

Look up East Asia in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• High resolution map of East Asian region

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