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113-616: The Chinese American community is the largest overseas Chinese community outside Asia . It is also the third-largest community in the Chinese diaspora , behind the Chinese communities in Thailand and Malaysia . The 2022 American Community Survey of the U.S. Census estimated the population of Chinese Americans alone or in combination to be 5,465,428, including 4,258,198 who were Chinese alone, and 1,207,230 who were part Chinese. According to

226-619: A 54/44 split in California , a 58/40 split in New York , and a 48/51 split in America as a whole on Election Day itself. In the 2012 presidential election , 81% of Chinese American voters selected Barack Obama over Mitt Romney . Chinese American cuisine originated with this ethnic group. Many immigrants in the mid-20th century used Chinese restaurants as a way of having employment. By 2019, many such establishments were closing because

339-507: A South Asian country, emerges as one of the world's fastest movers since 1970 mainly due to health and education achievements. Its present life expectancy is 25 years longer than in the 1970s. More than four of every five children of school age in Nepal now attend primary school, compared to just one in five 40 years ago. Hong Kong ranked highest among the countries grouped on the HDI (number 7 in

452-494: A hearing. Some even committed suicide as they feared being denied access to the country. Once they were approved and allowed into the country, Chinese women migrants faced additional challenges. Many were coerced into prostitution, with over 60% of the adult Chinese women living in California in 1870 working in the trade. Some women were lured to the U.S. with the promise of marriage only to become sex slaves, while others went to

565-621: A major hub for outsourcing. Trade between Asian countries and countries on other continents is largely carried out on the sea routes that are important for Asia. Individual main routes have emerged from this. The main route leads from the Chinese coast south via Hanoi to Jakarta, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur through the Strait of Malacca via the Sri Lankan Colombo to the southern tip of India via Malé to East Africa Mombasa (see also: Indo-Pacific ), from there to Djibouti , then through

678-575: A marsh or lowland containing a marsh in Lydia as ασιος . The term was later adopted by the Romans , who used it in reference to the province of Asia , located in western Anatolia. One of the first writers to use Asia as a name of the whole continent was Pliny . The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions: East Asia , South Asia , Southeast Asia , Central Asia , and West Asia . The coastal periphery

791-627: A mild level of depression which was higher than other ethnic groups. Further, the study reported that these depressive symptoms among older Chinese adults "tend to remain untreated." According to the United States Census Bureau , the various varieties of Chinese make up the third-most spoken language in the United States. It is almost completely spoken within Chinese American populations and by immigrants or

904-707: A mix of many different climates ranging from the equatorial south via the hot deserts in parts of West Asia , Central Asia and South Asia , temperate areas in the east and the continental centre to vast subarctic and polar areas in North Asia . The boundary between Asia and Africa is the Suez Canal , the Gulf of Suez , the Red Sea , and the Bab-el-Mandeb . This makes Egypt a transcontinental country , with

1017-487: A paper citing severe stigma of mental illness in the Chinese American community as a barrier to diagnosis and treatment. In a 1998 study of 29 diagnosed depressive Chinese American immigrants, more than half of respondents avoided labeling their symptoms as depression. While patients were able to accurately identify and report depressive symptoms such as "irritability" and "rumination," patients were more likely to attribute their depression to somatic and physical symptoms than as

1130-493: A political party. Chinese Americans tend to be clustered in majority- Democratic states and have increasingly voted Democratic in recent presidential elections, following the trend for Asian Americans in general, excluding the Vietnamese Americans . Polling just before the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election found John Kerry was favored by 58% of Chinese Americans and George W. Bush by only 23%, as compared with

1243-600: A psychological state. Among Asian-American youth in 1980, suicide accounted for 20.8% of Chinese American female deaths. Among males, it constituted 15.1% of deaths. The study also reported that suicide rates among Chinese American elderly were higher than that of the national suicide rate for African-American, Hispanic, and Native-American. A study published in the Journal of Aging and Health, stated that 18% to 29.4% of older Chinese adults in North America had at least

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1356-639: A small city with a large number of colleges. Income and social status of these Chinese American locations vary widely. As of 2012 about 333,333 people living in the United States with a Chinese background are not United States citizens. Although many Chinese Americans in Chinatowns of large cities are often members of an impoverished working class, others are well-educated upper-class people living in affluent suburbs. The upper and lower-class Chinese are also widely separated by social status and class discrimination. In California's San Gabriel Valley , for example,

1469-546: A spectrum. China and India traded places as the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 CE. China was a major economic power for much of recorded history, with the highest GDP per capita until 1500. The Silk Road became the main east–west trading route in the Asian hinterlands while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during

1582-634: Is also another population center for Chinese Americans, as it contains the highest percentage of Chinese Americans in the Southern United States. In addition to the big cities, smaller pockets of Chinese Americans are also dispersed in rural towns, often university-college towns, throughout the United States. For example, the number of Chinese Americans, including college professors, doctors, professionals, and students, has increased over 200% from 2005 to 2010 in Providence, Rhode Island ,

