Search results
East Asia is a region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. [7] [8] The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. [2] [3] [4] [5] Hong Kong and Macau, two coastal cities located in the south of China, are autonomous regions under Chinese sovereignty.
- Overview
- Geology and relief
- Plant life
- Animal life
- Languages
- Religion
- Economy
- History of East Asia
East Asia, region of Asia consisting of Japan, North and South Korea, China, Mongolia, and Taiwan. An old term for the region is the Far East, a name that arose among Europeans, who considered this region in the continent to their east to be “far” from Europe in terms of traveling time. East Asia lies mostly within the temperate zone, and thus the ...
The main topographical features in the northern region of East Asia include the Da Hinggan, Xiao Hinggan, and Bureya ranges; the Zeya-Bureya Depression and the Sikhote-Alin ranges; the lowlands of the Amur and Sungari rivers and Lake Khanka; the Manchurian-Korean highlands running along North Korea’s border with China; the ranges extending along the eastern side of the Korean peninsula; the Northeast (Manchurian) Plain; the lowlands of the Liao River basin; and the North China Plain. Most of those features were formed by folding, faulting, or broad zonal subsidence. The mountains are separated by alluvial lowlands in areas where recent subsidence has occurred.
The mountains of southeastern China were formed from Precambrian and Paleozoic remnants of the Yangtze paraplatform by folding and faulting that occurred during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. The mountain ranges are numerous, are of low or moderate elevation, and occupy most of the surface area, leaving only small, irregularly shaped plains.
The islands off the coast of East Asia and the Kamchatka Peninsula are related formations. The Ryukyu Islands, Japan, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands are uplifted fragments of the Ryukyu-Korean, Honshu-Sakhalin, and Kuril-Kamchatka mountain-island arcs. Dating from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras, those arcs have complex knots at their junctions, represented by the topography of the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Hokkaido. The mountains are of low or moderate height and are formed of folded and faulted blocks; some volcanic mountains and small alluvial lowlands also are to be found.
Kamchatka is a mountainous peninsula formed from fragments of the Kamchatka-Koryak and Kuril-Kamchatka arcs, which occur in parallel ranges. The geologically young folds enclose rigid ancient structures. Cenozoic (including contemporary) volcanism is pronounced, and the peninsula has numerous geysers and hot springs. Vast plains exist that are composed of alluviums and volcanic ashes.
The temperate deciduous forests of northern Asia reach down to the Shandong plain and give way toward the west to the desert vegetation of Mongolia. Oak, elm, ash, walnut and many other trees are found. Some hardy bamboos survive in Korea. Mongolia is the eastern end of the central Asiatic desert region and owes its dry condition to the inability of the summer monsoons to penetrate far inland because of the mountain chains that fringe its southern and eastern borders. The better, though by no means abundant vegetation of the loess region, which lies below the Huang He (Yellow River) and north of the mountain ranges extending east from Tibet, is the result not primarily of greater precipitation, but of the greater water-holding capacity of this richer and finer soil.
Are you a student? Get Britannica Premium for only 24.95 - a 67% discount!
Learn More
Central China, encompassing largely the Yangtze valley and including most of the Yunnan plateau, contains much of the rich and distinctive warm temperate flora which characterizes eastern Asia. A similar type of flora is also found in central Japan. Central China is cut off by mountains from the severe northern influences and is bathed by summer monsoons from the China Sea. The irregular weather of the northern part frequently results in droughts that profoundly affect the vegetation and the conditions of human life. The southern portion of this middle area contains a larger proportion of more southern plants such as broad-leaved evergreen trees—laurels and banyans—which are absent in the north. Members of preponderantly tropical families such as tea (Theaceae) and mahogany (Meliaceae) are also found.
The eastern part of the region—consisting of northeastern and eastern China, the Korean peninsula, and Japan—has several endemic varieties of deer. The Siberian tiger, originally native to southeastern Siberia, northeastern China, and Korea, now survives only in a small region along the border between Russia and China. The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) inhabits the mountain forests of south-central China; the lesser, or red, panda (Ailurus fulgens) is a much smaller Himalayan mammal. Some species of animals are endemic to Japan, including a monkey related to the tailless Barbary macaque of Gibraltar.
