Talk:Geography of Asia

Extremes
This article labels the islands of the Aegean Sea as Europan, while on the other hand the article Transcontinental country assign those islands closest to the mainland of Asia Minor to Asia. Which is more correct? Which criteria are used?
 * Just after World War I Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Mustafa Kemal nearly ruined their healths going ove the map of the new Turkey night after night trying to come up with a border that would not include masses of non-Turkish people within it. They came up with a true compromise because no one at all was happy with it. The Armenians relocated by this process felt they were again being persecuted by the Turks. The Greeks relocated off the coast of Anatolia similarly felt they were being betrayed and persecuted. Most of the Aegean islands went to Greece. Here and there islands close to the coast and part of Cyprus went to Turkey. There is no political unity "Aegean Islands" matching the ancient Aegean Islands exactly. In greater maps of Asia this fined-tuned situation is not shown at all. The edge of Asia is the coast of Turkey with Cyprus shown divided. In an overall article such as this I think we want to let well enough alone. The more specific articles can cover the circumstances leading to the current border of Turkey. Similarly, what do you do with Constantinople? I'm leaving it in Europe. As for other articles, we should not seek total unity among all articles. That would amount to the supression of other views. There are plenty of paradoxes in life. Why should we expect an encyclopedia to be non-paradoxical?Dave (talk) 10:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

One China
As most of the world is adopting a "one china" policy, should Taiwan still be classifed as as Asian Nation?

That, and also I would like to state that this is so boring! I am doing the Asia Wise Competition and I don't even know half of the answers. Good thing I've been doing geography for what.............2 WEEKS!!! .FAIL.

Bibi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.244.196 (talk) 10:11, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Mga Katangiang Heograpikal ng Asya
umaabot ito sa 44,486 the monkey howls at night... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.55.173.2 (talk) 11:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Why is there no South Asia section
Why is there no South Asia section? Thegreyanomaly (talk) 22:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

CIA Map
Unfortunately this cropped map lacks a Middle East: File:Asia-map.png. I've been looking for a suitable substitute that did not duplicate the unmarked map shown under Asia. I would like to see a map with all of Asia on it and some of the political markings. There don't seem to be any in English; however, I found two great maps, one of regions and one a map with Polish names. Luckily these are very close to English names. So, I want to use both of those up top. If you find something better, let's see it.Dave (talk) 10:43, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Oops! Sorry, I just noticed that the Polish map puts all of Russia in Asia. I understand that point of view, as the Russian just picked up all of Poland and moved it to the west after World War II. Nevertheless we can't have that no matter how justified or unjustified. This is not a judgement seat, only an encyclopedia. So, that leaves the regional map. You know what? I think we are better off with some of the older maps so I am going to pick one out. I may not be able to get English but if we use a historical map such as Ortelius, it won't be in English anyway.Dave (talk) 10:53, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Intro issues
"It has an area, including islands, of roughly 789,694,700 km². Asia is joined to Africa by the Isthmus of Suez and to Europe by a long border generally following the Ural Mountains."