1695-1054: Is generally defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal and the Ural Mountains , and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma–Manych Depression ) and the Caspian and Black Seas . It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean , on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Asia is subdivided into 49 countries, five of them ( Georgia , Azerbaijan , Russia , Kazakhstan and Turkey ) are transcontinental countries lying partly in Europe . Geographically, Russia

1808-514: Is growing rapidly. In 2010, Asia had 3.3 million millionaires (people with net worth over US$ 1 million excluding their homes), slightly below North America with 3.4 million millionaires. In 2011, Asia topped Europe in number of millionaires. Citigroup in The Wealth Report 2012 stated that Asian centa-millionaire overtook North America's wealth for the first time as the world's "economic center of gravity" continued moving east. At

1921-520: Is home to the largest Chinese American population of any metropolitan area within the United States, enumerating an estimated 893,697 in 2017 and including at least 12 Chinatowns . Continuing significant immigration from mainland China is fueled by New York's status as an alpha global city, its high population density, its extensive mass transit system, and the New York metropolitan area's enormous economic marketplace. The Manhattan Chinatown contains

2034-478: Is in China, as Chinese Christians flee to the United States from Chinese Communist persecution. Chinese Americans are divided among many subgroups based on factors such as language, religion, generational status, age and socioeconomic status . Sometimes, these subgroups have conflicting political priorities and goals. As of 2013, Chinese Americans were the least likely Asian-American ethnicity to be affiliated with

2147-467: Is moist across southeast sections, and dry across much of the interior. Some of the largest daily temperature ranges on Earth occur in western sections of Asia. The monsoon circulation dominates across southern and eastern sections, due to the presence of the Himalayas forcing the formation of a thermal low which draws in moisture during the summer. Southwestern sections of the continent are hot. Siberia

2260-588: Is one of the coldest places in the Northern Hemisphere , and can act as a source of arctic air masses for North America. The most active place on Earth for tropical cyclone activity lies northeast of the Philippines and south of Japan. Climate change is particularly important in Asia, as the continent accounts for the majority of the human population. Warming since the 20th century is increasing

2373-669: Is partly in Asia, but is considered a European nation , both culturally and politically. The Gobi Desert is in Mongolia and the Arabian Desert stretches across much of the Middle East. The Yangtze in China is the longest river in the continent. The Himalayas between Nepal and China is the tallest mountain range in the world. Tropical rainforests stretch across much of southern Asia and coniferous and deciduous forests lie farther north. There are various approaches to

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2486-493: Is projected to move to third place, behind China and India. While nearly half of the world's new renewable energy capacity is built in Asia, this is not yet sufficient in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement . They imply that the renewables would account for 35% of total energy consumption in Asia by 2030. Asia has the largest continental economy in the world by both GDP nominal and PPP values, and

2599-429: Is the fastest growing economic region. As of 2023 , China is by far the largest economy on the continent, making up nearly half of the continent's economy by GDP nominal. It is followed by Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which are all ranked among the top 20 largest economies both by nominal and PPP values. Based on Global Office Locations 2011, Asia dominated the office locations with 4 of

2712-490: Is used as a secondary dialect to English. In addition, the immigration from Fuzhou , Fujian brings in a significant populace of Fuzhou people ( Eastern Min ), particularly Changle dialect speakers to major cities like New York City, San Francisco, and Boston. People from Fujian ( Minnan region ), Chaoshan , Taiwan and Southeast Asia mainly use Southern Min dialect ( Hokkien and Teochew ) as their mother tongue. Varieties of Wu Chinese , particularly Shanghainese and

2825-576: The Arctic Ocean . The border of Asia with Europe is a historical and cultural construct , as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. A commonly accepted division places Asia to the east of the Suez Canal separating it from Africa; and to the east of the Turkish straits , the Ural Mountains and Ural River , and to the south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black seas, separating it from Europe. Since

2938-809: The Black Sea coast, through the Surami Pass and along the Kura River to the Caspian Sea), a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE. During the Hellenistic period , this convention was revised, and the boundary between Europe and Asia was now considered to be the Tanais (the modern Don River). This is the convention used by Roman era authors such as Posidonius , Strabo and Ptolemy . The border between Asia and Europe

3051-598: The European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or APEC ). This ended in 2010 when China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy. It is forecasted that India will overtake Japan in terms of nominal GDP by 2027. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP by currency exchange rates was almost as large as that of the rest of Asia combined. In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equaled that of

3164-670: The Geary Act was passed to extend the Chinese Exclusion Act, and in 1902, the prohibition was expanded to cover Hawaii and the Philippines, despite the strong objections from the Chinese government and people. Only in 1898, as a result of the United States v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision, ethnic Chinese born in the United States become American citizens . The Chinese Exclusion Acts remained part of

