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Aardvark | Conservation | Conservation
Aardvarks were thought to have declining numbers, however, this is possibly because they are not readily seen. There are no definitive counts because of their nocturnal and secretive habits; however, their numbers seem to be stable overall. They are not considered common anywhere in Africa, but due to their large range, they maintain sufficient numbers. There may be a slight decrease in numbers in eastern, northern, and western Africa. Southern African numbers are not decreasing. It has received an official designation from the IUCN as least concern. However, they are a species in a precarious situation, as they are so dependent on such specific food; therefore if a problem arises with the abundance of termites, the species as a whole would be affected drastically.
Recent research suggests that aardvarks may be particularly vulnerable to alterations in temperature caused by climate change. Droughts negatively impact the availability of termites and ants, which comprise the bulk of an aardvark's diet. Nocturnal species faced with resource scarcity may increase their diurnal activity to spare the energy costs of staying warm at night, but this comes at the cost of withstanding high temperatures during the day. A study on aardvarks in the Kalahari Desert saw that five out of six aardvarks being studied perished following a drought. Aardvarks that survive droughts can take long periods of time to regain health and optimal thermoregulatory physiology, reducing the reproductive potential of the species.
Aardvarks adapt well to captivity. The first recorded instance was at London Zoo in 1869, which housed an individual from South Africa. |
Aardvark | Mythology and popular culture | Mythology and popular culture
thumb|200px|F-111 Aardvark
thumb|200px|F-14 Tomcat from VF-114 Aardvarks with the squadron mascot painted on the tail
In African folklore, the aardvark is much admired because of its diligent quest for food and its fearless response to soldier ants. Hausa magicians make a charm from the heart, skin, forehead, and nails of the aardvark, which they then proceed to pound together with the root of a certain tree. Wrapped in a piece of skin and worn on the chest, the charm is said to give the owner the ability to pass through walls or roofs at night. The charm is said to be used by burglars and those seeking to visit young girls without their parents' permission. Also, some tribes, such as the Margbetu, Ayanda, and Logo, will use aardvark teeth to make bracelets, which are regarded as good luck charms. The meat, which has a resemblance to pork, is eaten in certain cultures. In the mythology of the Dagbon people of Ghana, the aardvark is believed to possess superpowers. The Dagombas believe this animal can transfigure into and interact with humans.
The ancient Egyptian god Set is usually depicted with the head of an unidentified animal, whose similarity to an aardvark has been noted in scholarship.
The titular character and his families from Arthur, an animated television series for children based on a book series and produced by WGBH, shown in more than 180 countries, is an aardvark. In the first book of the series, Arthur's Nose (1976), he has a long, aardvark-like nose,Arthur's Nose, Thriftbooks; accessed 2020.09.29. but in later books, his face becomes more rounded.Arthur's Eyes, Thriftbooks; accesses 2020.09.29.
Otis the Aardvark was a puppet character used on Children's BBC programming.
An aardvark features as the antagonist in the cartoon The Ant and the Aardvark as well as in the Canadian animated series The Raccoons.
The supersonic fighter-bomber F-111/FB-111 was nicknamed the Aardvark because of its long nose resembling the animal. It also had similarities with its nocturnal missions flown at a very low level employing ordnance that could penetrate deep into the ground. In the US Navy, the squadron VF-114 was nicknamed the Aardvarks, flying F-4s and then F-14s. The squadron mascot was adapted from the animal in the comic strip B.C., which the F-4 was said to resemble.
Cerebus the Aardvark is a 300-issue comic book series by Dave Sim. |
Aardvark | Footnotes | Footnotes |
Aardvark | References | References
|
Aardvark | External links | External links
IUCN/SSC Afrotheria Specialist Group
A YouTube video introducing the Bronx Zoo's aardvarks
"The Biology of the Aardvark (Orycteropus afer)" a diploma thesis (without images)
"The Biology of the Aardvark" (Orycteropus afer)" the thesis with images
Category:Orycteropus
Category:Mammals of Africa
Category:Xerophiles
Category:Myrmecophagous mammals
Category:Mammals described in 1766
Category:Extant Zanclean first appearances
Category:Taxa named by Peter Simon Pallas
Category:Afrikaans words and phrases |
Aardvark | Table of Content | Short description, Name and taxonomy, Name, Taxonomy, Evolutionary history, Subspecies, Description, Head, Digestive system, Habitat and range, Ecology and behaviour, Feeding, Vocalisation, Movement, Reproduction, Conservation, Mythology and popular culture, Footnotes, References, External links |
Aardwolf | Short description | The aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) is an insectivorous hyaenid species, native to East and Southern Africa. Its name means "earth-wolf" in Afrikaans and Dutch."Aardwolf, n." Dictionary of South African English. Dictionary Unit for South African English, 2018. Web. 25 February 2019. It is also called the maanhaar-jackal"Maanhaar, n." Dictionary of South African English. Dictionary Unit for South African English, 2018. Web. 25 February 2019. (Afrikaans for "mane-jackal"), termite-eating hyena and civet hyena, based on its habit of secreting substances from its anal gland, a characteristic shared with the African civet.
Unlike many of its relatives in the order Carnivora, the aardwolf does not hunt large animals. It eats insects and their larvae, mainly termites; one aardwolf can lap up as many as 300,000 termites during a single night using its long, sticky tongue. The aardwolf's tongue has adapted to be tough enough to withstand the strong bite of termites.
The aardwolf lives in the shrublands of eastern and southern Africa – open lands covered with stunted trees and shrubs. It is nocturnal, resting in burrows during the day and emerging at night to seek food. |
Aardwolf | Taxonomy | Taxonomy
The aardwolf is generally classified as part of the hyena family Hyaenidae. However, it was formerly placed in its own family Protelidae. Early on, scientists felt that it was merely mimicking the striped hyena, which subsequently led to the creation of Protelidae. Recent studies have suggested that the aardwolf probably diverged from other hyaenids early on; how early is still unclear, as the fossil record and genetic studies disagree by 10 million years.
The aardwolf is the only surviving species in the subfamily Protelinae. There is disagreement as to whether the species is monotypic, or can be divided into subspecies. A 2021 study found the genetic differences in eastern and southern aardwolves may be pronounced enough to categorize them as species.
Image Subspecies Distribution180pxP. c. cristatus Southern Africa180pxP. c. septentrionalis East Africa.
A 2006 molecular analysis indicates it is phylogenetically the most basal of the four extant hyaenidae species. |
Aardwolf | Etymology | Etymology
The generic name Proteles is derived from two words of Greek origin: , prōtos and téleios, which combined mean "complete in front" referring to the aardwolf's five toes on the front paws and four on the hindpaws.
The specific name cristatus is derived from Latin and means "provided with a comb or tuft", relating to its mane. |
Aardwolf | Description | Description
thumb|Aardwolf with tongue exposed. Note the prominent papillae
The aardwolf resembles a much smaller and thinner striped hyena, with a more slender muzzle, black vertical stripes on a coat of yellowish fur, and a long, distinct mane down the midline of the neck and back. It also has one or two diagonal stripes down the fore and hindquarters and several stripes on its legs. The mane is raised during confrontations to make the aardwolf appear larger. It is missing the throat spot that others in the family have. Its lower leg (from the knee down) is all black, and its tail is bushy with a black tip.
The aardwolf is about long, excluding its bushy tail, which is about long, and stands about tall at the shoulders. An adult aardwolf weighs approximately , sometimes reaching . The aardwolves in the south of the continent tend to be slightly smaller (about ) than the eastern version (around ). This makes the aardwolf the smallest extant member of the Hyaenidae family. The front feet have five toes each, unlike the four-toed hyena. The skull is similar in shape to those of other hyenas, though much smaller, and its cheek teeth are specialised for eating insects. It still has canines, but unlike other hyenas, these teeth are used primarily for fighting and defense. Its ears, which are large, are very similar to those of the striped hyena.
As an aardwolf ages, it will typically lose some of its teeth, though this has little impact on its feeding habits due to the softness of the insects that it eats. |
Aardwolf | Distribution and habitat | Distribution and habitat
Aardwolves live in open, dry plains and bushland, avoiding mountainous areas. Due to their specific food requirements, they are found only in regions where termites of the family Hodotermitidae occur. Termites of this family depend on dead and withered grass and are most populous in heavily grazed grasslands and savannahs, including farmland. For most of the year, aardwolves spend time in shared territories consisting of up to a dozen dens, which are occupied for six weeks at a time.
There are two distinct populations: one in Southern Africa, and another in East and Northeast Africa. The species does not occur in the intermediary miombo forests.
An adult pair, along with their most-recent offspring, occupies a territory of . |
Aardwolf | Behavior and ecology | Behavior and ecology
thumb|left|Aardwolf at the San Antonio Zoo
Aardwolves are shy and nocturnal, sleeping in burrows by day. They will, on occasion during the winter, become diurnal feeders. This happens during the coldest periods as they then stay in at night to conserve heat.
They are primarily solitary animals, though during mating season they form monogamous pairs which occupy a territory with their young.Richardson, P. R. K. "Aardwolf mating system: overt cuckoldry in an apparently monogamous mammal." South African Journal of Science 83.7 (1987): 405. If their territory is infringed upon by another aardwolf, they will chase the intruder away for up to or to the border. If the intruder is caught, which rarely happens, a fight will occur, which is accompanied by soft clucking, hoarse barking, and a type of roar. The majority of incursions occur during mating season, when they can occur once or twice per week. When food is scarce, the stringent territorial system may be abandoned and as many as three pairs may occupy a single territory.
