Asia

Asia as modernly defined.

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and comprises 30% of its land area. With approximately 4.3 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population.

Asia is defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma–Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean.

Historically, Asia is home to some of the world's oldest cultures. However, the movement towards colonization of distant lands never took off in Asia as it did in Europe. Thus, even the largest Asian empires usually had very little in the realm of overseas territory.

Asia in 1632

Asia was entering a state of transition as trade with Europeans was on the rise with European ideas, technology and missionaries coming along with trade. By 1635 the Mughal Empire had made sent an ambassador to Grantville as had Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, the 5th Dalai Lama. Additionally, in 1635 a group of Japanese Christians residing in Cambodia had been told of the religious freedom in Grantville by a Dutch friend and had resolved to move there to start new lives.