ASIA

Asia, the largest of the earth's seven continents. With outlying islands, it covers an estimated 44,936,000 sq km (17,350,000 sq mi), or about one-third of the world's total land area. Its peoples account for three-fifths of the world's population; in the early 1990s, Asia had more than 3.2 billion inhabitants.

Lying almost entirely in the northern hemisphere, Asia is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the Bering Strait and the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the southwest by the Red and Mediterranean seas. On the west, the conventional boundary between Europe and Asia is drawn at the Ural Mountains, continuing south along the Ural River to the Caspian Sea, then west along the Caucasus Mountains to the Black Sea. Many geographers prefer to regard the landmass formed by Europe and Asia as a single continent—Eurasia.