1Locate Asia and the Pacific Islands

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1 RGIOAL OVRVI Investigate Asia and the Pacific Asia is the largest continent in the world. The vast Pacific Ocean contains thousands of scattered islands and another continent the country of Australia. The continent of Asia includes part of Russia. However, Russian Asia is not covered in these pages. Because most of Russia s people live in urope, Russia is discussed with urope. AIA IDIA OCA ARCTIC OCA Arctic Circle AUTRALIA LOCATIO 1Locate Asia and the Pacific In this book you will read about Asia, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. This region is shaded green on the map above. hat ocean lies between Asia and the United tates? If you lived on the west coast of the United tates, in which direction would you travel to reach Asia? If you lived on the most eastern tip of the Pacific islands, in which direction would you travel to reach the west coast of the United tates? OCA ILAD UITD TAT ATLATIC OCA quator Myanmar, Asia hwedagon Buddhist Temple dates from about A.D AIA UITD TAT AIA RGIO stimate Asia s ize Compare Asia s mainland to the continental United tates (all states except Alaska and Hawaii). ith a ruler, measure mainland Asia from north to south. Measure the distance from east to west. ow make the same measurements for the continental United tates. About how many times longer and wider is mainland Asia (not including Russia) than the continental United tates? AUTRALIA ILAD Asia and the Pacific

2 X-RO asia.qxd 7/6/04 8:50 PM Political Asia Page 3 LOCATIO Investigate the Countries of Asia and the Pacific 3 hich Asian country on the map below is the largest? hich country is the second largest? Asia has many countries that are located on islands. ame three of them. Iran is a large country in the western part of Asia. ame three countries that border Iran ational border ational capital Astana JAPA GORGIA of Ulaanbaatar T UR K Y Tbilisi K A ZA K H TA ORTH Tokyo Japan CYPRU AZRBAIJA M O G O L I A ARMIA KORA P'yôngyang icosia Baku UZBKITA Yerevan LBAO Beijing eoul r YRIA Tashkent Bishkek Beirut ce Damascus Jerusalem TURKMITA OUTH an KYRGYZTA Amman C IRAL Ashgabat KORA of JORDA Dushanbe Tro Tehran pic Baghdad TAJIKITA pic ro T I R A IRAQ of ast Kabul Ca AUDI Kuwait C H I A nc er ARABIA AFGHAITA KUAIT Islamabad 0 Manama BAHRAI ORTHR Thimphu MARIAA QATAR Taipei Riyadh ILAD BHUTA UITD ARAB K I Doha PAL TAIA (U..) A MIRAT P Abu Dhabi ew Delhi Muscat Kathmandu BAGLADH GUAM anaa (U..) Hanoi o u t h MA PH IL IPP I I D I A YM O MYAMAR LAO Manila Dhaka Vientiane A r abian Koror THAILAD VITAM Yangon e a PALAU OCOTRA (Yemen) Bangkok CAMBODIA ADAMA & ICOBAR Phnom Penh ILAD 4 (India) BRUI Bandar eri Begawan Colombo RI LAKA Male Kuala Lumpur MA LAYIA MALDIV 6 Banda Arafura 0 miles 1,000 ingapore IGAPOR q uator Ankara TA OCA IDIA OCA 0 kilometers 1,000 Lambert Azimuthal qual Area I D O I A Java Jakarta to ua q Red r PAPUA GUIA Port Moresby Dili AT TIMOR AUTRALIA Australia and the Pacific ORTHR MARIAA ILAD PHILIPPI MARHALL GUAM (U..) Manila ILAD (U..) PALAU Majuro Palikir Koror FDRATD TAT K I R I B A OF MICROIA Bairiki AURU PAPUA IDOIA GUIA TUVALU OLOMO Fongafale Dili ILAD AT TIMOR Honiara AMOA Port Moresby Apia Coral VAUATU F IJ I Port-Vila AUTRALIA Dubai, United Arab mirates ealth from the region s oil resources paid for elaborate buildings like this hotel. CALDOIA (France) Canberra Tasman miles 0 kms Miller,000,000 T I quator AMRICA AMOA (U..) COOK ILAD (ew Zealand) FRCH POLYIA (France) IU uva TOGA (ew Zealand) uku'alofa PA C I F I C OCA ZALAD ellington Regional Overview 3

