80 Fun Facts About Asia

Roughly what share of the world's population lives in Asia?

About 4.7 billion people, on 30% of Earth's land area.

What is the highest mountain on Earth above sea level?

Its most recent survey, in 2020, put it at 8,848.86 metres; it is called Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet.

Peak XV was named after Sir George, the Briton whose surname it now bears. What post had he held?

He opposed the honour, arguing 'Everest' could not be written in Hindi or pronounced by Indians.

In which year was the summit of the world's highest peak first reached?

Only about 200 people had reached the top by 1987; by May 2024, 340 people had died on the mountain.

Which body of water is the deepest in the world, holding around 22-23% of Earth's fresh surface water?

It is a rift lake in southern Siberia, slightly larger than Belgium and 1,642 metres deep at most.

What is the world's largest inland body of water, straddling Europe and Asia?

Its main inflow is the Volga, Europe's longest river, and its surface lies about 27 metres below sea level.

The shores of which lake are the lowest land-based point on Earth?

At about 440 metres below sea level and 34% salinity, it is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean, so swimmers float.

Which is the longest river in China and third-longest in the world?

It flows 6,236 km from the Tibetan Plateau to the East China Sea, and its delta produces about a fifth of China's GDP.

The Mekong is officially known by what name in China?

It runs 4,909 km through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

What is the Ganges called in Bangladesh?

In Hindu mythology its source is the Bhagirathi, though hydrologists credit the longer Alaknanda.

Which is the smallest country in Asia by area?

Its 26 atolls cover just 298 square kilometres of land spread over some 90,000 square kilometres of ocean.

Which country is the world's largest archipelagic state, with about 17,000 islands?

Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi and parts of Borneo and New Guinea are among them.

The Gobi Desert lies in southern Mongolia and northern China. What does 'Gobi' mean in Mongolian?

It is a cold desert and the sixth-largest in the world.

Which is the world's tallest structure, at 828 metres to the roof?

Some of its structural steel was salvaged from the demolished Palace of the Republic in East Berlin.

Which building ended the Petronas Towers' reign as the world's tallest in 2004?

The Kuala Lumpur pair remain the world's tallest twin skyscrapers.

What is the total length of the world's longest railway line, the Trans-Siberian?

It has linked Moscow to Vladivostok directly since 1916.

What is the largest religious complex in the world?

Built in the 12th century for Vishnu by the Khmer king Suryavarman II, it gradually became a Buddhist temple.

The 9th-century Buddhist temple of Borobudur is on which Indonesian island?

Its nine platforms carry 2,672 relief panels and originally 504 Buddha statues.

The white marble mausoleum at Agra was built by Shah Jahan as a tomb for whom?

It sits on the Yamuna at Agra and was completed in 1648, with the wider complex finished by 1653.

The best-known sections of the Great Wall of China were built by which dynasty?

The earliest walls date to the 7th century BC and were first joined together under the Qin.

What is the total length of all the Great Wall's fortifications, per a 2012 survey?

They stretch from Liaodong in the east to Lop Lake in the west; 22% of the best-known dynasty's wall has already disappeared.

Who was proclaimed ruler of all Mongols in 1206, founding the largest contiguous empire in history?

At its height it stretched from the Sea of Japan to the Carpathians under an enforced Pax Mongolica.

Which Chinese dynasty's expansion into Central Asia around 114 BCE began the Silk Road?

The imperial envoy Zhang Qian's missions opened the routes, and the Great Wall was extended to protect them.

Chess descends from which 7th-century Indian game?

It spread to Persia, then the Arab world and Europe; the current world champion is Gukesh Dommaraju of India.

Papermaking is traditionally credited to which Han dynasty court official around 105 CE?

Archaeological fragments of proto-paper from China date back to the 2nd century BCE.

Which is the world's third-largest religion, with about 1.17 billion followers mainly in India and Nepal?

It is also considered the world's largest ethnic religion, with communities in Mauritius and Bali too.

Which is the largest branch of Buddhism, dominant in China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam?

Theravada, the second-largest, is followed mainly in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

Diwali, the festival of lights, is linked to the return of which deity to Ayodhya after defeating Ravana?

It is also widely associated with Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity, and Ganesha, remover of obstacles.

Holi, the Hindu festival of colours, celebrates the love between which two deities?

It also marks Vishnu's victory as Narasimha over Hiranyakashipu.

Songkran, the Thai New Year, is celebrated on which date?

The holiday runs to 15 April and aligns with New Year festivals across South and Southeast Asia's Buddhist calendars.

Kimchi is most often made from which vegetable?

Winter kimchi, gimjang, was traditionally buried in earthenware onggi jars to keep it from freezing.

Who is credited with inventing nigiri sushi around 1824?