The territory is marked by both sexes, as they both have developed anal glands from which they extrude a black substance that is smeared on rocks or grass stalks in -long streaks. Aardwolves also have scent glands on the forefoot and penile pad.Stoeckelhuber, Mechthild, Alexander Sliwa, and Ulrich Welsch. "Histo-physiology of the scent-marking glands of the penile pad, anal pouch, and the forefoot in the aardwolf (Proteles cristatus)." The anatomical record 259.3 (2000): 312-326. They often mark near termite mounds within their territory every 20 minutes or so. If they are patrolling their territorial boundaries, the marking frequency increases drastically, to once every . At this rate, an individual may mark 60 marks per hour, and upwards of 200 per night.
An aardwolf pair's territory may have up to 10 dens, and numerous middens where they dig small holes and bury their feces with sand. Their dens are usually abandoned aardvark, springhare, or porcupine dens, or on occasion they are crevices in rocks. They will also dig their own dens, or enlarge dens started by springhares. They typically will only use one or two dens at a time, rotating through all of their dens every six months. During the summer, they may rest outside their den during the night and sleep underground during the heat of the day.
Aardwolves are not fast runners nor are they particularly adept at fighting off predators. Therefore, when threatened, the aardwolf may attempt to mislead its foe by doubling back on its tracks. If confronted, it may raise its mane in an attempt to appear more menacing. It also emits a foul-smelling liquid from its anal glands. |
Aardwolf | Feeding | Feeding
The aardwolf feeds primarily on termites and more specifically on Trinervitermes. This genus of termites has different species throughout the aardwolf's range. In East Africa, they eat Trinervitermes bettonianus, in central Africa, they eat Trinervitermes rhodesiensis, and in southern Africa, they eat T. trinervoides. Their technique consists of licking them off the ground as opposed to the aardvark, which digs into the mound. They locate their food by sound and also from the scent secreted by the soldier termites. An aardwolf may consume up to 250,000 termites per night using its long, broad, sticky tongue.
They do not destroy the termite mound or consume the entire colony, thus ensuring that the termites can rebuild and provide a continuous supply of food. They often memorize the location of such nests and return to them every few months. During certain seasonal events, such as the onset of the rainy season and the cold of midwinter, the primary termites become scarce, so the need for other foods becomes pronounced. During these times, the southern aardwolf will seek out Hodotermes mossambicus, a type of harvester termite active in the afternoon, which explains some of their diurnal behavior in the winter. The eastern aardwolf, during the rainy season, subsists on termites from the genera Odontotermes and Macrotermes. They are also known to feed on other insects and larvae, and, some sources mention, very occasionally small mammals and birds, but these constitute a very small percentage of their total diet. They use their wide tongues to lap surface foraging termites off of the ground and consume large quantities of sand in the process, which aids in digestion in the absence of teeth to break down their food.
Unlike other hyenas, aardwolves do not scavenge or kill larger animals. Contrary to popular myths, aardwolves do not eat carrion, and if they are seen eating while hunched over a dead carcass, they are actually eating larvae and beetles. Also, contrary to some sources, they do not like meat, unless it is finely ground or cooked for them. The adult aardwolf was formerly assumed to forage in small groups, but more recent research has shown that they are primarily solitary foragers, necessary because of the scarcity of their insect prey. Their primary source, Trinervitermes, forages in small but dense patches of . While foraging, the aardwolf can cover about per hour, which translates to per summer night and per winter night. |
Aardwolf | Breeding | Breeding
The breeding season varies depending on location, but normally takes place during autumn or spring. In South Africa, breeding occurs in early July. During the breeding season, unpaired male aardwolves search their own territory, as well as others, for a female to mate with. Dominant males also mate opportunistically with the females of less dominant neighboring aardwolves, which can result in conflict between rival males. Dominant males even go a step further and as the breeding season approaches, they make increasingly greater and greater incursions onto weaker males' territories. As the female comes into oestrus, they add pasting to their tricks inside of the other territories, sometimes doing so more in rivals' territories than their own. Females will also, when given the opportunity, mate with the dominant male, which increases the chances of the dominant male guarding "his" cubs with her. Copulation lasts between 1 and 4.5 hours.
Gestation lasts between 89 and 92 days, producing two to five cubs (most often two or three) during the rainy season (October–December), when termites are more active. They are born with their eyes open, but initially are helpless, and weigh around . The first six to eight weeks are spent in the den with their parents. The male may spend up to six hours a night watching over the cubs while the mother is out looking for food. After three months, they begin supervised foraging, and by four months are normally independent, though they often share a den with their mother until the next breeding season. By the time the next set of cubs is born, the older cubs have moved on. Aardwolves generally achieve sexual maturity at one and a half to two years of age. |
Aardwolf | Conservation | Conservation
The aardwolf has not seen decreasing numbers and is relatively widespread throughout eastern Africa. They are not common throughout their range, as they maintain a density of no more than 1 per square kilometer, if food is abundant. Because of these factors, the IUCN has rated the aardwolf as least concern. In some areas, they are persecuted because of the mistaken belief that they prey on livestock; however, they are actually beneficial to the farmers because they eat termites that are detrimental. In other areas, the farmers have recognized this, but they are still killed, on occasion, for their fur. Dogs and insecticides are also common killers of the aardwolf. |
Aardwolf | In captivity | In captivity
thumb|Illustration of Proteles cristatus
Frankfurt Zoo in Germany was home to the oldest recorded aardwolf in captivity at 18 years and 11 months. |
Aardwolf | Notes | Notes |
Aardwolf | References | References |
Aardwolf | Sources | Sources
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Aardwolf | Further reading | Further reading
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Aardwolf | External links | External links
Animal Diversity Web
IUCN Hyaenidae Specialist Group Aardwolf pages on hyaenidae.org
Cam footage from the Namib desert https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lRevqS6Pxgg
Category:Mammals described in 1783
Category:Carnivorans of Africa
Category:Hyenas
Category:Mammals of Southern Africa
Category:Fauna of East Africa
Category:Myrmecophagous mammals
Category:Taxa named by Anders Sparrman
Category:Nocturnal animals
Category:Mammals of Africa |
Aardwolf | Table of Content | Short description, Taxonomy, Etymology, Description, Distribution and habitat, Behavior and ecology, Feeding, Breeding, Conservation, In captivity, Notes, References, Sources, Further reading, External links |
Adobe | Short description | thumb|Adobe wall (detail) in Bahillo, Palencia, Spain
thumb|Renewal of the surface coating of an adobe wall in Chamisal, New Mexico
thumb|Adobe walls separate urban gardens in Shiraz, Iran
Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of earthen construction, or various architectural styles like Pueblo Revival or Territorial Revival. Most adobe buildings are similar in appearance to cob and rammed earth buildings. Adobe is among the earliest building materials, and is used throughout the world.
Adobe architecture has been dated to before 5,100 BP. |
Adobe | Description | Description
Adobe bricks are rectangular prisms small enough that they can quickly air dry individually without cracking. They can be subsequently assembled, with the application of adobe mud to bond the individual bricks into a structure. There is no standard size, with substantial variations over the years and in different regions. In some areas a popular size measured weighing about ; in other contexts the size is weighing about . The maximum sizes can reach up to ; above this weight it becomes difficult to move the pieces, and it is preferred to ram the mud in situ, resulting in a different typology known as rammed earth. |
Adobe | Strength | Strength
In dry climates, adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for some of the oldest existing buildings in the world. Adobe buildings offer significant advantages due to their greater thermal mass, but they are known to be particularly susceptible to earthquake damage if they are not reinforced.Short documentary about adobe preparation and 2010 Chile earthquake Livingatlaschile.com, FICh. Retrieved 5 March 2014 Cases where adobe structures were widely damaged during earthquakes include the 1976 Guatemala earthquake, the 2003 Bam earthquake, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. |
Adobe | Distribution | Distribution
Buildings made of sun-dried earth are common throughout the world (Middle East, Western Asia, North Africa, West Africa, South America, Southwestern North America, Southwestern and Eastern Europe.).Marchand, Trevor (2009). The Masons of Djenne. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press Adobe had been in use by indigenous peoples of the Americas in the Southwestern United States, Mesoamerica, and the Andes for several thousand years. Puebloan peoples built their adobe structures with handsful or basketsful of adobe, until the Spanish introduced them to making bricks. Adobe bricks were used in Spain from the Late Bronze and Iron Ages (eighth century BCE onwards). Its wide use can be attributed to its simplicity of design and manufacture, and economics. |
Adobe | Etymology | Etymology
thumb|left|Church at San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
The word adobe has existed for around 4,000 years with relatively little change in either pronunciation or meaning. The word can be traced from the Middle Egyptian () word ḏbt "mud brick" (with vowels unwritten). Middle Egyptian evolved into Late Egyptian and finally to Coptic (), where it appeared as ⲧⲱⲃⲉ tōbə. This was adopted into Arabic as aṭ-ṭawbu or aṭ-ṭūbu, with the definite article al- attached"adobe", Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) © Oxford University Press, 2009 to the root tuba.Spanish Word Histories and Mysteries: English Words that Come from Spanish, Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007, p.5"Adobe Moulding" Auroville Earth Institute This was assimilated into the Old Spanish language as adobe , probably via Mozarabic. English borrowed the word from Spanish in the early 18th century, still referring to mudbrick construction.