3 RGIOAL OVRVI Physical Asia LOCATIO 4xamine the Physical Features of Asia Asia is a continent of great physical contrasts, including towering mountains, high plateaus, and low-lying plains. Use the elevation key to identify the highest and lowest areas on the map. here are they? Describe their physical features. Mount Fuji, Japan Japan s tallest mountain is actually a volcano, which last erupted in Mediterranean 4 R e d e a Black Anatolia uphrates Arabian Peninsula Caucasus Tigris Mts. Z a gros Persian Gulf Gulf of Aden Caspian Iranian Plateau M ts. ocotra 0 kilometers 1,000 Lambert Azimuthal qual Area 6 0 miles 1,000 Kara Kum Amu Darya Gulf of Oman 4 Asia and the Pacific Aral Hindu Kush Indus Arabian Laccadive Maldive quator Lake Balkhash Karakoram Thar Irtysh Tian han H i a n D e c c P l a t m Ganges armada Altai Mts. Taklimakan a e a u ri Lanka l Altun han Plateau of Tibet a IDIA OCA 8 AIA y Plateau of Mongolia a s Bay of Bengal Andaman icobar Australian Outback The outback, in the dry, hot center of the country, is grassland and desert where few people live. Here ranchers raise sheep and cattle. Irrawaddy G o b i Huang ichuan Basin Great Chang Mekong Khingan Range Amur Korean Peninsula Yellow of Japan ast Taiwan Luzon Hainan outh amar OCA Indochina Mindanao Palawan Malay Peninsula umatra 10 orth Plain Borneo Java Java Hokkaidō hikoku Kyushu - - ulawesi 1 Honshū Ryukyu 4 Banda Timor Australia and the Pacific Gibson 1 Palau M e AUTRALIA impson 14 Mariana M i c r l a n e ew Guinea Great Dividing Range Coral o n s i a 16 Marshall e s i Vanuatu olomon ew Caledonia Below sea level ew Guinea Arafura LVATIO Feet Meters More than 13,000 6,500 13,000 1,600 6, , Gilbert Tonga OCA More than 3,960 1,980 3, , ational border Below sea level quator ew Britain quator Tuamotu Tahiti orth 0 miles,000 Tasman Island 4 0 kms,000 4 Tasmania Miller outh Chatham Island a P o l y n e Cook s i a 16 14

4 6 3 The Ring of Fire arth s crust is made up of plates that ride on top of molten rock called magma. The magma escapes in the form of lava when volcanoes erupt. inety percent of the world s active volcanoes circle the Pacific Ocean. Look at the map below. hy is this region described as a Ring of Fire? 3 RUIA JAPA TAIA PHILIPPI IDOIA 1 AUTRALIA 1 Plate boundary ational border Volcano HAAII (U..) OCA ZALAD ALAKA (U..) MXICO quator 15 CAADA UITD TAT COLOMBIA CUADOR PRU BOLIVIA 3 CHIL ARGTIA miles 5,000 0 kilometers 5,000 Mercator Puu Oo Volcano, Hawaii The Puu Oo volcano spews molten lava as it erupts. The islands that we call Hawaii are the tops of volcanoes that rest on the ocean floor. ITRACTIO 5Investigate the Ring of Fire here arth s plates meet, plate boundaries are formed. ith your finger, trace the plate boundaries on the map at left. otice where the volcanoes are located in relation to the plate boundaries. Compare the location of volcanoes to the location of cities on the political maps on page 3. here might volcano eruptions cause the most harm to people? PRACTIC YOUR GOGRAPHY KILL 1 3 You begin your boat trip from Australia s north coast and travel west through Indonesia. After you pass Borneo and Java, you cross the quator and enter a large body of water. hat is its name? Today you fly from the Himalayas along the 3 parallel across the Indus River to the Zagros Mountains. hat body of water are you near? There are many volcanoes to the east of this island nation north of the ast. hat is the name of this country? Boats moored in Indonesia Regional Overview 5

5 X-RO asia.qxd 7/6/04 8:55 PM Page 6 RGIOAL OVRVI Focus on Countries in Asia 5 Bl ac M k ea ed ite TU RK Y KAZAKHTA ow that you ve investigated the GORGIA e rra a ne Caspian an geography of Asia and the Pacific, ARMIA CYPRU AZRBAIJA UZBKITA take a closer look at some of the LBAO YRIA TURKMITA KYRGYZTA countries that make up this vast IRAL JORDA IRAQ TAJIKITA region. The map shows the countries I R A of Asia and the Pacific. The AFGHAITA Tro p ic KUAIT of Ca countries that you will study in nce r BAHRAI AUDI TA depth in the second half of this QATAR I ARABIA K PAL UITD ARAB PA MIRAT book appear in yellow on the map Red Use eb Code lcp-6000 for the interactive maps on these pages. 1 YM OM A A rabian e a I D I A 5 4 Israel Though it has an ancient history, modern Israel was created as a new nation in Many of its ancient sites are sacred to Jews, Muslims, and Christians. India India is the world s largest democracy and the second-mostpopulous country in the world. It is home to a number of ethnic groups, and it has 15 official languages. 6 Asia and the Pacific ational border Countries with in-depth coverage 6 MALDIV on-feature countries quator 7 RI LAKA IDIA OCA 8

6 MOGOLIA of Japan ORTH KORA JAPA 3 C H I A BHUTA BAGLADH MYAMAR LAO outh OUTH KORA ast TAIA PHILIPPI OCA 1 The world s most populous country, is a major economic power today. The products it makes are sold all over the world, and its vast population makes it an important market for international goods. quator THAILAD VITAM CAMBODIA BRUI MALAYIA PAPUA GUIA 1 0 miles 1,000 IGAPOR I D O I A Java Banda AT TIMOR Arafura AUTRALIA 15 0 kilometers 1,000 Lambert Azimuthal qual Area Australia and the Pacific OCA quator AUTRALIA eoul, outh Korea The Korean Peninsula is home to one people, but since 1953 they have lived in two separate nations orth Korea and outh Korea miles,000 0 kms,000 Miller Regional Overview 7