The large rivers of China have a rich fish life. Among the most notable species is the Chinese sturgeon (Acipenser sinensis), a critically endangered freshwater fish whose population declined nearly 98 percent between 1973 and 2010. The decline has been associated with water pollution in the Yangtze and dam construction that has blocked access to or changed the flow regime near the sturgeon’s remaining spawning areas. Another freshwater animal is the giant salamander, found in Japanese waters. Southeast Asia and southern China are the home of most members of the carp family, from which the various forms of goldfish are derived.
The languages of Asia are richly diverse. The vast majority of the people of continental Asia speak a language in one of three large language families. The first, Altaic, consists of the Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu-Tungus (Tungusic) subfamilies. The second, Sino-Tibetan, includes the Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages. Finally, the Indo-European...
Ancient Chinese religious and philosophical traditions survive in the form of two main schools, Daoism (Taoism) and Confucianism, both of which originated in the 5th or 6th century bce. The two schools differ in orientation—Daoism stressing mystical experience and the individual’s harmony with nature and Confucianism emphasizing the duty of the individual in society and government—but both have profoundly influenced Chinese and Chinese-derived culture. Indigenous Chinese folk religious traditions continue to influence the practice of both Daoism and Confucianism, as well as Buddhism, which has many adherents in China. Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism are also widespread in Korea, where indigenous Korean religious traditions remain important as well.
Shintō encompasses the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of the Japanese people. Although among some practitioners that tradition has absorbed the influences of other belief systems, such as Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, its fundamental principles linking sacred power, ritual observance, and imperial nationhood remain unique to Japanese culture.
Christianity is practiced by sizable minorities in many Asian countries, most notably South Korea. About one-sixth of the South Korean population adheres to so-called new religions. These include Wŏnbulgyo (Wŏn Buddhism), Taejonggyo (“Great Ancestral Religion”), and Ch’ŏndogyo. In North Korea, juche (“self-reliance”) is a national personality cult devoted to Kim Il-Sung and his descendants.
In addition to the major religions discussed above, numerous localized spiritual practices are found throughout East Asia. Shamanistic cults are found in South Korea and Japan.
East Asia contains some of the world’s most developed countries, and much of this growth has occurred in the period since World War II. From the ashes of the war, Japan has emerged as one of the world’s leading economies. South Korea and Taiwan experienced “economic miracles” in the second half of the 20th century, rapidly progressing from agricultural societies to economies that were based on services and high-technology exports. By the 2020s these two countries alone accounted for more than two-thirds of global semiconductor production.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 ushered in Mongolia’s transition from a command economy to a market economy; over the next 30 years, Mongolia’s gross domestic product (GDP) more than tripled. In the 21st century, mining and agriculture remained the dominant sectors of the Mongolian economy, with services—particularly tourism—showing promising growth. The demise of Soviet communism produced a starkly different result in North Korea, where the Kim regime had relied heavily on aid from Moscow and its eastern European satellites. Much about the North Korean economy remains a matter of conjecture, but it is known that the 1990s saw widespread food shortages that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. An attempt to curb black market activity led to economic upheaval in 2009, when a currency revaluation wiped out what little savings may have existed among the North Korean populace. Although it was one of the poorest countries on Earth, North Korea continued to devote extensive resources to its widely condemned nuclear weapons program.
China has molded the civilization of East Asia, including Japan and Korea, and has been a primary influence on Mongolia, Tibet, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar. Wherever Chinese influence exerted itself, it introduced Confucianism, a distinctive style of art, and, above all, the Chinese script. A brief treatment of East Asian history follows. For full treatment, see: China; Japan; Mongolia; North Korea; South Korea; and Taiwan.
