Geography of Asia

Asia

The border between Europe and Asia is debated. Most geographers define Asia’s western border as a line that follows the Ural Mountains, the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas. Asia is bordered by the Arctic, Pacific and the Indian Oceans. Asia can be divided into five physical regions: mountain systems, plateaus, plains, steppes and deserts.

Mountain Systems

The Himalaya mountains extend for about 2,500 kilometers, separating the Indian subcontinent from the rest of Asia. The Indian subcontinent is still crashing northward into Asia, and the Himalayas are growing about 5 centimeters (2 inches) every year.

Himalayas Mountains

The Himalayas cover more than 612,000 square kilometers through the northern states of India and making up most of the terrain of Nepal and Bhutan. The Himalayas include the highest mountain summit in the world, Mount Everest, which stands at 8,850 meters.

The Tien Shan mountain system stretches for about 2,400 kilometers, straddling the border between Kyrgyzstan and China.

The Ural Mountains run for approximately 2,500 kilometers in an indirect north-south line from Russia to Kazakhstan. The Ural Mountains are some of the world’s oldest, at 250 million to 300 million years old.

Plateaus 

Asia is home to many plateaus, areas of relatively level high ground. The Iranian plateau covers more than 3.6 million square kilometers, encompassing most of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

The Tibetan Plateau is usually considered the largest and highest area ever to exist in the history of Earth. Known as the “Rooftop of the World,” the plateau covers an area about half the size of the contiguous United States and averages more than 5,000 meters above sea level. The Tibetan Plateau is extremely important to the world’s water cycle because of its tremendous number of glaciers. These glaciers contain the largest volume of ice outside the poles. The ice and snow from these glaciers feed Asia’s largest rivers. Approximately 2 billion people depend on the rivers fed by the plateau’s glaciers. 

Plains, Steppes, and Deserts

The West Siberian Plain, located in central Russia, is considered one of the world’s largest areas of continuous flatland. It extends from north to south about 2,400 kilometers and from west to east about 1,900 kilometers. With more than 50 percent of its area at less than 100 meters above sea level, the plain contains some of the world’s largest swamps and flood plains.

Central Asia is dominated by a steppe landscape, a large area of flat, unforested grassland. Mongolia can be divided into different steppe zones: the mountain forest steppe, the arid steppe, and the desert steppe. These zones transition from the country’s mountainous region in the north to the Gobi Desert on the southern border with China. 

Rub' al Khali Desert

The Rub’ al Khali desert, considered the world’s largest sand sea, covers an area larger than France across Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. It holds roughly half as much sand as Africa’s Sahara desert, even though it is 15 times smaller in size.

Freshwater

Lake Baikal, located in southern Russia, is the deepest lake in the world, reaching a depth of 1,620 meters (5,315 feet). The lake contains 20 percent of the world’s unfrozen freshwater, making it the largest reservoir on Earth. It is also the world’s oldest lake, at 25 million years old. 

Yangtze River

The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world (behind the Amazon of South America and the Nile of Africa). The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers begin in the highlands of eastern Turkey and flow through Syria and Iraq, joining in the city of Qurna, Iraq, before emptying into the Persian Gulf. The land between the two rivers, known as Mesopotamia, was the center of the earliest civilizations, including Sumer and the Akkadian Empire.

Saltwater

The Persian Gulf has an area of more than 234,000 square kilometers. It borders Iran, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Iraq. The gulf is subject to high rates of evaporation, making it shallow and extremely salty. The seabed beneath the Persian Gulf contains an estimated 50 percent of the world’s oil reserves. The countries that border the gulf have engaged in a number of disputes over this rich resource.

The Sea of Okhotsk covers 1.5 million square kilometers between the Russian mainland and the Kamchatka Peninsula. The sea is largely frozen between October and March. Large ice floes make navigation in winter almost impossible.

The Bay of Bengal is the largest bay in the world, covering almost 2.2 million square kilometers and bordering Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Burma. Many large rivers, including the Ganges and Brahmaputra, empty into the bay. The briny wetlands formed by the Ganges-Brahmaputra on the Bay of Bengal is the largest delta in the world.

Bay of Bengal

Bibliography:

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/asia/?ar_a=1

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/north-america-physical-geography/?ar_a=1