Asia versus eurasia.

[Stryker]

Alright here goes.

It's pretty much excepted fact at this point that europe is either a subcontinent or a simply a cultural region. Which I think there is very little debate.

My question is why does asia exist as a name if it's clearly not a subcontinent, and only a subset of the Eurasian continent.

Of course the first response is that asia is a cultural reason, however if you look at it from a historical perspective, the connection between pacific/far east, and that of middle east/india, is no stronger than the cultural ties to europe.

It's obvious that at best asia is two distinct regions, or just as popular multiple subsections of the Eurasian continent.

If you look at almost every measure, religion, language, genetic migrations, historical shipping routes etc, the Himalaya's devide asia into two halves, with almost nothing in common relative to europe.

[Etesia]

I agree with you.
Asia should be culturally classified into four areas.

East Asian region (Chinese characters, Manchurian culture)
(China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mongolia, and Vietnam)
The typical Asian figure you think of.

Central Asian region (former Soviet Union and turkic culture)
(Uzbekistan, Kazahstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan etc...)
(It's almost Turkic and looks like a mixture of Caucasians and Asians.)


Southeast Asia and India region (Brahmi culture)
(India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore etc...)
(dark skin and have the same ancestor of letters. It's the equator.)


Middle East region (Islamic culture)
(Saudi Arabia , Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, UAE etc..)

Turkey and Caucasus are closer to Europe.