Global Environment.com

Asia & Oceania

Asia extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean and from the tropical islands of the East Indies to the frozen shores of the Arctic. Most of its boundary is shoreline; only the boundary with Europe needs to be defined.

Asia so defined has an area of about 15 million sq miles. Geologically it is made up of two vast sets of rock platforms - the Russian and Siberian in the north, and the Arabian, Indian and chinese platforms in the south, which for eons have converged upon each other, squeezing between them an enormous extent of sedimentary rocks that were laid down in ancient seas. The platforms provide the great, stable plateau on the periphery; the sediments have been squeezed and folded into the massive mountain ranges that spread across the continent from Turkey in the west to the Pacific seaboard in the east.

Climatically Asia includes almost every known combination of temperature, precipitation and wind, from the searing heat of Arabia in summer to the biting chill of north-east Siberia in winter. Similarly, almost every pattern of vegetation from polar desert and tundra to tropical rain forest can be found within the bounds of this vast continent.

Asia comprises a 'heartland' centered on Siberia, and a series of peripheral areas of widely different character. The heartland includes the tundra wastes of the north, the coniferous forests, and the vast, thinly-populated interior deserts of Mongolia and Tibet. Not entirely desert, some of the heartland was traditionally pastoral and is now responding to new agricultural techniques; the wealth of its minerals is slowly being developed. To the west lie the plains of Russia. To the south-west lies the 'fertile crescent' of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys (Iraq), possibly the world's first centre of agriculture, and beyond it the Mediterranean coastlands of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

From Iran eastward, right around the shores of the continent and its off-lying islands as far as eastern Siberia, lie the monsoon coastlands that contain and support the main masses of Asia's populations. India, isolated by the northern mountain barrier, has traditionally formed a sub-continent in her own right. China holds the second great civilization of Asia. Beyond the mainland coast lie the mountainous but highly fertile islands of the volcanic arcs that skirt the whole eastern edge of the continental shelf. The populations of these islands are among the fastest growing in the world - Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia.

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Oceania is a collective term for islands of the Pacific Ocean, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Indonesia. The Pacific is the largest expanse of water in the world, occupying more than a third of the earth's surface. Oceania is characterized by a seemingly bewildering array of islands, of varying origins. Some are coral islands, others volcanic and yet others, such as New Guinea, 'continental' islands.

Melanesia (the black islands)comprises New Guinea and the larger groups near Australia. The name refers to the dark complexion of the fine-featured people with black, frizzy hair who are today the main indigenous coastal dwellers of the south-west Pacific.

Polynesia (many islands) includes numerous scattered islands in the central Pacific.

Micronesia (the small islands) includes the many minute coral islands north of Melanesia and a narrow Polynesian 'corridor' linking the Society Islands with south-east Asia.

Sydney, Australia

Bora Bora, Polynesia

Tahiti, Polynesia