Asia

American  

[ay-zhuh, ay-shuh] / ˈeɪ ʒə, ˈeɪ ʃə /

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).

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Asia British  

/ ˈeɪʒə, ˈeɪʃə /

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)

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Asia Cultural  

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

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Site of some of the world's earliest civilizations.

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

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Asia

As AI use accelerates, construction of power-hungry data centres is booming worldwide, especially in Asia.

From Barron's ● Oct. 11, 2026

"In a time of state surveillance and cyber-attacks, Signal is a tool for survival," says Hera Hussain, founder of the gender abuse charity Chayn, which is active throughout South Asia.

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026

“We don’t know how things would develop from here,” one of the executive-level people reportedly told Nikkei Asia in relation to the company reducing its orders for parts for the newly launched premium phones.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026

“This is not the big bazooka,” said Frederic Neumann, HSBC’s chief Asia economist.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

Some of the scales that sound "exotic" to the Western ear are taken from the musical traditions of eastern Europe, the Middle East, and western Asia.

From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones