Asia

Asia is the largest of the continents, having a geographic area of about 17,000,000 square miles, or about one-third of the whole of the dry land. It is also the oldest known portion of the globe, the earliest known seat of civilization, and, in all probability, the cradle of the human race, although scholars differ as to whether the primitive home of mankind should be located in South-western Asia, and more particularly in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, as the Biblical tradition of Genesis seems to indicate, or rather in Central Asia, and more particularly in the Indo-Iranian plateau. On the north, Asia is bounded by the Arctic Ocean; on the east, by the Pacific Ocean; on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the West by Europe, the Black Sea, the Greek Archipelago, the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea. It is united with Africa by the desert Isthmus of Suez, and with Europe by the Caucasus Mountains and the long Ural range. +