3277-731: The Hebrew Bible in the narrative of Noah —and later to Christians in the Old Testament , and to Muslims in the Quran —is earliest found in Mesopotamian mythology , in the Enûma Eliš and Epic of Gilgamesh . Hindu mythology similarly tells about an avatar of Vishnu in the form of a fish who warned Manu of a terrible flood. Ancient Chinese mythology also tells of a Great Flood spanning generations, one that required

3390-621: The Hindu Kush region will become more unstable as its enormous glaciers , known as the "Asian water towers", gradually melt. These changes to water cycle also affect vector-borne disease distribution, with malaria and dengue fever expected to become more prominent in the tropical and subtropical regions. Food security will become more uneven, and South Asian countries could experience significant impacts from global food price volatility. Historical emissions from Asia are lower than those from Europe and North America. However, China has been

3503-503: The Mid-Autumn Festival . A 2007 analysis indicated that most non-Asian Americans do not differentiate between Chinese Americans and East Asian Americans generally, and perceptions of both groups are nearly identical. A 2001 survey of Americans' attitudes toward Asian Americans and Chinese Americans indicated that one fourth of the respondents had somewhat or very negative attitude toward Chinese Americans in general. However,

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3616-640: The Page Law of 1875 banned all female Chinese migrants from entering the United States. Upon arrival to the U.S. Chinese men and women were separated from each other as they awaited hearings on their immigration status, which often took weeks. During this time the women were subjected to lengthy questioning that focused on their family life and origins. Their responses were then cross examined with others from their village, and any discrepancies were used to justify denial of entry. The stress of being separated from family caused many women to fall ill while they waited for

3729-787: The San Francisco riot of 1877 , the Issaquah and Tacoma riot of 1885 , the attack on Squak Valley Chinese laborers in 1885, the Seattle riot of 1886 , and the Pacific Coast race riots of 1907 . With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic , which is believed to have started in the city of Wuhan, China, numerous incidents of xenophobia and racism against Chinese people and people who are perceived to be Chinese have been reported. In 2008, researchers Georg Hsu and Yu Mui Wan published

3842-691: The Sinai peninsula in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa. The threefold division of the Old World into Africa, Asia, and Europe has been in use since the 6th century BCE, due to Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus . Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni river) in Georgia of Caucasus (from its mouth by Poti on

3955-585: The Transcontinental Railroad . Chinese laborers built the majority of the difficult route through the Sierra Nevada mountains and across Nevada . By 1869, there were at least 100,000 ethnic Chinese in the United States. By 1887, less than four hundred thousand Chinese entered the United States, concentrated in California. The Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868 between the United States and Qing China supported Chinese migration, but

4068-915: The Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century. The border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains , although it is sometimes placed further north. The border between Asia and Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Indonesia Archipelago , specifically in Eastern Indonesia . The Wallace Line separates

4181-579: The Washington metropolitan area , with Montgomery County , Maryland and Fairfax County , Virginia , being 3.9% and 2.4% Chinese American, respectively. Boston's Chinatown is the only historical Chinese neighborhood within New England . The Boston suburb of Quincy also has a prominent Chinese American population, especially within the North Quincy area. San Francisco , California has

4294-596: The century of humiliation , with the British-supported opium trade and later Opium Wars resulting in China being forced into an unprecedented situation of importing more than it exported. Foreign domination of China was furthered by the Japanese colonial empire , which controlled some of East Asia and briefly much of Southeast Asia (which had earlier been taken over by the British, Dutch and French in

4407-638: The monsoons will experience more flooding. The waters around Asia are subjected to the same impacts as elsewhere, such as the increased warming and ocean acidification . There are many coral reefs in the region, and they are highly vulnerable to climate change, to the point practically all of them will be lost if the warming exceeds 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). Asia's distinctive mangrove ecosystems are also highly vulnerable to sea level rise . Asia also has more countries with large coastal populations than any other continent, which would cause large economic impacts from sea level rise. Water supplies in

4520-553: The steppes . The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans , who spread their languages into West Asia, South Asia, and the borders of China, where the Tocharians resided. The northernmost part of Asia, including much of Siberia , was largely inaccessible to the steppe nomads, owing to the dense forests, climate and tundra . These areas remained very sparsely populated. The center and

4633-767: The 17th century, the Manchu conquered China and established the Qing dynasty . The Islamic Mughal Empire (preceded by the Delhi Sultanate of the 13th to early 16th century) and the Hindu Maratha Empire controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively. Western imperialism in Asia from the 18th to 20th centuries coincided with the Industrial Revolution in the West and

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4746-448: The 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to work in the California Gold Rush , and also to do agricultural jobs and factory work, especially the garment industry. Some became entrepreneurs. Chinese often settled in ethnic neighborhoods called Chinatowns . In 1852, there were 25,000 Chinese migrants in America. From 1860 until 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad recruited large labor gangs, with many laborers on five-year contracts, to build on

