The term Asia presently stands for a very large land area which is considered as a separate continent.
It is actually a part of a still larger land mass called the Eurasia. Before the Suez Canal was dug, it was also connected to Africa. And before the Ice Age, it was connected to Australia through the Indonesian Archipelago.
It is separated arbitrarily by the Ural Mountains from Europe.
Asia cannot be considered as a single entity based on either geography, geology, anthropology or any other criteria.
All the racial types live there. Caucasian, Negroid, Mongoloid, Proto-Australiod, and the mysterious Dravidian stock.
Many major linguistic groups are found there - Indo European, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan, Semitic, etc.
What exactly was the original Asia?
"Asu" means East in the Assyrian Language.
The Ancient Greeks borrowed this word and called whatever land was East to Greece as "Asia".
The present Turkey and Mesopotamia was, known as the Lesser Asia or Asia Minor.
The greater land further East was known as the Greater Asia.
This was Iran, Central Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, and some of the islands.
Further to this was unknown to the Romans or the Greeks. You can refer to Herodotus or Ptolemy or others.
Japan was totally unknown at that time.
So we are the original Asians.
At the present, Asia is again arbitrarily divided into -
West Asia - the Middle East
South Asia - the Indian Subcontinent
South East Asia
Central Asia
East Asia - Far East
All those people who are indigenous to these areas are Asians.