In more modern English usage, the term adobe has come to include a style of architecture popular in the desert climates of North America, especially in New Mexico, regardless of the construction method. |
Adobe | Composition | Composition
thumb|Adobe style in Santa Fe, New Mexico
An adobe brick is a composite material made of earth mixed with water and an organic material such as straw or dung. The soil composition typically contains sand, silt and clay. Straw is useful in binding the brick together and allowing the brick to dry evenly, thereby preventing cracking due to uneven shrinkage rates through the brick. Dung offers the same advantage. The most desirable soil texture for producing the mud of adobe is 15% clay, 10–30% silt, and 55–75% fine sand. Another source quotes 15–25% clay and the remainder sand and coarser particles up to cobbles , with no deleterious effect. Modern adobe is stabilized with either emulsified asphalt or Portland cement up to 10% by weight.
No more than half the clay content should be expansive clays, with the remainder non-expansive illite or kaolinite. Too much expansive clay results in uneven drying through the brick, resulting in cracking, while too much kaolinite will make a weak brick. Typically the soils of the Southwest United States, where such construction has been widely used, are an adequate composition. |
Adobe | Material properties | Material properties
thumb|The Great Mosque of Djenné, Mali, built in adobe. The struts projecting from the wall serve as decoration, as well as supports for scaffolding during maintenance.
thumb|Maintenance of historic architecture in Agadez, Niger, by adding a new layer of mud rendering
Adobe walls are load bearing, i.e. they carry their own weight into the foundation rather than by another structure, hence the adobe must have sufficient compressive strength. In the United States, most building codes call for a minimum compressive strength of for the adobe block. Adobe construction should be designed so as to avoid lateral structural loads that would cause bending loads. The building codes require the building sustain a lateral acceleration earthquake load. Such an acceleration will cause lateral loads on the walls, resulting in shear and bending and inducing tensile stresses. To withstand such loads, the codes typically call for a tensile modulus of rupture strength of at least for the finished block.
In addition to being an inexpensive material with a small resource cost, adobe can serve as a significant heat reservoir due to the thermal properties inherent in the massive walls typical in adobe construction. In climates typified by hot days and cool nights, the high thermal mass of adobe mediates the high and low temperatures of the day, moderating the temperature of the living space. The massive walls require a large and relatively long input of heat from the sun (radiation) and from the surrounding air (convection) before they warm through to the interior. After the sun sets and the temperature drops, the warm wall will continue to transfer heat to the interior for several hours due to the time-lag effect. Thus, a well-planned adobe wall of the appropriate thickness is very effective at controlling inside temperature through the wide daily fluctuations typical of desert climates, a factor which has contributed to its longevity as a building material.
Thermodynamic material properties have significant variation in the literature. Some experiments suggest that the standard consideration of conductivity is not adequate for this material, as its main thermodynamic property is inertia, and conclude that experimental tests should be performed over a longer period of time than usual – preferably with changing thermal jumps. There is an effective R-value for a north facing wall of R0=10 hr ft2 °F/Btu, which corresponds to thermal conductivity k=10 in x 1 ft/12 in /R0=0.33 Btu/(hr ft °F) or 0.57 W/(m K) in agreement with the thermal conductivity reported from another source. To determine the total R-value of a wall, scale R0 by the thickness of the wall in inches. The thermal resistance of adobe is also stated as an R-value for a wall R0=4.1 hr ft2 °F/Btu. Another source provides the following properties: conductivity 0.30 Btu/(hr ft °F) or 0.52 W/(m K); specific heat capacity 0.24 Btu/(lb °F) or 1 kJ/(kg K) and density , giving heat capacity 25.4 Btu/(ft3 °F) or 1700 kJ/(m3 K). Using the average value of the thermal conductivity as k = 32 Btu/(hr ft °F) or 0.55 W/(m K), the thermal diffusivity is calculated to be . |
Adobe | Uses | Uses |
Adobe | Poured and puddled adobe walls | Poured and puddled adobe walls
thumb|left|Cliff dwellings of poured or puddled adobe (cob) at Cuarenta Casas in Mexico
Poured and puddled adobe (puddled clay, piled earth), today called cob, is made by placing soft adobe in layers, rather than by making individual dried bricks or using a form. "Puddle" is a general term for a clay or clay and sand-based material worked into a dense, plastic state."puddle, n. 4.". Oxford English Dictionary 2nd. ed. 2009. CD-rom. These are the oldest methods of building with adobe in the Americas until holes in the ground were used as forms, and later wooden forms used to make individual bricks were introduced by the Spanish.Keefe, Laurence (2005). Earth Building: Methods and Materials, Repair and Conservation. London: Taylor & Francis. p. 22. . |
Adobe | Adobe bricks | Adobe bricks
thumb|Adobe bricks near a construction site in Milyanfan, Kyrgyzstan
Bricks made from adobe are usually made by pressing the mud mixture into an open timber frame. In North America, the brick is typically about in size. The mixture is molded into the frame, which is removed after initial setting. After drying for a few hours, the bricks are turned on edge to finish drying. Slow drying in shade reduces cracking.
The same mixture, without straw, is used to make mortar and often plaster on interior and exterior walls. Some cultures used lime-based cement for the plaster to protect against rain damage.
Depending on the form into which the mixture is pressed, adobe can encompass nearly any shape or size, provided drying is even and the mixture includes reinforcement for larger bricks. Reinforcement can include manure, straw, cement, rebar, or wooden posts. Straw, cement, or manure added to a standard adobe mixture can produce a stronger, more crack-resistant brick. A test is done on the soil content first. To do so, a sample of the soil is mixed into a clear container with some water, creating an almost completely saturated liquid. The container is shaken vigorously for one minute. It is then allowed to settle for a day until the soil has settled into layers. Heavier particles settle out first, sand above, silt above that, and very fine clay and organic matter will stay in suspension for days. After the water has cleared, percentages of the various particles can be determined. Fifty to 60 percent sand and 35 to 40 percent clay will yield strong bricks. The Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service at New Mexico State University recommends a mix of not more than clay, not less than sand, and never more than silt.
During the Great Depression, designer and builder Hugh W. Comstock used cheaper materials and made a specialized adobe brick called "Bitudobe." His first adobe house was built in 1936. In 1948, he published the book Post-Adobe; Simplified Adobe Construction Combining A Rugged Timber Frame And Modern Stabilized Adobe, which described his method of construction, including how to make "Bitudobe." In 1938, he served as an adviser to the architects Franklin & Kump Associates, who built the Carmel High School, which used his Post-adobe system. |
Adobe | Adobe wall construction | Adobe wall construction
thumb|The earthen plaster removed, exposing the adobe bricks at Fort St. Sebastien in France
The ground supporting an adobe structure should be compressed, as the weight of adobe wall is significant and foundation settling may cause cracking of the wall. Footing depth is to be below the ground frost level. The footing and stem wall are commonly thick, respectively. Modern construction codes call for the use of reinforcing steel in the footing and stem wall. Adobe bricks are laid by course. Adobe walls usually never rise above two stories as they are load bearing and adobe has low structural strength. When creating window and door openings, a lintel is placed on top of the opening to support the bricks above. Atop the last courses of brick, bond beams made of heavy wood beams or modern reinforced concrete are laid to provide a horizontal bearing plate for the roof beams and to redistribute lateral earthquake loads to shear walls more able to carry the forces. To protect the interior and exterior adobe walls, finishes such as mud plaster, whitewash or stucco can be applied. These protect the adobe wall from water damage, but need to be reapplied periodically. Alternatively, the walls can be finished with other nontraditional plasters that provide longer protection. Bricks made with stabilized adobe generally do not need protection of plasters. |
Adobe | Adobe roof | Adobe roof
The traditional adobe roof has been constructed using a mixture of soil/clay, water, sand and organic materials. The mixture was then formed and pressed into wood forms, producing rows of dried earth bricks that would then be laid across a support structure of wood and plastered into place with more adobe.
Depending on the materials available, a roof may be assembled using wood or metal beams to create a framework to begin layering adobe bricks. Depending on the thickness of the adobe bricks, the framework has been preformed using a steel framing and a layering of a metal fencing or wiring over the framework to allow an even load as masses of adobe are spread across the metal fencing like cob and allowed to air dry accordingly. This method was demonstrated with an adobe blend heavily impregnated with cement to allow even drying and prevent cracking.
The more traditional flat adobe roofs are functional only in dry climates that are not exposed to snow loads. The heaviest wooden beams, called vigas, lie atop the wall. Across the vigas lie smaller members called latillas and upon those brush is then laid. Finally, the adobe layer is applied.
To construct a flat adobe roof, beams of wood were laid to span the building, the ends of which were attached to the tops of the walls. Once the vigas, latillas and brush are laid, adobe bricks are placed. An adobe roof is often laid with bricks slightly larger in width to ensure a greater expanse is covered when placing the bricks onto the roof. Following each individual brick should be a layer of adobe mortar, recommended to be at least thick to make certain there is ample strength between the brick's edges and also to provide a relative moisture barrier during rain.