4859-437: The 1960s placed increasing value on family unification, allowing relatives of U.S. citizens to receive preference in immigration. As of 2023, illegal Chinese immigration to New York City has accelerated. The Chinese American Planning Council has subsequently been established with headquarters on the Lower East Side of Manhattan . There are a number of museums in the United States specifically focusing on and documenting

4972-473: The 1980s, more Mandarin -speaking immigrants from Northern China and Taiwan immigrated to the U.S. In the 1990s, a large wave of Fujianese immigrants arrived in the US, many illegally, particularly in the NYC area. The Chinese population in much of the 1800s and 1890s was almost entirely contained to the Western U.S., especially California and Nevada, as well as New York City. There are three major waves of recent Chinese immigration into America: Nearly all of

5085-416: The 1990s, with extreme poverty now below 20%; India and China's rise has coincided with growing tension between the two, with the Indo-Pacific now an actively contested area between China and counterbalancing forces. Asia is the largest continent on Earth. It covers 9% of the Earth's total surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has the longest coastline, at 62,800 kilometres (39,022 mi). Asia

5198-531: The 2010 census, the Chinese American population numbered about 3.8 million. In 2010, half of the Chinese-born people in the United States lived in California and New York . About half or more of the Chinese ethnic people in the U.S. in the 1980s had roots in Taishan, Guangdong , a city in southern China near the major city of Guangzhou. In general, much of the Chinese population before the 1990s consisted of Cantonese or Taishanese -speaking people from southern China, predominately from Guangdong province. During

5311-453: The 2012 Pew Research Center Asian-American Survey, 52% of Chinese Americans aged 15 and over said that they did not have any religious affiliation. This is also compared with the religious affiliation of Asian-American average of 26% and a national average of 19%. Of the survey respondents, 15% were Buddhist , 8% were Catholic, and 22% belonged to a Protestant denomination. About half of Chinese Americans (52%)—including 55% of those born in

5424-468: The 20th century, but overall population growth has since fallen. Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's mainstream religions including Hinduism , Zoroastrianism , Judaism , Jainism , Buddhism , Confucianism , Taoism , Christianity , Islam , Sikhism , and many other religions. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, and government systems. It also has

5537-466: The 7th century; Islam also spread over centuries to the southern regions of India and Southeast Asia through trade along the Maritime Silk Road . The Mongol Empire conquered a large part of Asia in the 13th century, an area extending from China to Europe. Before the Mongol invasion, Song dynasty reportedly had approximately 120 million citizens; the 1300 census which followed the invasion reported roughly 60 million people. The Black Death , one of

5650-427: The Asian and Wallacea biogeographical realms, a transition zone of deep water straits between the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Weber's Line split the region in two with regard to the balance of fauna between Asian origin or Australo-Papuan origin. Wallacea's eastern boundary with Sahul is represented by the Lydekker's Line . The Maluku Islands (except the Aru Islands) are often considered to lie on

5763-441: The Asian goods traffic is carried out across the Pacific towards Los Angeles and Long Beach . The melting of the Arctic is also paving the way for new shipping routes from Northeast Asia to Europe and North America. In contrast to the sea routes, the Silk Road via the land route to Europe is on the one hand still under construction and on the other hand is much smaller in terms of scope. Intra-Asian trade, including sea trade,

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5876-502: The Bering Strait, with Big Diomede in Russia and Little Diomede in the United States . The Aleutian Islands are an island chain extending westward from the Alaskan Peninsula toward Russia's Komandorski Islands and Kamchatka Peninsula . Most of them are always associated with North America, except for the westernmost Near Islands group, which is on Asia's continental shelf beyond the North Aleutians Basin and on rare occasions could be associated with Asia, which could then allow

5989-405: The Chinese American experience, the most prominent being the Museum of Chinese in America in Manhattan's Chinatown , established in 1980; as well as others, including the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles, the Chinese American Museum of Chicago , the Chinese Historical Society of America in San Francisco, and the Chinese American Museum in Washington, D.C. The chart on the right shows

6102-417: The Hittite king Tudhaliya I around 1400 BCE. Roughly contemporary Linear B documents contain the term aswia ( Mycenaean Greek : 𐀀𐀯𐀹𐀊 , romanized:  a-si-wi-ja ), seemingly in reference to captives from the same area. Herodotus used the term in reference to Anatolia and the territory of the Achaemenid Empire , in contrast to Greece and Egypt. He reports that Greeks assumed that Asia

6215-424: The Indian Ocean respectively in the late 15th century. The Russian Empire also began to expand into northwestern Asia from the 17th century, and would eventually take control of all of Siberia and most of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century. Among non-European empires, the Ottoman Empire controlled Anatolia, most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the mid 16th century onward, while in

6328-482: The Middle East has been affected since 1948 by the Arab–Israeli conflict and American-led interventions . East Asian nations (along with Singapore in Southeast Asia) became economically prosperous with high-growth " tiger economies "; China, having undergone capitalistic reforms under Deng Xiaoping , regained its place among the top two economies of the world by the 21st century. India has also grown significantly because of economic liberalisation that started in