This is one of the most limned passages on all the Internet. I cannot tell now who originated it. Time for a change. You can easily search on that strange number, which is about double anyone else's number. Numbers need references. Also I suggest we use a few different estimates. The very best of references in this case is the modern Britannica's extensive article on Asia, under "Asia." I'm going to rewrite and expand the intro based on it and getting rid of that suspicious prose.Dave (talk) 11:18, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Copenhagen conventions
The Copenhagen conventions are listed as criteria for who can be in Europe. Oh no, that's not the way it works. We all know the Scandinavians along with most of the rest of Europe would like to boot Russia out of Europe into Asia, so they can be, as the Nazis used to portray them, the endless hordes of Asia that overran the fine, upstanding German heroes of the 3rd Reich. The criteria are over who can be in the European Union, not Europe. That will be the day when Scandinavia is going to tell us who is in Europe. Stick to Scandinavia, you might have better luck. The European Union was the brainchild of the western allies in the cold war who wanted to create a political unity that could oppose the Soviet Union. This was when the Russians customarily kept enough tanks in Kaliningrad to stretch end-to-end to the Atlantic. If they had ever got started they would not have got anywhere because of the huge traffic jam they would have caused. Unfortunately they all blew up one day in a gigantic non-nuclear explosion at Kaliningrad. Then an unfortunate nuclear accident made a chunk of the Ukraine unusable and polluted milk in Scandinavia. Those were the days. I remember when the EU was created and why. There was no secret about it. Naturally the Soviet Union was not welcome in the European Union even after it fell. However, there will always be an East Europe and Moscow will always be in it so just fold up your tents and steal way, we are not going to alter history on your account. The border has always been a matter of some dispute. Ptolemy placed it on the Don. The Urals have been the line for a few hundred years now and the EU and Copenhagen haven't a thing to do with it. For a while some people wanted to define Mississippi out the US (Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of) but that did not happen either. You can't do that. Not very good form.Dave (talk) 18:58, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Modification. There are a lot of agencies collecting and using GIS data on Asia. Many of these are private. They want to sell you the data. Among these there are a few who define European Russia as Asia. I have not yet located the source of this novel concept. I suspect it may be the Copenhagen conventions. In that case, if this is a legitimate point of view, it should be mentioned and the source identified. If I can find that I will do it, or you can do it. As the overwhelming majority of maps and sites are traditional, I do not think the Russia-Asia view should be treated as mainstream. I got a little heated about it here. Sorry. To me it is so outrageous. This is not a reduction of Europe but a political division of it. The people in the reduced Europe are exercising some new-found power to say, no you easterners cannot even be European unless we say so. I do not think it will generally catch on but we are covering minority views as minority views. I see this as the legacy of the cold war, but we don't editorialize in articles.Dave (talk) 10:36, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Inscrutable and unecessary note
"Continental regions as per UN categorisations (map), except 12. Depending on definitions, various territories cited below (notes 6, 11-13, 15, 17-19, 21-23) may be in one or both of Asia and Europe, Africa, or Oceania."