Roof design evolved around 1850 in the American Southwest. of adobe mud was applied on top of the latillas, then of dry adobe dirt applied to the roof. The dirt was contoured into a low slope to a downspout aka a 'canal'. When moisture was applied to the roof the clay particles expanded to create a waterproof membrane. Once a year it was necessary to pull the weeds from the roof and re-slope the dirt as needed.
Depending on the materials, adobe roofs can be inherently fire-proof. The construction of a chimney can greatly influence the construction of the roof supports, creating an extra need for care in choosing the materials. The builders can make an adobe chimney by stacking simple adobe bricks in a similar fashion as the surrounding walls.
In 1927, the Uniform Building Code (UBC) was adopted in the United States. Local ordinances, referencing the UBC added requirements to building with adobe. These included: restriction of building height of adobe structures to 1-story, requirements for adobe mix (compressive and shear strength) and new requirements which stated that every building shall be designed to withstand seismic activity, specifically lateral forces. By the 1980s however, seismic related changes in the California Building Code effectively ended solid wall adobe construction in California; however Post-and-Beam adobe and veneers are still being used. |
Adobe | Adobe around the world | Adobe around the world
The largest structure ever made from adobe is the Arg-é Bam built by the Achaemenid Empire. Other large adobe structures are the Huaca del Sol in Peru, with 100 million signed bricks and the ciudellas of Chan Chan and Tambo Colorado, both in Peru. |
Adobe | See also | See also
used adobe walls
(waterproofing plaster)
(also known as Ctesiphon Arch) in Iraq is the largest mud brick arch in the world, built beginning in 540 AD
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Adobe | References | References |
Adobe | External links | External links
Category:Soil-based building materials
Category:Masonry
Category:Adobe buildings and structures
Category:Appropriate technology
Category:Vernacular architecture
Category:Sustainable building |
Adobe | Table of Content | Short description, Description, Strength, Distribution, Etymology, Composition, Material properties, Uses, Poured and puddled adobe walls, Adobe bricks, Adobe wall construction, Adobe roof, Adobe around the world, See also, References, External links |
Adventure | Short description | thumb|upright=1.5|People on a coracle
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme sports. Adventures are often undertaken to create psychological arousal or in order to achieve a greater goal, such as the pursuit of knowledge that can only be obtained by such activities. |
Adventure | Motivation | Motivation
Adventurous experiences create psychological arousal, which can be interpreted as negative (e.g. fear) or positive (e.g. flow). For some people, adventure becomes a major pursuit in and of itself. According to adventurer André Malraux, in his Man's Fate (1933), "If a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?"
Similarly, Helen Keller stated that "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
Outdoor adventurous activities are typically undertaken for the purposes of recreation or excitement: examples are adventure racing and adventure tourism. Adventurous activities can also lead to gains in knowledge, such as those undertaken by explorers and pioneersthe British adventurer Jason Lewis, for example, uses adventures to draw global sustainability lessons from living within finite environmental constraints on expeditions to share with schoolchildren. Adventure education intentionally uses challenging experiences for learning.
Author Jon Levy suggests that an experience should meet several criteria to be considered an adventure:
Be remarkable—that is, worth talking about
Involve adversity or perceived risk
Bring about personal growth. |
Adventure | Mythology and fiction | Mythology and fiction
Some of the oldest and most widespread stories in the world are stories of adventure, such as Homer's Odyssey.
The knight errant was the form the "adventure seeker" character took in the Late Middle Ages.
Adventure fiction exhibits these "protagonist on adventurous journey" characteristics, as do many popular feature films, such as Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
thumb|right|Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a well-known example of a fantasized adventure story.
Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and other comic book publishers often use "adventurer"—or, in some cases, "costumed adventurer" or "superhuman adventurer"—as a synonym for "super-hero." |
Adventure | Outdoors | Outdoors
Adventure books may have the theme of the hero or main character going to face the wilderness or Mother Nature. Examples include books such as Hatchet or My Side of the Mountain. These books are less about "questing", such as in mythology or other adventure novels, but more about surviving on their own, living off the land, gaining new experiences, and becoming closer to the natural world. |
Adventure | Questing | Questing
Many adventures are based on the idea of a quest: the hero goes off in pursuit of a reward, whether it be a skill, prize, treasure, or perhaps the safety of a person. On the way, the hero must overcome various obstacles to obtain their reward. |
Adventure | Video games | Video games
In video game culture, an adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of literary genres. Many adventure games (text and graphic) are designed for a single player, since this emphasis on story and character makes multi-player design difficult. |
Adventure | Nonfiction works | Nonfiction works
From ancient times, travelers and explorers have written about their adventures. Journals which became best-sellers in their day were written, such as Marco Polo's journal The Travels of Marco Polo or Mark Twain's Roughing It. Others were personal journals, only later published, such as the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark or Captain James Cook's journals. There are also books written by those not directly a part of the adventure in question, such as The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe or books written by those participating in the adventure but in a format other than that of a journal, such as Conquistadors of the Useless by Lionel Terray. Documentaries often use the theme of adventure as well. |
Adventure | Adventure sports | Adventure sports
There are many sports classified as adventure sports, due to their inherent danger and excitement. Some of these include mountain climbing, skydiving, or other extreme sports. |
Adventure | See also | See also
Adventure film
Adventure playground
Adventure travel
Expedition
Exploration
Filibuster (military)
List of genres
Novelty seeking
Overlanding
Sports
Tourism |
Adventure | References | References |
Adventure | External links | External links
Website of the Research Unit "Philology of Adventure": ongoing research project on the literary history of the adventure
Wikivoyage
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Adventure | Table of Content | Short description, Motivation, Mythology and fiction, Outdoors, Questing, Video games, Nonfiction works, Adventure sports, See also, References, External links |
Asia | Short description | Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilisations. 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 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. "Europe" (pp. 68–69); "Asia" (pp. 90–91): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea with its outlets, the Bosporus and Dardanelles."
Since 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 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 the 20th century, but overall population growth has since fallen. Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's mainstream religions including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, 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 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. |
Asia | Etymology | Etymology
thumb|left|Ptolemy's Asia
The term "Asia" is believed to originate in the Bronze Age toponym () 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 the Hittite king Tudhaliya I around 1400 BCE.Bossert, Helmut T., Asia, Istanbul, 1946. Roughly contemporary Linear B documents contain the term (), seemingly in reference to captives from the same area..
thumb|left|The province of Asia within the Roman Empire
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 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.Book IV, Article 45. In Greek mythology, "Asia" ( or ) 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 (literally 'Asian');Μ95, Π717. and also a marsh or lowland containing a marsh in Lydia as .Β461.
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. |
Asia | Definition | Definition |
Asia | Asia–Europe boundary | Asia–Europe boundary
thumb|upright=1.2|Definitions used for the boundary between Asia and Europe in different periods of history. Modern definitions mostly fit with lines B and F given.
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 (now the Rioni) in Georgia of Caucasus (from its mouth by Poti on 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.Histories 4.38. Cf. James Rennell, The Geographical System of Herodotus Examined and Explained, Volume 1, Rivington 1830, p. 244. During the Hellenistic period,according to Strabo (Geographica 11.7.4) even at the time of Alexander, "it was agreed by all that the Tanais river separated Asia from Europe" (; cf. Duane W. Roller, Eratosthenes' Geography, Princeton University Press, 2010, , ) 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,W. Theiler, Posidonios. Die Fragmente, vol. 1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982, fragm. 47a. StraboI. G. Kidd (ed.), Posidonius: The commentary, Cambridge University Press, 2004, , and Ptolemy.Geographia 7.5.6 (ed. Nobbe 1845, , p. 178).
"And [Asia] is connected to Europe by the land-strait between Lake Maiotis and the Sarmatian Ocean where the river Tanais crosses through."
The border between Asia and Europe 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 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. |
Asia | Asia–Africa boundary | Asia–Africa boundary
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 the Sinai Peninsula in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa. |
Asia | Asia–Oceania boundary | Asia–Oceania boundary
left|thumb|upright=1.2|Definitions of the boundary between Asia and Oceania
The border between Asia and Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Indonesian Archipelago, specifically in Eastern Indonesia. The Wallace Line separates 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 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, 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 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.". |
Asia | Asia–North America boundary | Asia–North America boundary
thumb|upright=1.2|The United States–Russia borrder according to the USSR–USA Maritime Boundary Agreement
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 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 the United States 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 the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
St. Lawrence Island in the northern Bering Sea belongs to the US state of 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 . |
Asia | Ongoing definition | Ongoing definition
thumb|left|Afro-Eurasia
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 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 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 the easternmost part of Siberia (east of the Chersky Range) on the North American Plate. |
Asia | History | History |
Asia | Ancient era | Ancient era
thumb|upright=1.2|The Silk Road connected civilisations across Asia.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 was home to some of the world's earliest known civilisations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilisations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Yellow River shared many similarities. These civilisations 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 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 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, 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. |
Asia | Medieval era | Medieval era
thumb|upright=1.2|The Mongol Empire at its greatest extent. The gray area is the later Timurid Empire.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 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.Ping-ti Ho. "An Estimate of the Total Population of Sung-Chin China", in Études Song, Series 1, No. 1, (1970). pp. 33–53.