6441-400: The Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century led to the Middle East also being contested and partitioned by the British and French. With the end of World War II in 1945 and the wartime ruination of Europe and imperial Japan, many countries in Asia were able to rapidly free themselves of colonial rule. The independence of India came along with the carving out of a separate nation for

6554-504: The Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Asia has three main financial centers: Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. Call centers and business process outsourcing (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly skilled, English-speaking workers. The increased use of outsourcing has assisted the rise of India and the China as financial centers. Due to its large and extremely competitive information technology industry, India has become

6667-445: The Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces. Many of the world's major religions have their origins in Asia, including the five most practiced in the world (excluding irreligion ), which are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Chinese folk religion (classified as Confucianism and Taoism), and Buddhism. Asian mythology is complex and diverse. The story of the Great Flood for example, as presented to Jews in

6780-440: The Red Sea over the Suez Canal into Mediterranean (see also: Indo-Mediterranean ), there via Haifa, Istanbul and Athens to the upper Adriatic to the northern Italian hub of Trieste with its rail connections to Central and Eastern Europe or further to Barcelona and around Spain and France to the European northern ports. A far smaller part of the goods traffic runs via South Africa to Europe . A particularly significant part of

6893-400: The U.S. and 51% of those born overseas—describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated. There are also many Chinese people in New York City who identify as Jewish due to intermarriage with Jews. Some posit that Judaism has similar habits to Confucianism such as the emphasis on scholarship. There is a significantly higher percentage of Chinese Christians in the United States than there

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7006-480: The U.S. came from a small area of eight districts on the west side of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province. The eight districts consist of three subgroups—the four districts of Sze Yup , the district of Chung Shan , and the three districts of Sam Yup —each subgroup speaking a distinct dialect of Cantonese . In the U.S., people from Sze Yup generally worked as laborers; Chung Shan people specialized in agriculture; and Sam Yup people worked as entrepreneurs. In

7119-417: The U.S. in order to reunite with their families. Ninety percent of the Chinese women who immigrated to the U.S. between 1898 and 1908 did so to join a husband or father. By 1900, only 4,522 of the 89,837 (5%) Chinese migrants were women. In 1880, the diplomat James B. Angell was appointed to negotiate a new treaty with Qing China. The resulting Angell Treaty of 1880 restricted Chinese immigration and banned

7232-454: The U.S. state of Alaska as well as the United States itself to be considered a transcontinental state. The Aleutian Islands are sometimes associated with Oceania, owing to their status as remote Pacific islands, and their proximity to the Pacific Plate. This is extremely rare however, due to their non-tropical biogeography, as well as their inhabitants , who have historically been related to Indigenous Americans . St. Lawrence Island in

7345-407: The US as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 yen /US$ . Economic growth in Asia since World War II to the 1990s had been concentrated in Japan as well as the four regions of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore located in the Pacific Rim , known as the Asian tigers , which are now all considered developed economies, having among

7458-745: The United States , and it took place after the accidental killing of Robert Thompson, a local rancher . The Rock Springs massacre occurred in 1885, in which at least 28 Chinese immigrants were killed and 15 other Chinese were injured. Many enraged white miners in Sweetwater County felt threatened by the Chinese and they also blamed them for their unemployment. As a result of competition for jobs, white miners expressed their frustration by committing acts of physical violence in which they robbed, shot, and stabbed Chinese in Chinatown. The Chinese quickly tried to flee, but in doing so, many of them ended up being burned alive in their homes, starving to death in hiding places, or being exposed to animal predators which lived in

7571-518: The area of multinational corporations , but increasingly the PRC and India are making significant inroads. Many companies from Europe, North America, South Korea and Japan have operations in Asia's developing countries to take advantage of its abundant supply of cheap labour and relatively developed infrastructure. According to Citigroup in 2011, 9 of 11 Global Growth Generators countries came from Asia driven by population and income growth. They are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia,

7684-404: The border of southeast Asia, with the Aru Islands and Western New Guinea , to the east of the Lydekker's Line, being wholly part of Oceania, as both lie on the Australian continental plate. Culturally, the Wallacea region denoted the transition between Austronesian and Melanesian people , with varying degrees of intermixing between the two. In general, the further west and coastal a region is,

7797-413: The cities of Monterey Park and San Marino are both Chinese American communities lying geographically close to each other but they are separated by a large socioeconomic gap. Some noteworthy historical Chinese contributions to America include building the western half of the Transcontinental Railroad , the levees in the Sacramento River Delta , Chinese American food , deep oil extraction in Texas, and

7910-489: The concept of Asia derives from the term for the eastern region from a European perspective, Asia is the remaining vast area of Eurasia minus Europe. Therefore, Asia is a region where various independent cultures coexist rather than sharing a single culture, and the boundary between Europe is somewhat arbitrary and has moved since its first conception in classical antiquity . The division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East–West cultural differences, some of which vary on

