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Asia is too massive and diverse to conceptualize
as a digestible travel "destination". Even defining
the borders of this continent is difficult - from the
mountains around the Black Sea in the west, to the snow
fields of Siberia in the east, there are more people
and cities in Asia than outside of it. Asia's highest
point is Mount Everest, along the border of China and
Nepal, which rises to 8,848 m (29,028 feet) above sea
level. Its lowest point is the Dead Sea, between Israel
and Jordan, whose surface is 400 m (1,312 feet) below
sea level.
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Asia's
longest river is the Yangtze, which runs 6,300 km (3,915
miles) through China. Its largest lake is the 386,400
sq km (149,200 square mile) Caspian Sea, which is surrounded
by several Central Asian nations. Asia is bounded by
the Pacific Ocean to the east, by Australia to the southeast,
and by the Indian Ocean to the south. It is bounded
by the Red Sea to the southwest, by Europe to the west,
and by the Arctic Ocean to the north.
Travel
options range widely, from the desert ruins and modern
malls of the Middle East to the magnificent monuments
in South Asia, and from the beach bungalows and jungle
treks of South-East Asia to the megacities and technology
capitals of East Asia. Find out more about regions,
destinations, and itineraries below.
In
any case, Asia offers the most diverse travel options
available to the most avid travelers. On one end, there
are the ultramodern countries like Japan and the East
Asian Tigers of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South
Korea which are very prosperous and in which people
enjoy high standards of living. On the other, Afghanistan,
Laos and Timor Leste are extremely poor countries where
people struggle even to get a few grains of rice each
day. Of course, there are also many countries lying
somewhere in the middle, such as the emerging powerhouses
of China and India. To add to a list of possible travel
destinations, Asia is also home to North Korea, which
is under one of, if not the most, oppressive regimes
in the world. Besides that, Thailand is a magnet for
travelers too, with great food, a tropical climate,
fascinating culture and great beaches.
The
history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories
of several peripheral coastal regions, linked by the
interior mass of the Central Asian steppes.The
coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest
known civilizations, each of them developing around
fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia,
the Indus Valley and the Huanghe shared many similarities.
These civilizations may well have exchanged technologies
and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Other innovations,
such as writing, seem to have been developed individually
in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in
these lowlands.
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