It was the fast food of Edo's townspeople; the defining component of sushi is vinegared rice, not raw fish.

Pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup, is usually made with which meat?

Residents of Nam Định are credited with first creating it; refugees popularised it worldwide after the Vietnam War.

The word 'Bollywood' is a portmanteau of Hollywood and which city's former name?

It refers only to Hindi-language films, though it is often wrongly used for all Indian cinema.

K-pop traces its origins to the 'rap dance' of which early-1990s group?

Lee Soo-man of SM Entertainment then built the idol system that produced H.O.T. and S.E.S.

Which BTS single, released in 2020, was their first to debut at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100?

It was their first English-language single and made them the first all-South Korean act to top the chart.

What does the name BTS, Bangtan Sonyeondan, literally mean?

They debuted in 2013 under Big Hit Entertainment with 2 Cool 4 Skool.

Which cartoonist's 1960s work established the characteristic art style of anime?

He simplified Disney techniques to cut costs and frame counts; the earliest commercial Japanese animation dates to 1917.

How many people live in the Greater Tokyo Area, the world's third-most-populous metro area?

The city proper passed 14 million in 2023; Tokyo has technically not been a 'city' since 1943.

When did Japan's highest peak, an active stratovolcano, last erupt?

The active stratovolcano is Japan's highest peak at 3,776 metres and is visible from Tokyo on clear days.

The Komodo dragon, the largest living lizard, is native to which country?

Males reach 3 metres and 150 kg; adults mainly eat Javan rusa deer and feral pigs.

What is the oldest known age reached by a giant panda?

Pandas live in just six montane regions of China and have a visible 'thumb' for holding bamboo.

Bhutan's official name since the 17th century, Druk Yul, means what?

Its highest peak, Gangkhar Puensum, is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world.

The Pacific island of Nauru was strip-mined for a century for what resource?

At 21 square kilometres it is the world's third-smallest country, and its reserves ran out in the 1990s.

In which year did Singapore become independent after being expelled from Malaysia?

Stamford Raffles had founded it as a British trading post in 1819; it later became one of the Four Asian Tigers.

Which two countries share the summit of the world's highest peak on their border?

The standard route approaches from the southeast in Nepal; the other from the north in Tibet.

Which is the largest hydroelectric power station in the world, on China's longest river?

The Yangtze Delta alone generates as much as 20% of China's GDP.

Asia is generally defined as lying east of which waterway separating it from Africa?

The Europe-Asia border, by contrast, is a historical and cultural construct with no clear physical divide.

Roughly how long is Asia's coastline, the longest of any continent?

Asia covers 9% of the Earth's total surface area and 30% of its land.

Which peak is the second-highest volcano on any Asian island, after Sumatra's Kerinci?

It is the seventh-highest island peak on Earth and is snow-capped for about five months a year.

The Taj Mahal was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?

UNESCO called it 'the jewel of Islamic art in India'.

What was Singapore known as in its early history as a maritime emporium?

Raffles arrived in January 1819 and it became a full British possession in 1824.

The Mongol Empire's Toluid Civil War of 1260-64 was fought between Kublai Khan and which brother?

It followed Möngke Khan's death in 1259, when rival kurultai councils elected different successors.

How many Buddha statues surround Borobudur's central dome, each in a perforated stupa?

There were originally 504 Buddha statues across the whole monument.

Which country is transcontinental, with the Sinai Peninsula in Asia and the rest in Africa?

The Asia–Africa boundary runs along the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb.

Who became the first Asian Nobel laureate, winning the Literature prize in 1913?

The Bengali writer's prose and poetry influenced national literatures across the region.

Bangladeshi Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus founded which micro-credit institution?

The community development bank lends to poor people, especially women, and won him the 2006 prize.

By 2024, which Asian nation had won the most Nobel Prizes, with about 24?

India follows with 13, including C. V. Raman, the first Asian to win a science Nobel.

The name 'Asia' is thought to derive from Assuwa, a Bronze Age toponym recorded by which people?

Their records describe a confederation of Assuwan states, including Troy, rebelling unsuccessfully in northwestern Anatolia.

Whose 1730 atlas, published in Sweden, first proposed the Ural Mountains as the border of Asia?

Vasily Tatishchev claimed to have suggested the idea to him; Peter the Great had died five years earlier.

Which waterway between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, the world's busiest, carries a quarter of all traded goods?

Over 94,000 vessels a year pass through the Strait of Malacca, carrying oil, coal, palm oil and Chinese manufactured goods between the Indian and Pacific oceans.

Which ex-Portuguese colony, returned to China in 1999 after 442 years, is the most densely populated region on Earth?

Macau packs about 720,000 people into 32.9 km², and two-thirds of that land was reclaimed from the sea.