The Black Death, one of 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. |
Asia | Modern era | Modern era
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 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 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 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 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 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 the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century led to the Middle East also being contested and partitioned by the British and French. |
Asia | Contemporary era | Contemporary era
thumb|The Soviet Union (in red) and China (yellow) controlled most of Asia in the late 20th century.
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 the majority of South Asian Muslims, which in 1971 further split into Pakistan and Bangladesh; The Cold War in Asia 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 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 market-driven 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 the 1990s, with extreme poverty now below 20%; India and China's rise has coincided with growing tensions between the two, with the Indo-Pacific now an actively contested area between China and counterbalancing forces. |
Asia | Geography | Geography
thumb|The Himalayan range is home to some of the planet's highest peaks.
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 . Asia 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 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. |
Asia | Main regions | Main regions
thumb|upright=1.4|Detailed map of Asian regions
There are various approaches to 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. "Geographic Regions" anklicken Zitat: "The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories by the United Nations."
North Asia (Siberia)
Central Asia
West Asia (The Middle East or Near East and part of the Caucasus)
South Asia (Indian subcontinent)
East Asia (Far East)
Southeast Asia (East Indies and Indochina) |
Asia | Climate | Climate
thumb|upright=1.4|Köppen-Geiger climate classification map for Asia
Asia has extremely diverse climate features. Climates range from Arctic and subarctic in Siberia to tropical in southern India and Southeast Asia. It 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 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. |
Asia | Climate change | Climate change |
Asia | Politics | Politics
alt=|thumb|Map of 2023 V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index for Asia
|upright=1.4
The most democratic countries in Asia are Japan, Taiwan and Israel according to the V-Dem Democracy indices in 2024. |
Asia | List of states and territories | List of states and territories
Symbol Flag Name Population() Area(km2) Capital 20px|link=Emblem of Afghanistan|alt=Emblem Afghanistan 652,864 Kabul Armenia 29,743 Yerevan Azerbaijan 86,600 Baku Bahrain 760 Manama 20px|link=National Emblem of Bangladesh|alt=Emblem Bangladesh 147,570 Dhaka 20px|link=Emblem of Bhutan|alt=Emblem Bhutan 38,394 Thimphu 20px|link=Emblem of Brunei|alt=Emblem Brunei 5,765 Bandar Seri Begawan 20px|link=Royal arms of Cambodia|alt=Arms Cambodia 181,035 Phnom Penh 20px|link=National Emblem of the People's Republic of China|alt=Emblem China (PRC) 9,596,961 Beijing Cyprus 9,251 Nicosia Egypt 1,001,449 Cairo Georgia 69,700 Tbilisi 20px|link=State Emblem of India|alt=Emblem India 3,287,263 New Delhi 20px|link=National emblem of Indonesia|alt=Emblem Indonesia 1,904,569 Jakarta 20px|link=Emblem of Iran|alt=Emblem Iran 1,648,195 Tehran Iraq 438,317 Baghdad Israel 20,770 Jerusalem (limited recognition) 20px|link=Imperial Seal of Japan|alt=Seal Japan 377,915 Tokyo Jordan 89,342 Amman 20px|link=Emblem of Kazakhstan|alt=Emblem Kazakhstan 2,724,900 Astana Kuwait 17,818 Kuwait City 20px|link=Emblem of Kyrgyzstan|alt=Emblem Kyrgyzstan 199,951 Bishkek 20px|link=Emblem of Laos|alt=Emblem Laos 236,800 Vientiane Lebanon 10,400 Beirut 20px|link=Coat of arms of Malaysia|alt=Arms Malaysia 329,847 Kuala Lumpur 20px|link=Emblem of Maldives|alt=Emblem Maldives 298 Malé 20px|link=Emblem of Mongolia|alt=Emblem Mongolia 1,564,116 Ulaanbaatar 20px|link=State Seal of Myanmar|alt=Seal Myanmar 676,578 Naypyidaw 20px|link=Emblem of Nepal|alt=Emblem Nepal 147,181 Kathmandu 20px|link=Emblem of North Korea|alt=Emblem North Korea 120,538 Pyongyang 20px|link=National emblem of Oman|alt=Emblem Oman 309,500 Muscat Pakistan 211,103,000 881,913 Islamabad Philippines 343,448 Manila 20px|Link=Emblem of Qatar|alt=Emblem Qatar 11,586 Doha Russia 17,098,242 Moscow 20px|link=Emblem of Saudi Arabia|alt=Emblem Saudi Arabia 2,149,690 Riyadh 20px|link=Coat of arms of Singapore|alt=Arms Singapore 697 Singapore 20px|link=Emblem of South Korea|alt=Emblem South Korea 100,210 Seoul 20px|link=Emblem of Sri Lanka|alt=Emblem Sri Lanka 65,610 Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte 20px|link=Coat of arms of Syria|alt=Emblem Syria 185,180 Damascus 20px|link=Emblem of Tajikistan|alt=Emblem Tajikistan 143,100 Dushanbe 20px|link=Emblem of Thailand|alt=Emblem Thailand 513,120 Bangkok Timor-Leste 14,874 Dili Turkey 783,562 Ankara 20px|link=Emblem of Turkmenistan|alt=Emblem Turkmenistan 488,100 Ashgabat alt=Emblem|28x28px|link=Emblem of the United Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates 83,600 Abu Dhabi 20px|link=Emblem of Uzbekistan|alt=Emblem Uzbekistan 447,400 Tashkent 20px|link=Emblem of Vietnam|alt=Emblem Vietnam 331,212 Hanoi 20px|link=Emblem of Yemen|alt=Emblem Yemen 527,968
Within the states mentioned above are several partially recognized countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN, however Palestine has observer state status:
Symbol Flag Name Population Area(km2) Capital 20px|link=Emblem of Abkhazia#Republic of Abkhazia|alt=Arms Abkhazia 242,862 8,660 Sukhumi 20px|link=Coat of arms of Cyprus#Northern Cyprus|alt=Arms Northern Cyprus 326,000 3,355 North Nicosia 20px|link=Coat of arms of Palestine|alt=Arms Palestine 6,025 Jerusalem (limited recognition) South Ossetia 51,547 3,900 Tskhinvali 20px|link=Blue Sky with a White Sun|alt=Emblem Taiwan (ROC) 36,193 Taipei |
Asia | Economy | Economy
thumb|upright=1.2|Singapore has one of the busiest container ports in the world and is the world's fourth-largest foreign exchange trading hub.
Asia has the largest continental economy in the world by both GDP nominal and PPP values, and is the fastest growing economic region. , 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 the top 5 being in Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul. Around 68% 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 for much of the past three millennia prior to the 19th century, accounting for 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 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 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 Four Asian Tigers, which are now all considered developed economies, having among the highest GDP per capita in Asia.
alt=|thumb|Mumbai is one of the most populous cities in Asia, as well as an economic and tourism hub.
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 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, 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 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 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 the Asian goods traffic is carried out on the Pacific Rim, toward 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. The land route to Europe are the subject of construction projects, comparatively smaller in scope. smaller in terms of scope. Intra-Asian trade, including sea trade, is growing rapidly.Harry G. Broadman. "Afrika's Silk Road" (2007), pp. 59.Harry de Wilt. Is One Belt, One Road a China crisis for North Sea main ports? in World Cargo News, 17 December 2019.Bernhard Simon: Can The New Silk Road Compete With The Maritime Silk Road? in The Maritime Executive, 1 January 2020.Jean-Marc F. Blanchard "China's Maritime Silk Road Initiative and South Asia" (2018).
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 the total wealth of people in Asia with over $100 million in assets exceeded that of their North American counterparts for the first time, as the world's "economic center of gravity" continued moving east. At 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.
Rank Country GDP (nominal, Peak Year)millions of USD Peak Year 1 19,231,7052025 2 World Bank's GDP (Nominal) Data for Japan6,272,3632012 3 4,187,0172025 4 2,295,5272022 5 1,942,3142021 6 1,437,4062025 7 1,429,7432025 8 1,108,5712022 9 804,8892025 10 World Bank's GDP (Nominal) Data for Iran644,0192012
Rank Country GDP (PPP, Peak Year)millions of USD Peak Year 1 40,716,4482025 2 17,647,0502025 3 7,191,7182025 4 6,741,1922025 5 5,009,4832025 6 3,767,2302023 7 3,365,0522025 8 2,371,5302025 9 2,229,6112025 10 1,965,8392025 |
Asia | Tourism | Tourism
thumb|alt=A Thai temple complex with several ornate buildings, and a lot of visitors|Wat Phra Kaew in the Grand Palace is among Bangkok's major tourist attractions.
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 the first time a city of a country from Asia (Bangkok) set in the top-ranked with 15.98 million international visitors. |
Asia | Demographics | Demographics
thumb|World population 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 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, 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 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 | Languages | Languages
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 the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces. |
Asia | Religions | Religions
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 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 the combined efforts of emperors and divinities to control. |
Asia | Abrahamic | Abrahamic
thumb|The Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem
thumb|The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem
thumb|Pilgrims in the annual Hajj at the Kaabah in Mecca
The Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druze faith, and Baháʼí Faith originated in West Asia.
Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in Israel, the indigenous homeland and historical birthplace of the Hebrew nation: which today consists both of those Jews who remained in the Middle East and those who returned from diaspora in Europe, North America, and other regions; though various diaspora communities persist worldwide. Jews are the predominant ethnic group in Israel (75.6%) numbering at about 6.1 million, although the levels of adherence to Jewish religion vary. Outside of Israel there are small ancient Jewish communities in Turkey (17,400), Azerbaijan (9,100), Iran (8,756), See Persian Jews#Iran India (5,000) and Uzbekistan (4,000),, American Jewish Yearbook, vol. 107 (2007), p. 592. among many other places. As of 2016, there are am estimated 14.4–17.5 million (2016, est.) Jews alive in the world today, making them one of the smallest Asian minorities, at roughly 0.3–0.4& of the total population of the continent.
Christianity is a widespread religion in Asia, with more than 286 million adherents in 2010 according to Pew Research Center, and nearly 364 million according to Britannica Book of the Year 2014. Christians constitute around 12.6% of the total population of Asia. In the Philippines and Timor-Leste, Catholicism is the predominant religion; it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In Armenia and Georgia, Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion. In the Middle East, such as in the Levant, Anatolia and Fars, Syriac Christianity (Church of the East) and Oriental Orthodoxy are prevalent minority denominations, which are both Eastern Christian sects mainly adhered to Assyrian people or Syriac Christians. Vibrant indigenous minorities in West Asia are adhering to the Eastern Catholic Churches and Eastern Orthodoxy. Saint Thomas Christians in India trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century.The Encyclopedia of Christianity, Volume 5 by Erwin Fahlbusch. Wm. B. Eerdmans. 2008, p. 285. . Significant Christian communities also found in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia.
Islam, which originated in the Hejaz located in modern-day Saudi Arabia, is the second largest and most widely-spread religion in Asia with at least 1 billion Muslims constituting around 23.8% of the total population of Asia. With 12.7% of the world Muslim population, the country currently with the largest Muslim population in the world is Indonesia, followed by Pakistan (11.5%), India (10%), Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey. Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are the three holiest cities for Islam in all the world. The Hajj and Umrah attract large numbers of Muslim devotees from all over the world to Mecca and Medina. Iran is the largest Shia country.
The Druze originated in West Asia, is a monotheistic religion based on the teachings of figures like Hamza ibn Ali and al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, and Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. The number of Druze people worldwide is around one million. Around 45–50% live in Syria, 35% to 40% live in Lebanon, and less than 10% live in Israel. Recently there has been a growing Druze diaspora.
The Baháʼí Faith originated in Asia, in Iran (Persia), and spread from there to the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, India, and Burma during the lifetime of Bahá'u'lláh. Since the middle of the 20th century, growth has particularly occurred in other Asian countries, because Baháʼí activities in many Muslim countries has been severely suppressed by authorities. Lotus Temple is a big Baháʼí temple in India. |
Asia | Indian and East Asian religions | Indian and East Asian religions
thumb|The Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in Delhi, according to the Guinness World Records, is the World's Largest Comprehensive Hindu Temple.
Almost all Asian religions have philosophical character and Asian philosophical traditions cover a large spectrum of philosophical thoughts and writings. Indian philosophy includes Hindu philosophy and Buddhist philosophy. They include elements of nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India, Cārvāka, preached the enjoyment of the material world. The religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated in India, South Asia. In East Asia, particularly in China and Japan, Confucianism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism took shape.
, Hinduism has around 1.1 billion adherents. The faith represents around 25% of Asia's population and is the largest religion in Asia. However, it is mostly concentrated in South Asia. Over 80% of the populations of both India and Nepal adhere to Hinduism, alongside significant communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bali, Indonesia. Many overseas Indians in countries such as Burma, Singapore and Malaysia also adhere to Hinduism.
thumb|The Angkor Wat in Cambodia, a Hindu-Buddhist temple and the largest religious monument in the world
Buddhism has a great following in mainland Southeast Asia and East Asia. Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the populations of Cambodia (96%), Thailand (95%), Burma (80–89%), Japan (36–96%), Bhutan (75–84%), Sri Lanka (70%), Laos (60–67%) and Mongolia (53–93%). Taiwan (35–93%), South Korea (23–50%), Malaysia (19–21%), Nepal (9–11%), Vietnam (10–75%), China (20–50%), North Korea (2–14%), and small communities in India and Bangladesh. The Communist-governed countries of China, Vietnam and North Korea are officially atheist, thus the number of Buddhists and other religious adherents may be under-reported.
Jainism is found mainly in India and in overseas Indian communities such as the United States and Malaysia. Sikhism is found in Northern India and amongst overseas Indian communities in other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia. Confucianism is found predominantly in mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan and in overseas Chinese populations. Taoism is found mainly in mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. In many Chinese communities, Taoism is easily syncretised with Mahayana Buddhism, thus exact religious statistics are difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated. |
Asia | Culture | Culture
The culture of Asia is a diverse blend of customs and traditions that have been practiced by the various ethnic groups of the continent for centuries. The continent is divided into six geographic sub-regions: Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and West Asia. These regions are defined by their cultural similarities, including common religions, languages, and ethnicities. West Asia, also known as Southwest Asia or the Middle East, has cultural roots in the ancient civilisations of the Fertile Crescent and Mesopotamia, which gave rise to the Persian, Arab, Ottoman empires, as well as the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These civilisations, which are located in the Hilly flanks, are among the oldest in the world, with evidence of farming dating back to around 9000 BCE. Despite the challenges posed by the vast size of the continent and the presence of natural barriers such as deserts and mountain ranges, trade and commerce have helped to create a Pan-Asian culture that is shared across the region. |
Asia | Nobel laureates | Nobel laureates
thumb|upright=0.8|Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, and Asia's first Nobel laureate
Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali dramatist and author from Santiniketan (now in West Bengal, India), won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, becoming the first Asian Nobel laureate. The prize was awarded for Tagore's prose works and poetry, which had a significant additional impact on national literatures throughout the Western world. Tagore also authored both the Indian and Bangladeshi national anthems.
Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prize for literature include Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1968), Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994), Gao Xingjian (China, 2000), Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 2006), and Mo Yan (China, 2012). Some may consider the American writer, Pearl S. Buck, an honorary Asian Nobel laureate, having spent considerable time in China as the daughter of missionaries, and based many of her novels, namely The Good Earth (1931) and The Mother (1933), as well as the biographies of her parents for their time in China, The Exile and Fighting Angel, all of which earned her the Literature prize in 1938.
Mother Teresa of India and Shirin Ebadi of Iran were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. Another Nobel Peace Prize winner is Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship in Burma. She is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma (Myanmar) and a noted prisoner of conscience. She is a Buddhist and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" on 8 October 2010. He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. In 2014, Kailash Satyarthi from India and Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".
C.V. Raman is the first Asian to get a Nobel prize in Sciences. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him".
Japan has won the most Nobel Prizes of any Asian nation with 24 followed by India which has won 13.
Amartya Sen () is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members.
Other Asian Nobel Prize winners include Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Abdus Salam, Robert Aumann, Menachem Begin, Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Daniel Kahneman, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ada Yonath, Yasser Arafat, José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of Timor Leste, Kim Dae-jung, and 13 Japanese scientists. Most of the said awardees are from Japan and Israel except for Chandrasekhar and Raman (India), Abdus Salam (Pakistan), Arafat (Palestinian Territories), Kim (South Korea), and Horta and Belo (Timor Leste).
In 2006, the Bangladeshi Muhammad Yunus of was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the establishment of Grameen Bank, a community development bank that lends money to poor people, especially women. He is known for the concept of micro credit which, allows poor and destitute people to borrow money. The borrowers pay back money within the specified period and defaulting is very low. Yunus also became the leader of an interim government after the 2024 Bangladesh quota reform movement. The Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize, in Oslo, Norway in 1989. |
Asia | See also | See also
Asian Century
Asian Games
Asian Highway Network
Asian Monetary Unit
Asian Para Games
List of cities in Asia
Asian cuisine
Asian furniture
Eastern Mediterranean
Eastern world
Fauna of Asia
Flags of Asia
List of metropolitan areas in Asia by population
Trans-Asian Railway |
Asia | Notes | Notes |
Asia | References | References |
Asia | Bibliography | Bibliography
|
Asia | Further reading | Further reading
Embree, Ainslie T., ed. Encyclopedia of Asian history (1988)
vol. 1 online; vol 2 online; vol 3 online; vol 4 online
Higham, Charles. Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations. Facts on File library of world history. New York: Facts On File, 2004.
Kamal, Niraj. "Arise Asia: Respond to White Peril". New Delhi: Wordsmith, 2002,
Kapadia, Feroz, and Mandira Mukherjee. Encyclopaedia of Asian Culture and Society. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1999.
Levinson, David, and Karen Christensen, eds. Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. (6 vol. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002).
|
Asia | External links | External links
Asia: Human Geography at the National Geographic Society
Asian Reading Room from the United States Library of Congress
Category:Continents |
Asia | Table of Content | Short description, Etymology, Definition, Asia–Europe boundary, Asia–Africa boundary, Asia–Oceania boundary, Asia–North America boundary, Ongoing definition, History, Ancient era, Medieval era, Modern era, Contemporary era, Geography, Main regions, Climate, Climate change, Politics, List of states and territories, Economy, Tourism, Demographics, Languages, Religions, Abrahamic, Indian and East Asian religions, Culture, Nobel laureates, See also, Notes, References, Bibliography, Further reading, External links |
Aruba | Short description | Aruba ( , or , ), officially the Country of Aruba (; ), is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. In 1986, Aruba became a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and acquired the formal name the Country of Aruba.