Chinese civilization appears in northern China in the latter half of the 2nd millennium bce. The discovery at Anyang in Henan province in 1899 of thousands of bone fragments, many of them inscribed, provided some of the earliest archaeological evidence of the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 bce). Early Chinese civilization grew in the Yellow River plain extending southward toward the Yangtze and westward and northward along the Wei and Fen valleys in Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces. During the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 bce), the great formative age of Chinese civilization, the intervening areas populated by less powerful groups were conquered and absorbed.
In Han times (206 bce–220 ce) the centre of Chinese culture was still in the north, but by the Song dynasty (960–1279) the Yangtze valley began to outweigh the north in population and importance. Chinese expansion to the north, which reached the steppelands during the Zhou dynasty, was much slower and it came to a halt on the Steppe, among the nomadic herdsmen, where the Chinese system of settled agriculture could not be applied. This conflict between two ways of life resulted in the building by the Chinese of a series of defensive walls, finally linked together into the Great Wall.
Korea and Vietnam came under Chinese dominance in the Han period, but the former broke free again in the 7th century ce and the latter in the 10th century. Both continued to assimilate Chinese culture. Japan, on the other hand, was a united power by the 4th century ce and never came under Chinese rule. However, Japan received the first elements of higher culture from China through Korea, and in later times Japan set itself with determination and success to absorb Chinese culture.
In early historical times in China, society was dominated by a hereditary ruling class whose religion, involving the cult of heaven and of the family and clan, was not shared by the masses. The rulers were the custodians of the written language and of the traditions, and the scholars among them gradually formed during a period of political troubles a system of ethics and political theory which the philosophers Confucius and Mencius preserved and transmitted to posterity. These thinkers, moreover, had evolved the rational, ethical ideal of the ruler, the “son of heaven,” holding the mandate of heaven but not himself divine and capable of being replaced if his conduct betrayed his position. Theirs, too, was the ideal of the supremacy of learning and of the scholar-ruler which became the accepted standard of the mandarin administrators of imperial China.
Many centuries passed, however, before the ideal of government through bureaucracy, selected on the basis of learning and merit, reached its fulfillment. Not until the Tang dynasty (618–907) was the examination system, through which the mandarins were selected, functioning fully. This administrative system undoubtedly provided the backbone of the remarkable political continuity of the Chinese empire and helped to strengthen the ideal of political unity, “all under heaven,” which was throughout a feature of Chinese political theory. The actual achievement of unity under the Qin dynasty (221–207 bce) set the standard for the following 2,000 years, a unity which persisted through about 20 successive dynasties. Different as was the empire of the 19th century ce from that of the Qin, it had in fact undergone no major political revolution in the interim. Rebellions might take place, provinces might break away, rulers might change or be changed, but the system persisted.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Aug 16, 2020 · A map showing countries considered to be part of East Asia. East Asia is the most populous region in the world. China is the most populous country in East Asia, and the world, with more than 1.4 billion people. Macao has East Asia's smallest population, but it is the most densely populated territory on Earth.
East Asia | Asia Society. Housing three of the world’s largest economies and most influential nations — China, Japan, and South Korea — as well as Hong Kong, Macau, Mongolia, North Korea, and Taiwan — East Asia is a vital center of gravity in the Asia-Pacific.
People also ask
Which countries are part of East Asia?
What is East Asia?
Is East Asia a Sino-Tibetan-speaking region?
What are the three major East Asian economies?
East Asia is a region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. Hong Kong and Macau, two coastal cities located in the south of China, are autonomous regions under Chinese sovereignty.
- Dōngyǎ/Dōngyà or Dōng Yǎxìyǎ/Dōng Yàxìyà
- Tung1-ya3
- dung1 aa3
East Asia [encompasses] ... the modern countries that can trace some degree of evolutionary continuity back to the earliest Neolithic and Bronze Age developments in what is now China ... [ Genesis of EA, p. 3] The four countries of East Asia today: China. Japan. Korea. Vietnam. Back to top.
East Asia generally encompasses the histories of China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan from prehistoric times to the present. [1] Each of its countries has a different national history, but East Asian Studies scholars maintain that the region is also characterized by a distinct pattern of historical development. [2]
