ASIA

asia, the name of one of the great continents into which the earth's surface is divided, embracing the north-eastern portion of the great mass of land which constitutes what is generally known as the old world, of which europe forms the north-western and africa the south-western region. much doubt attaches to the origin of the name. some of the earliest greek geographers divided their known world into two portions only, europe and asia, in which last libya (the greek name for africa) was included. herodotus, who ranks libya as one of the chief divisions of the world, separating it from asia, repudiates as fables the ordinary explanations assigned to the names europe and asia, but confesses his inability to say whence they came. it would appear probable, however, that the former of these words was derived from an assyrian or hebrew root, which signifies the west or setting sun, and the latter from a corresponding root meaning the east or rising sun, and that they were used at one time to imply the west and the east. there is ground also for supposing that they may at first have been used with a specific or restricted local application, a more extended signification having eventually been given to them. after the word asia had acquired its larger sense, it was still specially used by the greeks to designate the country around ephesus. the idea of asia as originally formed was necessarily indefinite, and long continued to be so; and the area to which the name was finally applied, as geographical knowledge increased, was to a great extent determined by arbitrary and not very precise conceptions, rather than on the basis of natural relations and differences subsisting between it and the surrounding regions.