8023-432: The continent of Asia". Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of Eurasia with Europe being a northwestern peninsula of the landmass. Asia, Europe and Africa make up a single continuous landmass— Afro-Eurasia —and share a common continental shelf . Almost all of Europe and a major part of Asia sit atop the Eurasian Plate , adjoined on the south by the Arabian and Indian Plate and with

8136-443: The cultural borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus, a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system (Europe, Africa, Asia) on the grounds that there is no substantial physical separation between them. For example, Sir Barry Cunliffe , the emeritus professor of European archeology at Oxford, argues that Europe has been geographically and culturally merely "the western excrescence of

8249-450: The descendants of immigrants, especially in California . In 2002, over 2 million Americans speak some variety or dialect of Chinese, with Standard Chinese (Mandarin) becoming increasingly common due to new immigration from China and supplanting the previous widespread Cantonese and Taishanese . In New York City , although Standard Chinese (Mandarin) was spoken as a native language among only 10% of American-born Chinese speakers, it

8362-596: The dethroning of India and China as the world's foremost economies. The British Empire first became dominant in South Asia, with most of the region being conquered by British traders in the late 18th and early 19th centuries before falling under direct British rule after a failed 1857 revolt ; the 1869 completion of the Suez Canal , which increased British access to India, went on to further European influence over Africa and Asia. Around this time, Western powers started to dominate China in what later became known as

8475-549: The early Chinese migrants were young men from rural villages of Toisan , as well as the eight districts in Guangdong Province . The Guangdong province, especially Toisan , experienced extreme floods and famine in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as mass political unrest such as the Red Turban unrest . This prompted many people to migrate to America. The vast majority of the 19th century Chinese immigrants to

8588-684: The easternmost part of Siberia (east of the Chersky Range ) on the North American Plate . The term "Asia" is believed to originate in the Bronze Age toponym Assuwa ( Hittite : 𒀸𒋗𒉿 , romanized:  aš-šu-wa ) which originally referred only to a portion of northwestern Anatolia . The term appears in Hittite records recounting how a confederation of Assuwan states including Troy unsuccessfully rebelled against

8701-492: The end of 2011, there were 18,000 Asian people mainly in Southeast Asia, China and Japan who have at least $ 100 million in disposable assets, while North America with 17,000 people and Western Europe with 14,000 people. With growing Regional Tourism with domination of Chinese visitors, MasterCard has released Global Destination Cities Index 2013 with 10 of 20 are dominated by Asia and Pacific Region Cities and also for

8814-414: The first time a city of a country from Asia ( Bangkok ) set in the top-ranked with 15.98 million international visitors. East Asia had by far the strongest overall Human Development Index (HDI) improvement of any region in the world, nearly doubling average HDI attainment over the past 40 years, according to the report's analysis of health, education and income data. China, the second highest achiever in

8927-709: The highest per capita concentration of Chinese Americans of any major city in the United States, at an estimated 21.4%, or 172,181 people, and contains the second-largest total number of Chinese Americans of any U.S. city. San Francisco's Chinatown was established in the 1840s, making it the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest neighborhoods of Chinese people outside of Asia, composed in large part by immigrants hailing from Guangdong province and also many from Hong Kong . The San Francisco neighborhoods of Sunset District and Richmond District also contain significant Chinese populations. Houston, Texas

9040-497: The highest GDP per capita in Asia. Asia is the largest continent in the world by a considerable margin, and it is rich in natural resources, such as petroleum , forests , fish , water , rice , copper and silver . Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in China, Taiwan , South Korea, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Singapore. Japan and South Korea continue to dominate in

9153-778: The highest concentration of Chinese Americans at 4.0%, or 55,000 people. According to the 2012 Census estimates, the three metropolitan areas with the largest Chinese American populations were the Greater New York Combined Statistical Area at 735,019 people, the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area at 629,243 people, and the Los Angeles Area Combined Statistical Area at about 566,968 people. New York City contains by far

9266-451: The highest ethnic Chinese population of any individual city outside Asia, estimated at 628,763 as of 2017. The Los Angeles County city of Monterey Park has the highest percentage of Chinese Americans of any municipality, at 43.7% of its population, or 24,758 people. The New York metropolitan area , which includes New York City , Long Island , and nearby areas within the states of New York , New Jersey , Connecticut , and Pennsylvania ,

9379-533: The introduction of Chinese and East Asian culture to America, such as Buddhism , Taoism , and Kung fu . Chinese immigrants to the United States brought many of their ideas, values, and culture with them. Some of these have continued to influence later generations, such as the Confucian respect for elders . Similarly, education and the civil service were the most important path for upward social mobility in China. The first Broadway show about Asian Americans

9492-966: The largest concentration of ethnic Chinese in the Western hemisphere ; while the Flushing Chinatown in Queens has become the world's largest Chinatown. As of 2023, illegal Chinese immigration to New York City , and especially to the Flushing, Queens Chinatown, has accelerated. Also on the East Coast , Greater Boston and the Philadelphia metropolitan area are home to significant Chinese American communities, with Chinatowns in Boston and Philadelphia hosting important and diverse cultural centers. Significant populations can also be found in