Aruba has an area of . Aruba measures in length from its northwestern to its southeastern end and is across at its widest point. Aruba is geologically located in South-America, lying on the South-American continental shelf. Alongside Bonaire and Curaçao, Aruba forms a group referred to as the ABC islands. The Dutch Caribbean encompasses the ABC islands along with the other three substantial islands, the SSS islands. In contrast to much of the Caribbean, which experiences humid tropical climates, Aruba has a dry climate with an arid xeric landscape. The relatively warm and sunny weather persists throughout the year.
With a population of 108,027 (excluding undocumented immigrants), Aruba is home to about one-third of the total population of the Dutch Caribbean. As one of the four countries in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, alongside the Netherlands, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten, Aruba shares Dutch nationality with its citizens. Aruba lacks administrative subdivisions but is divided into eight regions for census purposes with Oranjestad as its capital. |
Aruba | Etymology | Etymology
The name Aruba most likely came from the Caquetío Oruba which means "well situated island", seeing as it was the Caquetío who were present on the island when Alonso de Ojeda arrived in the 16th century. Between 1529 and the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, the name "Isla de Oruba" was used for the island by the Spanish. The island was ceded to the Dutch, and gradually its name was changed to Aruba.
There were many different names for Aruba used by other Amerindian groups, all of which could have contributed to the present-day name Aruba. Another Caquetío name for the island was Oibubia which means "Guided island". The Taino name for the island was Arubeira. The Kalinago also had two names for the island Ora Oubao which means "Shell island" and Oirubae which means "Companion of Curaçao".
A common misconception is that the name "Aruba" came from Oro hubo, (Spanish for "There was gold once"). However, the Spanish declared these islands islas inútiles, meaning "useless islands", due to their apparent lack of mineral wealth. It was not until 1824 that gold was discovered on Aruba by a 12-year-old herder named Willem Rasmijn, leading to the Aruban Gold Rush.Teenstra, M. (1837). De Nederlandsche West-Indische eilanden in derzelver tegenwoordigen toestand, Aflevering 2. In L. U. (KIT), www.colonial.library.leiden.edu (p. 381). AMSTERDAM: C.G.Sulpke. |
Aruba | History | History |
Aruba | Pre-ceramic age | Pre-ceramic age
In Aruba's prehistoric era, there were distinct periods: the Archaic or Pre-Ceramic and the Neo-Indian or Ceramic (Dabajuroïd) period. The Archaic occupation of Aruba continued well into the first millennium AD, which is relatively late in compared to other parts of the insular Caribbean. The archaic lifestyle revolved around a food economy based on fishing, hunting, and gathering, with a strong emphasis on marine resources. Ceramics were absent, as was horticulture and agriculture. Weapons and tools were predominantly crafted from stone. Sharp-edged ax blades, chisels, and knives were commonly used, with the knives distinguishable by their elongated shape and flat blades.
One notable site, Sero Muskita, yielded a tool that is older than other archaic age sites on the island. The finishing techniques and shape of this tool resembles one found at Arikok, suggesting a date before approximately 2000 BC. The presence of these tools on the island may be from occasional visits from the mainland. In total, 33 archaic age sites have been identified on Aruba. |
Aruba | Early human migration and cultural exchange | Early human migration and cultural exchange
During this period, the Leeward Islands maintained connections and engaged in trade with mainland South America, particularly with partners in the present-day Falcón-Zulia state in Venezuela and possibly the La Guajira Peninsula (Venezuela/Colombia). The specific language group to which they belonged remains uncertain. This theory is supported by the discovery of 60 to 70 Amerindian cemetery burial grounds in MalmokVersteeg, A. H. (1991). A preceramic burial site at Malmok (Aruba). In Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Congress for Caribbean Archaeology. Ayubi EN, Haviser JB (eds). Reports of the Archaeological–Anthropological Institute of the Netherlands Antilles (No. 9, pp. 105-126). and Canashito. Burial sites at Canashito are dated between 100 BC to 100 AD. isotopic research revealed that one of the individuals buried there was not from Aruba and had a different diet compared to the other four individuals of Aruban origin. This finding suggests that early human migration and cultural exchange were already part of the cultural pattern of these archaic Indians at an early stage.
The burial site in Malmok dates to between 450 and 1000 AD. The Arubans of that time had a short and stocky physique, with adult men averaging in height and women averaging . The burial customs offer insight into the social dynamics of the archaic island inhabitants. Based on the burial patterns, it was deduced that they traveled in clans of 15 to 30 people. These groups were led by an adult man who was buried at the center of the cluster. His elevated status was emphasized by the presence of several stones marking his grave. The rest of the family group was buried around him.
thumb|Sketch of hieroglyphs found of earlier presence of former inhabitants, drawn on cave roof with reddish ocre-like paint, ratio 1/20. (1827) |
Aruba | Neo-Indian period: the Caquetío | Neo-Indian period: the Caquetío
The archaic population disappeared from Aruba from the archeological record around 950 AD, shortly after the arrival of the neo-Indian—Caquetío. It is clear that the Caquetíos had a superior culture in socio-economic and technological terms. It is possible that the Caquetío lived alongside the archaic Indians for a time and that they were ultimately displaced or assimilated.
The Caquetío belonged to the Arawak people. The origin of Arawak civilization (a name based on a linguistic classification) is located in the central Amazon region. Between 1500 and 500 BC, the influence of the Arawaks had expanded to the Caribbean Basin and the Guianas. Between 850 and 1000 AD, Caquetío Indians migrated from western Venezuela, probably from the Paraguaná and Guajire peninsulas, to the Leeward Antilles. They belonged to the Arawak-Maipure language family.Haviser, J.B. (1991). The first Bonaireans. Archaeological-Anthropological Institute of the Netherlands Antilles. The name Caquetío refers to how this group referred to themselves during their first contact with Europeans. They had longer and narrower skulls than the archaic population, and their height was up to . The newcomers brought pottery and agriculture to the islands and are therefore classified as part of the neo-Indian period. |
Aruba | Caquetío chiefdom | Caquetío chiefdom
The area over which the legendary cacique Manaure exercised his authority was the coastal region of the current state Falcón-Zulia at Venezuela, including the Paraguaná Peninsula, as well as Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire. The Caquetío people had a highly developed process of state formation. They had a chiefdom, which in human evolution is often a precursor to a kingdom, where central leaders—paramount chiefs—controlled multiple subordinate political-administrative units.Sahlins, M.D. (1968). Tribesmen (Foundations of Modern Anthropology) (1st ed.). Prentice Hall. The emphasis was more on the political and religious alliances between indigenous communities than on the military control or subjugate vast territories.
At the head of the Caquetío chiefdom was a spiritual leader called diao who had both secular and religious authority in modern terms. He was endowed with powers that could influence nature: a shaman. The diao position was hereditary. By being allowed to marry multiple wives, the diao was able to establish and maintain political alliances with other groups, tribes, or villages. The chiefdom was centralized in its design, but not based on authoritarian or violence-based subjugation. The Spanish conquistadors interrupted this process of expansion at the time of the European contact (AD 1499–1535). |
Aruba | Political units and governance | Political units and governance
The Caquetío territory consisted of several small political units that were under the authority of lower "second-tier chiefs" who were subordinate to the highest authority. How the central authority was exercised over the units is not clear. However, there are reports from the contact period that suggest the diao did not exert his power over the lower units in arbitrary manner. Likely there was a form of consultation between the diao and lower leaders. In the 16th century, two sub-units, the Guaranos and Amuayes, lived on the Paraguaná Peninsula. Aruba, which is less than 30 kilometers away from Paraguaná, was previously connected to one of these units.Oliver, J.R. (1997). "Dabajuroïd Archaeological, Settlements and House structures: an overview from mainland Western Venezuela". The Archaeology of Aruba: the Tanki Flip Site (A.H. Versteeg & Rostain ed.). Aruba: Archeological museum, no. 8.
thumb|Aruban pot (before 1881). Colonial records often give a one-sided perspective on the indigenous heritage. Original inhabitants of the Caribbean had many languages and cultures. And there was considerable exchange of ideas and produce. — Tropenmuseum
After the diao and the regional sub-units, such as the mentioned Guaranaos an Amuayes in Paraguaná, the village formed the third level of governance in the hierarchy of the chiefdom. Aruba had (not simultaneously) five villages: three larger ones Ceri Noca (Santa Cruz), Tanki Flip (Noord), and Savaneta, and two smaller ones near Tanki Leendert and Parkietenbos, which have not yet been systematically studied. The location of Aruban villages varied. They were situated in places where beneficial agriculture land was available and where the most favorable hydrological conditions prevailed, such as where several rooi (gullies) came together and where relatively much water was available.Versteeg, A.H. (1991a). Toen woonden indianen op Aruba. Aruba: Publications of the Archaeological Museum, no. 3. |
Aruba | Agriculture, trade, and network | Agriculture, trade, and network
The Caquetío people probably used a shifting cultivation farming method, also known as slash-and-burn.Versteeg, A.; Ruiz, A.C. (1995). Reconstructing Brasil Wood Island: the archaeology and landscape of Indian Aruba. Aruba: Publications of the Archaeological Museum, no. 6. The yields from agriculture and fishing were supplemented by engaging in trade of raw materials and artifacts that were not locally available or producible. Sixteenth century sources indicate that the Caquetíos traded in, among other things, salt, canoes, tobacco, and beads.Boerstra, E. (1982). De precolumbiaanse bewoners van Aruba, Curaçao en Bonaire. Zutphen: De Walberg Pers. The Leeward Caquetíos certainly did not live in isolation but formed outlying regions of a dynamic chiefdom with regional trading networks. |
Aruba | Burial practices | Burial practices
In 1882 French explorer Alphonse L. Pinart documented an account provided by an old Aruba Indian. According to the Indian's account, witnessed at the former Indian encampment at Saboneta (Savaneta), a native female was inhumed in one of the large conical ollas. Her body was doubled up inside the vase, with the head protruding through the orifice. Subsequently, a smaller urn was placed upside down on the head, and the entire burial was covered with earth.
