THE NEW MAP OF ASIA 



MORE than one-half the human 

 race lives in Asia, which has an 

 area nearly six times as large 

 as continental United States, approximat- 

 ing one-third of the earth's entire land 

 surface. 



Asia boasts the world's highest peak, 

 Mt. Everest, 29,140 feet, and the ocean's 

 deepest pit, off the coast of Mindanao, in 

 the Philippines, 32,088 feet. Somewhere 

 within its borders was probably the birth- 

 place of man, and from those fastnesses 

 within the shadow of its Himalayas began 

 the migrations which resulted in the peo- 

 pling of all the continents and all the 

 islands of the seas. It is a land of teeming 

 millions of men and of vast solitudes. 



There are twelve rivers on the earth's 

 surface which exceed 2,500 miles in 

 length, and of these six rise in and flow 

 through Asia. 



The continent extends from Cape 

 Chelyuskin, within twelve and a half de- 

 grees of the North Pole, to the Malay 

 Peninsula, within one and a half degrees 

 of the Equator ; and from the Strait of 

 Bab El Mandeb, separating Arabia from 

 Africa, to the Bering Strait, separating 

 Siberia from Alaska, is 6,700 miles — 

 more than a fourth of the circumference 

 of the globe. 



A MEDIEVAL EMPIRE DISMEMBERED 



To the casual observer, the New Map 

 of Asia, published by the National Geo- 

 graphic Society and issued as a supple- 

 ment with this number of The Geo- 

 graphic,* may not present an appearance 

 radically different from that of pre-war 

 Asia ; and yet the world conflict on the 

 fields of Europe has wrought vast changes 

 here, resulting in the dismemberment of 

 a great empire, which had come down 

 from medieval times, the creation of five 

 new nations, the provisional creation of 

 four others, and the possible evolution of 

 half a score of semi-independent states 

 from the wreck of what were once the 

 proud provinces that gave allegiance to 

 the Tsar under the collective name of 

 "Russia in Asia." 



♦Additional copies of the New Map of Asia 

 may be obtained from the headquarters of The 

 National Geographic Society in Washington. 

 Cloth edition, $1.50; paper, $1.00. 



While, with the exception of the Turks, 

 none of the ancient peoples of Asia par- 

 ticipated in the World War to the same 

 extent as European and American peo- 

 ples, there were fewer neutral govern- 

 ments in the Orient than in Europe ; for 

 Siberia, as a part of Russia; India, 

 Burma, and the suzerain states which 

 cluster on the slopes of the Himalayas, 

 as parts of the British Empire ; Indo- 

 China, as a part of the French Colonial 

 Empire; Persia, as a battleground for 

 contending armies ; Arabia, China, Japan, 

 and Siam in their own right — all were 

 involved in the struggle. 



EVERY ASIATIC NATION AEEECTED 



Strictly speaking, Afghanistan and 

 Mongolia alone of all Asia's vast domin- 

 ions were untouched politically by the 

 World War; and even these two nations 

 were not wholly divorced from it, but 

 were affected indirectly, as Mongolia 

 from 191 3 to 1919 was under the protec- 

 tion and guidance of Russia, and Britain's 

 influence was paramount at the court of 

 the Amir of Afghanistan. 



As an ally of the Germans, Turkey by 

 her defeat has lost not only most of her 

 territory in Europe, but has been forced 

 to surrender extensive and populous por- 

 tions of her Asiatic empire, out of which 

 have been set up the "independent states" 

 of Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Hed- 

 jaz, and Armenia and the autonomous 

 province of Kurdistan. 



France has assumed a guardianship 

 (mandate) over Syria, and Britain exer- 

 cises a similar office toward Palestine and 

 Mesopotamia until such time as the three 

 countries can be entrusted with their own 

 affairs. Armenia, though created a sepa- 

 rate state by the Treaty of Sevres (the 

 Turkish treaty), has not as yet had her 

 boundaries definitely delimited. 



Unless this treaty is radically revised, 

 as is now contemplated, Greece will ad- 

 minister a large and prosperous district 

 surrounding Smyrna, the most important 

 port of Asia Minor, for five years, at the 

 end of which time a plebiscite will be held 

 to determine whether the inhabitants 

 wish the area to be incorporated perma- 

 nently as a part of Greece or resume its 



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