9605-638: The late 19th century), New Guinea and the Pacific islands ; Japan's domination was enabled by its rapid rise that had taken place during the Meiji era of the late 19th century, in which it applied industrial knowledge learned from the West and thus overtook the rest of Asia. One significant influence on Japan had been the United States, which had begun projecting influence across the Pacific after its early-to-mid-19th century westward expansion . The breakup of

9718-491: The law until 1943. With relations already complicated by the Treaties of Wangxia and Tianjian, the increasingly harsh restrictions on Chinese immigration combined with the rising discrimination against Chinese living in the United States in the 1870s-early 1900s. During and after World War II , severe immigration restrictions were eased as the United States allied with China against Japanese expansionism . Later reforms in

9831-516: The lowlands did not have enough open grasslands to support a large equestrian force; for this and other reasons, the nomads who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East often found themselves adapting to the local, more affluent societies. The Islamic Caliphate 's defeats of the Byzantine and Persian empires led to West Asia and southern parts of Central Asia and western parts of South Asia under its control during its conquests of

9944-728: The majority of South Asian Muslims , which in 1971 further split into the countries Pakistan and Bangladesh ; Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union strained relations between India and Pakistan and affected Asia more generally. The end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union by 1991 saw the independence of the five modern Central Asian countries. Some Arab countries took economic advantage of massive oil deposits that were discovered in their territory, becoming globally influential, though stability in

10057-462: The majority of the human population , was the site of many of the first civilizations . Its 4.7 billion people constitute roughly 60% of the world's population. Asia shares the landmass of Eurasia with Europe , and of Afro-Eurasia with both Europe and Africa . In general terms, it is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean , on the south by the Indian Ocean , and on the north by

10170-516: The most devastating pandemics in human history, is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road . European involvement in Asia became more significant from the Age of Discovery onward, with Iberian-sponsored sailors such as Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama paving the way for new routes from Atlantic Europe to Pacific Asia and

10283-513: The mountains; some of them were successfully rescued by a passing train. A total of 78 homes were burned. During the Hells Canyon massacre of 1887, at least 34 Chinese miners were killed. An accurate account of the event is still unavailable, but it is speculated that the Chinese miners were killed by gunshot during a robbery by a gang of seven armed horse thieves. Other acts of violence which were committed against Chinese immigrants include

10396-466: The mutually unintelligible Wenzhounese , are spoken by a minority of recent Chinese immigrants hailing from Jiangsu , Zhejiang , and Shanghai . Although many Chinese Americans grow up learning English , some teach their children to speak Chinese for a variety of reasons: preservation of an ancient civilization, preservation of a group identity, preservation of their cultural ancestry, desire for easy communication with each other and their relatives, and

10509-616: The naturalization of Chinese migrants. Two years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited all Chinese from immigrating for 10 years, and required all Chinese people to carry identification. This was the first act to restrict immigration in American history. Then, six years later, the Scott Act of 1888 illegalized reentry to the United States after a visit to China, even for long-term legal residents. In 1892,

10622-716: The northern Bering Sea belongs to Alaska and may be associated with either continent but is almost always considered part of North America, as with the Rat Islands in the Aleutian chain. At their nearest points, Alaska and Russia are separated by only 4 kilometres (2.5 miles). Geographical Asia is a cultural artifact of European conceptions of the world, beginning with the Ancient Greeks , being imposed onto other cultures, an imprecise concept causing endemic contention about what it means. Asia does not exactly correspond to

10735-405: The perception that Chinese is a very useful language. The official standard for United States public notices and signage is Traditional Chinese . Religions of Chinese Americans (2012) The majority of Chinese Americans do not report a religious affiliation . 43% of Chinese Americans switched to a different religion and 54% stayed within their childhood religion within their lifetime. According to

10848-470: The peripheries were mostly kept separated by mountains and deserts. The Caucasus and Himalaya mountains and the Karakum and Gobi deserts formed barriers that the steppe horsemen could cross only with difficulty. While the urban city dwellers were more advanced technologically and socially, in many cases they could do little in a military aspect to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However,

10961-568: The price point commanded by the public was not sufficiently profitable, and younger generations gained more lucrative careers and were not interested in inheriting the restaurants. Asia Asia ( / ˈ eɪ ʒ ə / AY -zhə , UK also / ˈ eɪ ʃ ə / AY -shə ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometers, about 30% of Earth 's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to

11074-708: The regional division of Asia. The following subdivision into regions is used, among others, by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). This division of Asia into regions by the United Nations is done solely for statistical reasons and does not imply any assumption about political or other affiliations of countries and territories. Asia has extremely diverse climate features. Climates range from Arctic and subarctic in Siberia to tropical in southern India and Southeast Asia. It