There is no note numbering scheme of this nature in this article. For the information, well, the same thing seems to have been said in multiple obscure locations. So, I put it in as a brief intro to this table. For the map, well, we already got that in the linked article, where it is up front and larger size. In the smaller maps, the legends were not operative so the point of the maps appeared obscure. I was able to fix that so we can see and identify the regions on those maps. Now that that section is functional and there is an intro to the table, there is no reason to interrupt the reader's train of thought with this inscrutable and uncecessary note. The whole thrust of the article is graphic so it is best not to throw editorial explanations into footnotes. If you look at it now I think you probably will agree. Better to implement the original intent than to clutter it up with note fixes.Dave (talk) 15:40, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Contradictory dates of population estimates
There was a note, now part of the intro, that the sources on populations are to be found in the linked articles. OK. Saves a lot of space. But in those articles we find national sources of varying dates. Thus the dates cannot be approximated by 2008 as the table currently says. I'm going to take out the 2008 and put the date on each entry in parentheses.Dave (talk) 16:40, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Security problem
This article is not locked. I've been able to make significant improvements and will make more. Just recently I got some vandalism. But, more seriously, someone made changes in my name, more of a provocation than anything really significant. Either this person broke my password and was able to log in as me or had such admin privileges as to be able to make it look like me. Whoever you are, do you mind? We are trying to do a serious article here for the public good. If you are an admin then you are a king A. and ought to be removed from your privileges without further delay. If you are just a hacker playing around then you must be someone I know, to be playing with me. I suppose I might know a few good enough or know someone who knows you. You are still a king A. Sooner or later you are going to encounter someone who takes you seriously when you are just playing around. Hacking into my area is no big deal. You must be trying to attract my attention. Don't tell me I have a secret admirer! You must be my very best fan. I don't know what to say to you except go away. This is a serious article here. If you got a serious comment make it in the open.Dave (talk) 20:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Transcontinental countries
Excuse me, what are we trying to do here with the table. Are we trying to sum up the population of Asia? Whose Asia? Not the United Nation's. Its Asia does not have a Russia. One of the graphics talks about a "geographical Asia." There is no uniform geographical Asia. Who is to define that? Us? Who? To wit, who is defining Azerbaijan as a transcontinental region? Since when was that ever a part of Europe? The definitions I see are based on the fact that it once belonged to the Soviet Union. Someone is drawing a line along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains. Who told you to do that? Asia in history most often included a big chunk of land north of the mountains. What we are doing here is playing diplomats offering to settle disputed borders on Wikipedia. We should quit doing that right now. That is original research. Let's take a second example. The border of Asia has been going along the Ural River for centuries now. But, it splits Kazhakhstan. Our intrepid WP editor can name some counties on one side and some of the other but a couple remain "transcontinental", indeterminate. What do you think we should do, draw some sort of line and start moving villages around like pawns on a chessboard? My name is not Mustafa Kemal or Woodrow Wilson last time I checked. We could offer our services to the State Department as arbiters of borders and populations, but I think the best thing to do is just drop that approach. This is a country table, not a district and village table. We are not trying to calculate the population of Asia by summing up all the districts. Sorry, we are not. It would take more than we got. We're only citing authorities. A man MUST know his limitations. The only country where the transcontinental status makes any significant difference is Russia. That is not in Asia, according to the UN, so we are winging it there. Maybe we should not even attempt that one. For the others, well, I'm sticking to countries and not bothering with districts and villages.Dave (talk) 02:38, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Any country which can be found to be in Asia in someone's authoritative list (UN, EU, CIA, etc) should be in the table of countries, with an appropriate note. Rather than term them a fancy "transcontinental" simply state that there is a difference of opinions. That is what the notes are for! The current table is seriously messed up - Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia are not in the table, yet are referenced in notes A and B. In fact, the table currently does not even have a pointer to note A.  Sadly note A is perfect - it tells me that the CIA things the countries are Asia, and the EU considers them Europe. As a reader that is exactly what I want to see - and then I can make my own decision as to whether I should consider Georgia to be an Asian, European, transcontinental, hypercontinental, splitcontiental, or any other kind of country. Spaceman13 (talk) 15:30, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

North Asia
I see someone rightly put some tags on the generalizations presented on North Asia by one or more previous editors. A proper response called for a rewrite, which I did. This rewrite is a summary, which does not need referential support here. The only questions might be whether it is an accurate summary. There is a link to the main article, North Asia, where these things are or ought to be considered. If you have issues, take them up there. If you think my summary is not accurate, put your own in so I can review it. And so on. Don't put any more tags in there. I think I addressed the issue raised by the original tags. The previous editors were implying that the UN had defined North Asia along with all the rest of Asia and were going over to their standard view of Asia. Sorry, they don't have a standard view of Asia and no one but them makes much use of the one they do have. This situation is consonant with the general problem of the United Nations prevailing from its onset: there are no United Nations. No one wants to give up any sovereignity. The allies, victors in WWII, were hoping to impose a unity that would abolish war but were soon relieved of those idealistic beliefs by the cold war. If you are looking for ideals in history, forget it. King Arthur and his knights, well, that is a lot of wishful thinking. The knights of the round table indeed! This encyclopedia should be for fact not fiction. The UN has no authority to impose, and is not imposing, any national standards of how we shall regard the nations of our fellow men. We can only adopt it here on WP at the price of suppressing other information. That was the mistake.Dave (talk) 12:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

