ASIA 



415 



ASIA 



supreme over all this territory, but practically, 

 the Chinese hold on it amounts to almost 

 nothing. Russia is far more influential in all 

 parts of the region except Tibet, where Eng- 

 land is the dominant nation. Save as barrier 

 states between north and south, these provinces 

 are of no great value to any country, for they 

 have not even the possibilities of the plains of 

 Northern Asia. Sloping down from the tower- 

 ing Himalayas, the plateau of Tibet is far too 

 high and too cold to permit much agriculture, 

 and the lower regions are so shut in by moun- 

 tains that they never receive any rain. Minerals 

 there are in abundance, especially gold, but 

 the people are too unprogressive ever to have 

 made much effort to secure it. The population 

 is even more sparse than in Northern Asia, 

 for no country has sent into Inner Asia the 

 thousands of colonists that Russia has given to 

 that northern region, and in all the 2,500,000 

 square miles there are but 4,500,000 inhabi- 

 tants. Many of these depend for their support 

 not on the products of the soil, as do the people 

 of more favored regions, but upon certain ani- 

 mals. In the lowlands of Turkestan the Bac- 

 trian camel is the chief wealth of the region, 

 and above, in high Tibet, the yak is what 

 the reindeer is to the tribes of the Siberian 

 plain almost their sole support. See CAMEL; 

 I:ER; YAK. 



Eastern Asia. Far more important than 

 either of the regions discussed above is this 

 third division, which includes China proper, 

 Japan, Korea (or Chosen), Manchuria, Indo- 

 China and Siam. Quite unlike the other two, 

 it has over large sections a very dense popula- 

 tion few places in the world are more thickly 

 settled. Its area is 2,600,000 square miles, its 

 population about 450,000,000. Thus with an 

 area little more than two-thirds that of Canada, 

 it has a population more than sixty times aa 

 great. 



The Land and Its Resources. This density 

 of population proclaims one great economic 

 fact practically all the land must be utilized. 

 And so indeed it is. There are no great forests 

 given over to wild animals; no vast plains 

 where cattle graze; no deserts where nothing 

 but a camel can live. From the northern part 

 of China, with its cold winters and its hot 

 summers, to Siam with its tropical climate, 

 v where enough rain for agricul- 

 ture. For all the moisture which the great 

 sea winds bring is forced out before these winds 

 cross the mountains to the interior, and win I.- 

 that fact means desert conditions for Inner 



Asia, it means fertility and luxuriant vegetable 

 growth for the regions of Eastern Asia. Of 

 the original forest area, ' very little remains, 

 much to the detriment of the people. 



Agriculture is the chief industry, and many 

 of the plants which are now cultivated all 

 over the world were first grown in this part of 

 Asia. Here rice, cotton, sugar cane, pepper, 

 cinnamon, bananas and many other fruits were 

 grown centuries ago; and to-day the methods 

 of production are much as they were when 

 Caesar and Alexander in turn ruled the world 

 (see CHINA). The kind of farming known as 

 intensive is practiced; the farms are not large 

 but they are worked to the utmost. Even the 

 slopes of the hills are terraced, and many a 

 farmer makes a living from a hillside farm so 

 steep that strong retaining walls are necessary. 

 Animals are comparatively few, for the land is 

 too valuable to be used for grazing. 



All through this eastern region minerals 

 abound gold, silver, copper, mercury, and 

 most important of all, coal. It is in China 

 chiefly that this last mineral is to be found, 

 and this is fortunate; for great deposits of 

 coal might exist in parts of Southern Asia and 

 be of little use to the easy-going, unprogressive 

 people. But the Chinese, like most people who 

 live in a temperate climate and on a soil 

 which yields plentifully in return for hard 

 work, are accustomed to labor, and as a result 

 the Hoang River region, where much of the 

 coal abounds, is becoming increasingly known 

 for its manufactures. 1 



Eastern Asia is fortunate, too, in its rivers, 

 especially the Hoang and the Yangtze. The 

 latter is of great value for transportation, but 

 both have great flood plains which are of as 

 much importance to the people who live upon 

 them as is the famous flood plain of the Nile. 



Inhabitants. It must be remembered that 

 Eastern Asia is simply a geographic region, like 

 the others described above; not in any sense 

 is it a country or a political entity. Japan, 

 China and Siam are independent governments, 

 Manchuria is a part of China but, actually, 

 it is commercially far more under the domina- 

 tion of Russia and Japan; Indo-China is a 

 colony of France. But the people in this varied 

 region are practically all of one race the 

 yellow or Mongol (see RACES or MEN). Dif- 

 ferences of climate and environment have pro- 

 duced variations, the inhabitants of Siam and 

 Indo-China, for instance, in the far south being 

 imirh less industrious and progressive than the 

 dwellers in the northern section. 



