Asian Studies: China and East Asia

Asia ( ( listen)) is Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the Eastern and Northern Hemispheres. It shares the continental landmass of Eurasia with the continent of Europe and the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Europe and Africa. Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres (17,212,000 sq mi), about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its overall large size and population, but also dense and large settlements, as well as vast barely populated regions. Its 4.5 billion people constitute roughly 60% of the world's population.

Asian studies, a term used usually in North America for Oriental studies and is concerned with the Asian people, their cultures, languages, history and politics. Within the Asian sphere, Asian studies combines aspects of sociology, history, cultural anthropology and many other disciplines to study political, cultural and economic phenomena in Asian traditional and contemporary societies. Asian studies forms a field of post-graduate study in many universities.

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a one-party socialist state in East Asia and, with a population of around 1.404 billion, the world's most populous country. Covering 9,600,000 square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), China has the most borders of any country in the world. The Communist Party of China exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.