The contradictory transcontinental concept
Here I think we really have to recognize some original research and reject it. The editors in the associated articles, which are tagged and are mainly unreferenced, define transcontinental and transcontinental countries. However, their definitions are not standard or referenced. They want to draw fine distinctions and make fine exceptions. No one else does. There is no universal standard as to what transcontinental shall mean. Some countries are on a transcontinental corridor, by virtue of which they are transcontinental. Others were previously in one continent and now are in another, by virtue of which they are transcontinental. The UN does not define any transcontinental and as far as I can see neither does anyone else, except for their own purposes. Our definition is strictly editorial. I won't say no one uses it, but that brings up a second problem. Before you can say a country is transcontinental you have to know where the continents are. We do generally but not precisely. The UN does not define any Asia or Europe. It defines regions and accepts countries. Not everyone agrees that its countries are in Asia or in its designated regions. It does not agree either. It makes arbitrary distinctions that are statistically or operationally convenient, which it says. There are many questions of borders, regions and continents throughout Eurasia. WP cannot undertake to settle these. If the UN does not, how can WP? Our editors want to define transcontinental, define Asia, define what countries are in Asia, then split the populations of the nations to conform toa scheme they have devised. I don't think so. Let's not have WP editorial geography, let's have geography. The very first note of the table notes contradicts the whole transcontinental concept and makes it impossible to decide just what Azerbaijan is. But, it goes ahead and splits Azerbaijan anyway. Let's not enshrine this original research as stability. Let's get rid of it. We can still have country data. The totals need to come out. Just what are they totals of? People in Asia or out of it? What Asia is being represented there? I've already said, not the UN's. So this will take a bit more work. Nice table though. Great idea to have it. I would not say you wasted any time with it. Let's keep it in perspective.Dave (talk) 01:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

China Problem
The classification given by the Statistics Division of the UN is really quite problematical. I would even go so far as to say it is quite wierd. No wonder no one in the UN follows it. I wouldn't, either, until it starts making an effort to make some sense. But enough of the editorial. The main editors of these Asia geographical articles apparently have focused on this strange agency as the world geographic oracle, perhaps overawed by its "United Nations" monicker. I'd argue they could as easily be called the disunited non-nations as far as their unity and nationalism are concerned. I certainly wouldn't use them as a standard anything. There's no standard. All the other agencies inside and outside the UN pretty much ignore them. This is let's don't and say we do. But, I'm going along with the mainstream of WP in this area. Now, the UN stats recognize Hong Kong, and they recognize Macao, but apparently they do not recognize Taiwan. There seem to be no code for it, only one for "China." I'm still reeling from the Russia shock. Siberia, welcome to Europe! Maybe Herodotus was right. I know perfectly well that the other editors are not going to let me get away with lumping together the ROC and the PROC. They would not consider this objective. The PROC can't call the ROC their country until they can secure its borders for themselves, which the US is not going to let them do. Our intrepid UN statistics division recognizes N and S Korea and isn't going to listen to any baloney that N and S are one. So what is it doing with China? Frankly I got no idea. This means I cannot use the China code because WP recognizes two states here. This reliance on the UN I think was an unfortunate choice. WP scheme is and is not UN. I would have been much happier with the CIA, which, now that its role includes informing the public instead of disinforming it, is rising to new heights of glory, a sort of Nova Roma. So, I'm making the appropriate minor changes to the table. The WP China will not have a code. It will have to go into the notes.Dave (talk) 01:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikitable sortable
Just before I deleted the geopolitical table from Asia as a duplicate someone made it sortable. This is a misapplication of sortability. The order is in fact a critical part of the table. It is divided into sections by title. As soon as you do one sort on any column the original order is irrecoverably gone and the table becomes nonsensical. To apply sortability, you would have to redesign the table. But, I like it the way it is.Dave (talk) 11:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Iraqi Kurdistan level of autonomy
A "Request for Comments" has been opened at Iraqi Kurdistan talk page, whether to include Iraqi Kurdistan region as part of the list of political entities in Asia. The question is whether Iraqi Kurdistan is of similar status of autonomy as Hong Kong and Macau, to be included in template:Asia topic. Please discuss at Iraqi Kurdistan talk page.GreyShark (dibra) 14:25, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Missing map
There are several maps, but not a single one corresponds to the regions as listed in the article. I understand that one may not exist in sources, but there are a lot of user-created maps for such situations in Wikipedia. Sorry I don't have time to do this myself! Holy (talk) 19:27, 22 February 2021 (UTC)