East Asia

For other uses, see East Asia (disambiguation).

East Asia
Area	11,839,074 km2 (4,571,092 sq mi)[1]
Population	1,575,784,500[2]
Density	133 /km2 (340 /sq mi)
Countries and territories	People's Republic of China  Japan  North Korea  South Korea  Mongolia Republic of China (Taiwan)  Hong Kong  Macau
Languages and language families	Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, and many others
Nominal GDP (2010)	$ 13.059 Trillion
GDP per capita (2010)	$ 8,308
Time zones	UTC +7:00 (Western Mongolia) to UTC +9:00 (Japan and Korean Peninsula)
Capital cities	Beijing Tokyo Pyongyang Seoul Ulaanbaatar Taipei
Other major cities	Busan Guangzhou  Hong Kong Incheon Kaohsiung  Macau Osaka Shanghai Yokohama (see list)

East Asia
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	東亞 or 東亞細亞
Simplified Chinese	东亚 or 东亚细亚
Transcriptions Gan - Romanization Tung1 nga3 Hakka - Romanization dung24 a31 Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Dōngyà or Dōng Yàxìyà - Wade–Giles Tung1-ya3 Min - Hokkien POJ Tang-a Wu - Romanization ton平 ia去 Cantonese (Yue) - Jyutping dung1 aa3
Japanese name
Kanji	東亜細亜（東アジア）/東亜
Kana	ひがしアジア/とうあ
Kyūjitai	東亞細亞/東亞
Transcriptions - Revised Hepburn Higashi Ajia/Tō-A - Kunrei-shiki Higasi Azia/Tou-A
Korean name
Hangul	동아시아/동아세아/동아
Hanja	東아시아/東亞細亞/東亞
Transcriptions - Revised Romanization Dong Asia/Dong Asea/Dong A
Mongolian name
Mongolian	Зүүн Ази ᠵᠤᠨ ᠠᠵᠢ Züün Azi
Russian name
Russian	Восточная Азия
Romanization	Vostochnaja Azija
Vietnamese name
Quốc ngữ	Đông Á (Sino-Viet.) Á Đông (native)

East Asia or Eastern Asia (the latter form preferred by the United Nations) is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical^[3] or cultural^[4] terms. Geographically and geo-politically, it covers about 12,000,000 km² (4,600,000 sq mi), or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe.

More than 1.5 billion people, about 38% of the population of Asia or 22% of all the people in the world, live in geographic East Asia, about twice Europe's population. The region is one of the world's most populated places, with a population density of 133 inhabitants per square kilometre (340 /sq mi), being about three times the world average of 45 /km² (120 /sq mi), although Mongolia has the lowest population density of a sovereign state.^[5] Using the UN subregion definitions, it ranks second in population only to Southern Asia.

Historically, many societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, and East Asian vocabulary and scripts are often derived from Classical Chinese and Chinese script. Sometimes Northeast Asia is used to denote Japan and Korea.^[6] Major religions include Buddhism (mostly Mahayana), Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion in China, Shinto in Japan, Shamanism in Korea, Mongolia and other indigenous populations of northern East Asia^[7][8], and recently Christianity^[9] in South Korea. The Chinese Calendar is the root from which many other East Asian calendars are derived.

History

Main article: History of East Asia

Uses of the term East Asia

The UN subregion of Eastern Asia and other common definitions^[3] of East Asia contain the entirety of the People's Republic of China^[10] (including all SARs and autonomous regions), Republic of China^[11] (commonly known as "Taiwan"), Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and Mongolia^[3]. China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia:^{[12][13][14][15]}

Alternate definitions

There are mixed debates around the world whether these countries or regions should be considered in east Asia or not.

• Vietnam (considered either East Asia or Southeast Asia—here the primary question is geographic due to it being part of the Sinosphere)
• Siberia in Russia^[16] (considered either East Asia or North Asia—here the primary question is political, with culture and geography also at issue)

In business and economics, East Asia has been used to refer to a wide geographical area covering ten countries in ASEAN, People's Republic of China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (officially the Republic of China) ^[11] for the purpose of economic and political regionalism and integration.^{[citation needed]} United States foreign policy under the Obama administration considers Southeast Asia a part of East Asia.^[17] The tendency of this usage, perhaps, started especially since the publication of World Bank on The East Asian Miracle in 1993 explaining the economic success of the Asian Tiger and emerging Southeast Asian economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand).^{[citation needed]}

In addition, this usage has also been driven^{[says who?]} by Asia-wide economic interconnectedness since the co-operation between ASEAN and its three dialogue partners was institutionalized under the ASEAN Plus Three Process (ASEAN+3 or APT) in 1997. The idea of East Asian Community arising from ASEAN+3 framework is also gradually shaping the term East Asia to cover more than China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. This usage however, is unstable: the East Asian Summit, for instance, includes India and Australia.

East Asia is considered to be a part of the Far East, 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. Observers preferring a broader definition of 'East Asia' often use the term Northeast Asia to refer to the greater China area, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan, with Southeast Asia covering the ten ASEAN countries. This usage, which is increasingly widespread in economic and diplomatic discussion, is at odds with the historical meanings of both 'East Asia' and 'Northeast Asia'.^[18][19][20] The Council on Foreign Relations defines Northeast Asia as Japan and Korea.^[6]

Territory and region data

Demographics

See also: Ethnic groups of East Asia

Pass of the ISS over Mongolia, looking out west towards the Pacific Ocean, China, and Japan. As the video progresses, you can see major cities along the coast and the Japanese islands on the Philippine Sea. The island of Guam can be seen further down the pass into the Philippine Sea, and the pass ends just to the east of New Zealand. A lightning storm can be seen as light pulses near the end of the video.

