Asia is the world’s largest and most populous continent in the world. The wealth of Asia differs widely between, and within, states. This is due to its vast size, and huge range of different cultures, environments, historical ties and government systems

Asia is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the East by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the Indian Ocean, and to the West by Europe and the Mediterranean. A continent of contrasts and extremes, the enormous diversity of Asia’s physical and cultural landscape is unparalleled in the world. Although geographers have clubbed its constituent nations and regions as part of one large continent, Asia defies all notions of homogeneity. Asia includes some of the world’s richest and developed economies like Japan and Korea but is also home to some of the world’s poorest nations. Asia has the highest point on Earth, the Mount Everest in the Himalayas, as well as the lowest place on land, the Dead Sea. Asia also experiences the wildest extremes of weather and climate. While the continent boasts of the wettest place on Earth in the Indian state of Meghalaya, certain areas in the Arabian Desert may go without rainfall for years together. Asia also has the widest variety of plant and animal life; from tropical rainforests to desert scrubland; from the world’s largest reptile, the Komodo Dragon of Indonesia, to the shy and elusive Snow Leopard in the high reaches of the Himalayas.