Which 3,180 km river, from which the word 'India' is derived, is now the main source of drinking water for Pakistan?

The Indus rises in Tibet as the Sengge Zangbo and bends sharply around the Nanga Parbat massif before crossing Pakistan to a delta south of Thatta.

Which river bisects Myanmar from north to south, flowing past Mandalay before fanning out into a nine-armed delta?

The Irrawaddy is sometimes called 'The Road to Mandalay' after Rudyard Kipling's poem, and its delta pushes out to sea by about 50 metres every year.

Which island, largest of the four main Japanese ones, holds Kyoto, Nara and Kamakura and 82% of the country's people?

Honshu is the seventh-largest island in the world and the second-most populous, and it generates more than 80% of the national GDP.

Which island chain north of Hokkaido is so disputed that Moscow and Tokyo have never signed a World War II peace treaty?

The Kuril Islands' four southernmost members are claimed by Tokyo as its 'Northern Territories', and a 1956 joint declaration ended the state of war without settling them.

Which Indian archipelago holds North Sentinel, whose Sentinelese people defend their isolation by force?

The Andaman Islands' Sentinelese killed an American missionary in 2018, and India will not prosecute them for killing anyone who ventures ashore.

Which Yemeni archipelago, the 'Galapagos of the Indian Ocean', is home to the umbrella-shaped dragon's blood tree?

Socotra is administratively Yemeni but geologically a fragment of Africa on the Somali plate, and a third of its plant species grow nowhere else on Earth.

Which Russian peninsula has around 160 volcanoes, 29 of them active, among them Klyuchevskaya Sopka at 4,750 m?

Kamchatka's Klyuchevskaya Sopka is the largest active volcano in the Northern Hemisphere, and 19 of the peninsula's volcanoes form a UNESCO World Heritage group.

On which Russian Arctic island did woolly mammoths survive until about 4,000 years ago, alongside Bronze Age Sumer?

Wrangel Island's 500 to 1,000 mammoths outlived their mainland relatives by some 6,000 years, and a 2024 study blamed their end on a sudden catastrophe rather than inbreeding.

Which sea between the Korean Peninsula, Sakhalin and Hokkaido does South Korea officially call the 'East Sea'?

The Sea of Japan's name is disputed three ways: South Korea wants 'East Sea' used alongside it, while North Korea pushes for 'East Sea of Korea'.

Which landmass, the largest of all peninsulas at 3.24 million km², is roughly the size of India and fronts the Red Sea?

The Arabian Peninsula was torn from Africa by the Red Sea Rift between 56 and 23 million years ago, and its plateau slopes gently east toward the Persian Gulf.

Which city's metro area, filling the Han River valley, passed 50% of South Korea's entire population in 2020?

Seoul's metropolitan area covers only about 12% of South Korea's land, and more than half of all Koreans who move between regions now head for the capital region.

Which Philippine volcano's 1991 eruption, the 20th century's second-largest, cooled global temperatures by about 0.4 °C?

Mount Pinatubo's 1991 blast injected about 17 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, the largest volume ever recorded by instruments, and the 1992 Antarctic ozone hole grew to a record.

Which country's Wakhan Corridor was drawn in the 1890s as a buffer so Russian and British territory would never touch?

Afghanistan's corridor is a relic of the Great Game, fixed by the 1893 Durand Line and 1895 Pamir boundary deals, and it still separates Tajikistan from Pakistan by as little as 13 km.

Which peak on the Nepal–Sikkim border was assumed to be the world's highest until survey sums showed otherwise in 1852?

Kangchenjunga was officially demoted to third-highest in 1856, and its first climbers stopped just short of the summit to honour a promise to Sikkim's ruler that the top stay inviolate.

Which 76 km Karakoram glacier, seized by India in 1984, is Earth's highest battleground, with troops above 6,000 m?

Siachen Glacier has cost India far more soldiers to weather and terrain than to bullets: over 900 dead since 1984, only about 220 of them from enemy fire.

Which Indian state's Khasi Hills hold the world rainfall records of Mawsynram and Cherrapunji?

Meghalaya's southern Khasi Hills average about 12,000 mm of rain a year; Cherrapunji holds the record for a calendar month and Mawsynram for a single year.

Which Indian plateau, walled by the Western and Eastern Ghats, sits on basalt flows erupted about 66 million years ago?

The Deccan Plateau's lava layers, the Deccan Traps, are more than 2 km thick in places, and because the Western Ghats block the monsoon the plateau is semi-arid while the coast is soaked.

Which Xinjiang basin, its Ayding Lake 154 m below sea level, holds China's lowest point and its hottest summers?

The Turpan Depression is a fault-bounded trough in the eastern Tian Shan, and its Ayding Lake floor is among the lowest patches of exposed land on Earth.