Introduction of East Asia

East Asia or Eastern is a sub region of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. Geographically and geopolitically, it covers about 12,000,000 km2, or about 28% of the Asian continent, about 15% bigger than the area of Europe.

More than 1.5 billion people, about 38% of the population of Asia and 22% or over one fifth of all the people in the world, live in East Asia. The region is one of the world's most populated places, with a population density of 133 inhabitants per square kilometer, being about three times the world average of 45 /km2, although Mongolia has the lowest population density of a sovereign state. Using the UN sub region definitions, it ranks second in population only to Southern Asia.

Historically, many societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, and East Asian vocabulary and scripts are often derived from Classical Chinese and Chinese script. Sometimes Northeast Asia is used to denote Japan and Korea. Major religions include Buddhism (mostly Mahayana), Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion in China, Shinto in Japan, Shamanism in Korea, Mongolia and other indigenous populations of northern East Asia, and recently Christianity in South Korea. The Chinese Calendar is the root from which many other East Asian calendars are derived.

Demographics

Country Area km² PopulationPopulation densityper km²

HDI (2011) Capital

 China (PRC) 9,596,961 1,339,724,852 138 0.699 Beijing

 Hong Kong (PRC) 1,104 7,061,200 6,390 0.898 Hong Kong

 Japan 377,930 127,950,000 337 0.901 Tokyo

 Macau (PRC) 30 556,800 18,662 No Data Macau

 Mongolia 1,564,100 2,809,600 2 0.653 Ulaanbaatar

 North Korea 120,538 24,346,000 198 No Data Pyongyang

 South Korea 100,210 48,988,833 500 0.897 Seoul

 Taiwan(ROC) 36,188 23,174,528 639 0.882 Taipei