11187-497: The single largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the 21st century, while India is the third-largest. As a whole, Asia currently accounts for 36% of world's primary energy consumption, which is expected to increase to 48% by 2050. By 2040, it is also expected to account for 80% of the world's coal and 26% of the world's natural gas consumption. While the United States remains the world's largest oil consumer, by 2050 it

11300-605: The stronger the Austronesian influences, and the further east and inland a region is, the stronger the Melanesian influences. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several vastly different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Indonesian Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the colonial possessions of

11413-542: The study did also find several positive perceptions of Chinese Americans: strong family values (91%); honesty as entrepreneurs (77%); high value on education (67%). Early Chinese Americans struggled to survive in the United States because of prejudice, discrimination, and violence. In 1880, motivated by yellow peril and sensationalism surrounding the upcoming presidential election, a mob numbering 3,000 instigated an anti-Chinese riot in Denver, Colorado. A man named Look Young

11526-608: The threat of heatwaves across the entire continent. Heatwaves lead to increased mortality, and the demand for air conditioning is rapidly accelerating as the result. By 2080, around 1 billion people in the cities of South and Southeast Asia are expected to experience around a month of extreme heat every year. The impacts on water cycle are more complicated: already arid regions, primarily located in West Asia and Central Asia , will see more droughts , while areas of East , Southeast and South Asia which are already wet due to

11639-541: The top 5 being in Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul . Around 68 percent of international firms have an office in Hong Kong. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economy of China had an average annual growth rate of more than 8%. According to economic historian Angus Maddison , India had the world's largest economy during 1000 BCE and 1 CE. India was the largest economy in the world for most of

11752-517: The total number of ethnic Chinese in the United States since 1850. The states with the largest estimated Chinese American populations, according to the 2010 Census , were California (1,253,100; 3.4%), New York (577,000; 3.0%), Texas (157,000; 0.6%), New Jersey (134,500; 1.5%), Massachusetts (123,000; 1.9%), Illinois (104,200; 0.8%), Washington (94,200; 1.4%), Pennsylvania (85,000; 0.7%), Maryland (69,400; 1.2%), Virginia (59,800; 0.7%), and Ohio (51,033; 0.5%). The state of Hawaii has

11865-533: The two millennia from the 1st until 19th century, contributing 25% of the world's industrial output. China was the largest and most advanced economy on earth for much of recorded history and shared the mantle with India. For several decades in the late twentieth century Japan was the largest economy in Asia and second-largest of any single nation in the world, after surpassing the Soviet Union (measured in net material product) in 1990 and Germany in 1968. (NB: A number of supernational economies are larger, such as

11978-476: The various empires there (not all European). Lewis and Wigen assert, "The narrowing of 'Southeast Asia' to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process." The Bering Strait and Bering Sea separate the landmasses of Asia and North America , as well as forming the international boundary between Russia and the United States. This national and continental boundary separates the Diomede Islands in

12091-408: The world in terms of HDI improvement since 1970, is the only country on the "Top 10 Movers" list due to income rather than health or education achievements. Its per capita income increased a stunning 21-fold over the last four decades, also lifting hundreds of millions out of income poverty. Yet it was not among the region's top performers in improving school enrollment and life expectancy. Nepal ,

12204-643: The world, which is in the "very high human development" category), followed by Singapore (9), Japan (19) and South Korea (22). Afghanistan (155) ranked lowest amongst Asian countries out of the 169 countries assessed. Asia is home to several language families and many language isolates . Most Asian countries have more than one language that is natively spoken. For instance, according to Ethnologue , more than 700 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 400 languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in

12317-619: Was Flower Drum Song which premiered on Broadway in 1958; the hit Chinglish premiered on Broadway in 2011. In most American cities with significant Chinese populations, the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) is celebrated with cultural festivals and other celebrations. In Seattle , the Chinese Culture and Arts Festival is held every year. Other important festivals include the Dragon Boat Festival and

12430-522: Was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peter's death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Ural Mountains as the border of Asia. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg. The latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until

12543-766: Was home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia , the Indus Valley and the Yellow River shared many similarities. These civilizations may well have exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel . Other innovations, such as writing, seem to have been developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands. The central steppe region had long been inhabited by horse-mounted nomads who could reach all areas of Asia from

12656-476: Was lynched, and nearly all of Chinatown was destroyed. 185 Chinese men were held in jail for three days for their own safety. Most of the rioters arrested were dismissed, and the alleged murderers of Look Young were tried and found not guilty. In 1871, 17–20 Chinese immigrants were murdered in Los Angeles by a mob of around 500 men. This racially motivated massacre was one of the largest mass- lynchings in

12769-477: Was named after the wife of Prometheus , but that Lydians say it was named after Asies , son of Cotys, who passed the name on to a tribe at Sardis . In Greek mythology , "Asia" ( Ἀσία or Ἀσίη ) was the name of a " Nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia". The Iliad (attributed by the ancient Greeks to Homer ) mentions two Phrygians in the Trojan War named Asios (an adjective meaning "Asian"); and also

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