East Asia
Area	11,839,074 km2 (4,571,092 sq mi)[note 1]
Population	1,575,784,500[note 2]
Density	133 /km2 (340 /sq mi)
Countries and territories	People's Republic of China    Hong Kong    Macau  Japan  North Korea  South Korea  Mongolia  Taiwan
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 New Taipei Osaka Shanghai Yokohama (see list)

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East Asia, core areas in dark green, other areas sometimes considered part of it in light green

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^[1] or cultural^[2] 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.^{[note 3]} 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.^[3] 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,^[4][5] and recently Christianity in South Korea.^[6] The Chinese Calendar is the root from which many other East Asian calendars are derived.

History[link]

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Uses of the term East Asia[link]

Regions of Asia as defined by UN:

  North Asia

  Central Asia

  Southwest Asia

  South Asia

  East Asia

  Southeast Asia

The UN subregion of Eastern Asia and other common definitions^[1] of East Asia contain the entirety of the People's Republic of China,^[7] Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia^[1] and Taiwan (officially the Republic of China).^{[note 4]}

Culturally, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Alternative definitions[link]

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^[12] (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^{[note 4]} 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.^[13] 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".^[14][15][16] The Council on Foreign Relations defines Northeast Asia as Japan and Korea.^[3]

Territory and region data[link]

Demographics[link]

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 (2011)	Capital
China (PRC)	9,596,961	1,339,724,852	138	0.687	Beijing
Hong Kong (PRC)	1,104	7,061,200	6,390	0.898	Hong Kong
Japan	377,930	127,950,000	337	0.901	Tokyo
Macau (PRC)	30	556,800	18,662	No Data	Macau
Mongolia	1,564,100	2,809,600	2	0.653	Ulaanbaatar
North Korea	120,538	24,346,000	198	No Data	Pyongyang
South Korea	99,828	48,988,833	500	0.897	Seoul
Taiwan (ROC)	36,188	23,174,528	639	0.882	Taipei

Economy[link]

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 (PRC)	225,003	31,591	322,486	45,277
Japan	5,458,872	42,820	4,309,432	33,805
Macau (PRC)	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[link]

• 

  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, and is the location of the Taipei 101. Night View of Taipei

• 

  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[link]

	Geography portal
	Asia portal

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