The Caquetío people were buried in clusters, both within and potentially outside village boundaries. At times, there was a secondary burial, possibly reserved for exceptional individuals. In the primary burial, the deceased were buried in a large pot, covered with a smaller pot placed on top. In a secondary burial, the body was initially buried without a pot, and after a few months or years, the bones were exhumed and reburied in smaller pots for a second time. Some pots contained grave offerings such as axes, shells, and pottery. The secondary burial method was practiced until recently in South America. The striking similarity between the Neo-Indian burial practices in Aruba and the post-Columbian variant in Guajira justifies the assumption that the similar beliefs about life after death existed in both societies. |
Aruba | Last indigenous Aruban | Last indigenous Aruban
Nicolaas Pyclas was regarded as the last known indigenous Aruban. Pyclas spoke and understood the extinct language of the original inhabitants of Aruba, adhering to their way of life and customs. He resided in a hut in Savaneta. His diet included sea snails, such as cocolishi (Cerun uva) and carco (Aliger gigas), as well as wild herbs. Pyclas rejected any involvement in religious practices. Around 1840, he was found dead hanging from a tree branch not far from his hut. Estimated to be approximately 50 years old, he was buried in situ and was not properly buried due to the hard rocky surface, he was only covered with a layer of earth and stones. Pyclas' skull was gifted to the former Rijks Ethnographisch Museum, presently National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, with the mediation of A.J. van Koolwijk. |
Aruba | Spanish period | Spanish period |
Aruba | Early explorations | Early explorations
It is known that Christopher Columbus was not searching for a new continent but for the shortest route to India. India had been the spearhead of European trade expansion and the foreign policy of the Spanish Crown since the travels of Marco Polo a century earlier. India, China, and Japan formed the focal point of medieval ideas about boundless riches, cities with houses covered in gold, and islands with inexhaustible amounts of spices, pearls, and silk. The suspicion arose that India could be reached via the relatively short route to the west, across the ocean of Atlantis.
During his third voyage to the New World, Columbus was searching for the southern route to India and explored the Paria Peninsula (eastern Venezuela) and the Orinoco region, where he discovered the fresh river water of the Orinoco Delta. The suspicion arose that he had not found islands off the coast of India but a much more extensive land mass; an extension of Asia. Columbus did not realize that this was an unknown continent. Characteristic of his Christian medieval perspective, Columbus solved the puzzle by assuming that he had discovered the earthly paradise. The earthly paradise was inaccessible to humans without God's permission. Columbus experienced the geographical discovery of the New World in Christian terms and assigned himself a special role assigned by a divine power. With the discovery of the Americas the myths of the Golden Age, Atlantis, and the earthly paradise moved from Asia to the New World. He died on May 20, 1506, believing that he had found new islands of the coast of or possibly a peninsula of India—pre-islands: Ant-ilha. These Ant-ilhas were inhabited by peoples whom he called "Indians".
In 1500, Juan de la Cosa drew the first map of the New World, which depicted the two Leeward Antilles known at the time. This was followed by the more accurate Cantino map, created anonymously in 1502, which also showed an extensive landmass and mentioned the Isla do gigante (Island of Giants) and Isla do brasil (Island of Brasil). The location of the Isla do gigante southwest of the Isla do brasil suggest that it refers to Bonaire and Curaçao since Aruba is located more to the northwest.thumb|Map of the Antilles, from a portion of the map of Juan de la Cosa (1500)
In 1493, the year in which the West Indian islands became known in Europe, the division between the secular (civil) and religious authorities in the New World had to be arranged. The newly appointed Spanish Pope Alexander VI issued the Inter Caetera bull, granting the Spanish Crown sovereignty over the newly discovered territories and the responsibility of the holy task: to send good, God-fearing men, who are earned and capable, to those islands and continents to teach the natives living there about the Catholic faith and instill in them good habits. In exchange for the papal approval of the treaty, Spain promised to vigorously carry out missionary work in the discovered territories. This gave Spain the right to evangelize the Americas and appoint and dismiss priests, blurring the separation between church and state in the region. In other words, the Spanish Crown was granted significant religious authority in the Americas, which was not strictly separate from the state and weakened the distinction between the religious and secular spheres—a key aspect of separation between church and state. |
Aruba | Conquistadors | Conquistadors
Conquistadors were fascinated by legends of inexhaustible gold reserves of El Dorado. The conquest was characterized by bloodshed, destruction, and forced assimilation of the native peoples into European society, such as the initiation of Indian slavery by Columbus in 1492. Europeans had an advantage because they had superior weapons, such as firearms, steel swords, armor, ships, horses, and targeted military strategies. While expedition leaders mostly came from the higher echelons of late medieval society, their foot soldiers were usually from the lower middle class of southern Europe. These soldiers formed the basis of the future group of encomenderos. The encomienda system granted Spanish colonizers right by the Spanish Crown to extract tribute and labor from indigenous peoples. For example, indigenous communities had to give up a portion of the yields from their agricultural or farm land, known as conucos in Taino, as a form of taxation and to provide for the food supply of the colonists. The defeated were often kidnapped and forced to participate in expeditions elsewhere in the New World as slave laborers.
The Caquetío population of the Leeward Antilles was incorporated into the Spanish colonial empire . On June 8 and 10, 1501, Alonso De Ojeda acquired the exclusive right to exploit the current Venezuelan coastal area, known as Coquivacoa, and the islands of the coast Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire, and probably also the Mongues and Aves Islands. De Ojeda had to form an administration as far west as possible on the Tierra Firme to secure the Spanish presence. It is believed that de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci visited Bonaire and Curaçao, but neither Vespucci nor de Ojeda are thought to have set foot on Aruban soil. He was explicitly forbidden to enslave natives. However, de Ojeda lacked administrative skills and intentions, and he became a controversial figure. De Ojeda established a base named Santa Cruz at the tip of Guajira, from whence he conducted trade and, probably even more importantly, carried out his raids, including slave hunts. During his third voyage to the New World in 1502, de Ojeda visited Curaçao, but his attempt to exploit the region failed. Instead, Bartolomé de Las Casas documented de Ojeda's raids, slave hunts, and atrocities in the rural areas of present-day Cartagena in his book, . These raids were disastrous, even for the Spaniards, and marked the end of the first attempt to control the region.
Between 1513 and 1515, the Leeward Antilles, including Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire, were depopulated. Captain Diego Salazar led this effort, which affected an estimated 2,000 indigenous inhabitants from these islands, and likely more from Tierra Firme. Most of the Caquetío were taken to Hispaniola as forced laborers. Many of them likely died on the way or later in the gold mines by the Spanish colonizers or during the devastating smallpox epidemic of 1518. Later on, new Indians migrated from the mainland to Aruba, while Indians were brought to Curaçao by Juan de Ampiés. The indigenous population was under encomienda, which ended the autonomy of Caquetío community in the islands. Their relatives on the mainland did not fare any better. After an unsuccessful attempt by Bartolomé de Las Casas to convert the local population to Christianity, the coastal region of the mainland was leased to the banking firm of the Welsers in 1528. This led to the violent conquest of the Caquetío kingdom. Before 1634, Curaçao, along with its neighboring islands Bonaire and Aruba, were considered part of the province of Venezuela. They had been separated from Venezuela only during the period of the Welser grant.
The appropriation of the Caribbean region turned out to be a failure for the Spaniards. The exploitation of the West Indian islands proved unprofitable, and gold mining on Hispaniola and Puerto Rico declined. Spanish settlers moved elsewhere, and In 1569, the Spanish Crown banned settlement on the Caribbean islands by royal decree. This measure that did not apply to the leased islands of Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire. The colonization of the large Caribbean islands, such as Cuba, was encouraged while the small islands were abandoned. Most of the islands remained largely uncontrolled and undefended, making them a potential opportunity for northwestern European countries that wanted to break Spain's monopoly on colonizing the New World. England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark explored the possibilities of piracy and trade on the Caribbean islands.
On the continent, the great empires declined, but indigenous societies continued to exist and were exposed to a long process of miscegenation. In the Falcón-Zulia province, among other places, Caquetío societies survived on Tierra Firme, although their cultures and social structures were largely destroyed by the Spaniards. On the (former) Caquetío coastal islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Trinidad, indigenous people lived well into the colonial period. The indigenous history of the Guajira peninsula extends to the present day. The Wayú are increasingly being recognized on the Leeward Antilles as possible contemporary ancestors or lost relatives from prehistoric times. |
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