Country	Area km²	Population	Population density per km²	HDI (2010)	Capital
China (PRC)	9,596,961	1,339,724,852	138	0.663	Beijing
Hong Kong, China	1,104	7,061,200	6,390	0.862	Hong Kong
Japan	377,930	127,950,000	337	0.884	Tokyo
Macau, China	30	556,800	18,662	No Data	Macau
Mongolia	1,564,100	2,809,600	2	0.622	Ulaanbaatar
North Korea	120,538	24,346,000	198	No Data	Pyongyang
South Korea	99,828	48,988,833	500	0.877	Seoul
Taiwan (ROC)	36,188	23,174,528	639	0.868	Taipei

Economy

Main article: Economy of East Asia

Country	GDP nominal millions of USD (2010)	GDP nominal per capita USD (2010)	GDP PPP millions of USD (2010)	GDP PPP per capita USD (2010)
China (PRC)	5,878,257	4,382	10,085,708	7,519
Hong Kong, China	225,003	31,591	322,486	45,277
Japan	5,458,872	42,820	4,309,432	33,805
Macau, China	26,184	47,607	23,582	42,876
Mongolia	5,807	2,111	10,256	3,727
North Korea	27,820	1,159	40,000	1,800
South Korea	1,007,084	20,591	1,457,063	29,791
Taiwan (ROC)	430,580	18,458	821,781	35,227

Cities

Main article: Cities of East Asia

• 

  Tokyo is the largest city in the world, both in metropolitan population and economy.

• 

  Seoul is the capital and largest city of South Korea (ROK), and is a leading global technology hub.

• 

  Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan. Kaohsiung Harbor is one of the largest harbors in the world.

• 

  Shanghai is the largest city in China and one of the largest in the world, and is the leading commercial and financial centre of mainland China.

• 

  Taipei is the capital of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and is one of the world's leading technical centres in Asia.

• 

  Hong Kong, enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, is one of the world's leading global financial centres and is known for its cosmopolitan lifestyle.

See also

	Geography portal
	Asia portal

Compare Regions of Asia described by UN:

  North Asia

  Central Asia

  Southwest Asia

  South Asia

  East Asia

  Southeast Asia

• East Asia Summit
• East Asian Community
• East Asian Games
• East Asian studies
• East Asian languages
• East Asian calligraphy
• Four Asian Tigers
• Sinosphere
• Yakutia

Notes and references

1. ^ The area figure is based on the combined areas of the People's Republic of China (including Hong Kong, Macau, Aksai Chin, and Trans-Karakoram Tract), Japan, North Korea, South Korea, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Vietnam as listed at List of countries and outlying territories by total area.
2. ^ The population figure is the combined populations of the People's Republic of China (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau), Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and Republic of China (Taiwan) as listed at List of countries by population (last updated Feb 22, 2010).
3. ^ ^{a b c} "East Asia". encarta. Microsoft. Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. http://www.webcitation.org/5kwbU9Hqq. Retrieved 2008-01-12. "East A·sia [ st áyə ] the countries, territories, and regions of China, Hong Kong, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Macau, and Taiwan." 
4. ^ Columbia 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."
5. ^ See, List of countries by population density
6. ^ ^{a b} "Northeast Asia." Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved on August 10, 2009.
7. ^ Chongho Kim, "Korean Shamanism", 2003 Ashgate Publishing
8. ^ Andreas Anangguru Yewangoe, "Theologia crucis in Asia", 1987 Rodopi
9. ^ "Background Note: South Korea". State. U.S. Department of State. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2800.htm. Retrieved 2000-04-27. 
10. ^ [1], Britannica Online Encyclopedia, saying: "The present political boundaries of China, which include Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Sinkiang, and the northeastern provinces formerly called Manchuria, embrace a far larger area of East Asia than will be discussed here...."
11. ^ ^{a b} The Republic of China (ROC) has limited recognition internationally as a sovereign state, see Political status of Taiwan
12. ^ Columbia University East Asian Cultural Sphere
13. ^ R. Keith Schopper's East Asia: Identities and Change in the Modern World [2]
14. ^ 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]
15. ^ United Nations Environment Programme (mentions sinosphere countries) Approaches to Solution of Eutrophication [4]
16. ^ "Encarta Encyclopedia". Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. http://www.webcitation.org/5kwbUdIqJ. 
17. ^ Nanto, Dick K. (2006-09-18). "East Asian Regional Architecture: New Economic and Security Arrangements and U.S. Policy". Congressional Research Service. p. 2. http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/75280.pdf. 
18. ^ Discussed in Christopher M. Dent (2008), East Asian regionalism. London: Routledge, pp.1-8
19. ^ Charles Harvie, Fukunari Kimura, and Hyun-Hoon Lee (2005), New East Asian regionalism. Cheltenham and Northamton: Edward Elgar, pp.3-6.
20. ^ Peter J. Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi (2006), Beyond Japan: the dynamics of East Asian regionalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp.1-33

External links

• High resolution map of East Asian region