Asia

[ ey-zhuh, ey-shuh ]

noun
  1. a continent bounded by Europe and the Arctic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. About 16,000,000 square miles (41,440,000 square kilometers).

Words that may be confused with Asia

Words Nearby Asia

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How to use Asia in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for Asia

Asia

/ (ˈeɪʃə, ˈeɪʒə) /


noun
  1. the largest of the continents, bordering on the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean and Red Seas in the west. It includes the large peninsulas of Asia Minor, India, Arabia, and Indochina and the island groups of Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Ceylon (Sri Lanka); contains the mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush, Himalayas, Pamirs, Tian Shan, Urals, and Caucasus, the great plateaus of India, Iran, and Tibet, vast plains and deserts, and the valleys of many large rivers including the Mekong, Irrawaddy, Indus, Ganges, Tigris, and Euphrates. Pop: 3 917 508 000 (2005 est). Area: 44 391 162 sq km (17 139 445 sq miles)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for Asia

Asia

World's largest continent, joined to Europe to the west, forming Eurasia.

Notes for Asia

Site of some of the world's earliest civilizations.

Notes for Asia

With three-fifths of the world's population, Asia has some of the world's greatest population densities.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.