How Asia divides into regions

The western edge is a convention

There is no physical boundary between Europe and Asia. The line usually drawn runs along the Ural Mountains and southwest along the Emba River to the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, and it has been debated for as long as it has been drawn. Transcaucasia is the clearest case: the southern part is conventionally read as Asia, which leaves Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in a position that a filing decision has to resolve rather than describe. This catalogue files all three under Europe, along with Cyprus and Türkiye, and states on each page that it has done so.

The regions are finer here than elsewhere

Southwest Asia is split four ways rather than gathered under one heading. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates form the Persian Gulf group. Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria form the Levant. Iraq and Iran sit together apart from both, and Yemen sits apart again on the Arabian Peninsula. Central Asia holds the five post-Soviet republics together with Afghanistan, and East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia follow the groupings their own regional bodies use.

Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan

The roster records Hong Kong and Macau as dependencies of China, and Taiwan as disputed. Each of the three has a flag, a population, a currency and an internet domain of its own, which is the test this catalogue uses for whether a place gets a page. The record states the arrangement and stops there, because a position on a contested status is worth less than the figures around it.

What the UN's own regional body does with the question

The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific was founded in 1947, and its members now include Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Fiji, France, Georgia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Türkiye and the United Kingdom, with American Samoa, French Polynesia, Guam, New Caledonia and Niue among its associate members. A commission for Asia that seats Paris and London is not confused. It is a reminder that these groupings are built for work rather than for description, which is what the M49 standard says about its own regions in as many words.