Asia is Earth’s largest and most populous continent, located primarily within the Eastern and Northern Hemispheres. It shares the continental landmass of Eurasia with the continent of Europe and therefore the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Europe and Africa. Asia covers a neighbourhood of 44,579,000 square kilometres (17,212,000 sq. mi), about 30% of Earth’s total acreage and eight .7% of the Earth’s total area. The continent, which has long been home to the bulk of the human population, was the location of the many of the primary civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its overall large size and population, but also dense and enormous settlements, also as vast barely populated regions. Its 4.5 billion people (as of June 2019) constitute roughly 60% of the world’s population.
Given its size and variety , the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may even have more to try to with human geography than physiography . Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with reference to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, and government systems. It also features a mixture of many various climates starting from the equatorial south via the recent desert within the Middle East, temperate areas within the east and therefore the continental centre to vast subarctic and polar areas in Siberia.