East Asia

East Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or culturalColumbia University - "East Asian cultural sphere" "The East Asian cultural sphere evolves when Japan, Korea, and what is today Vietnam all share adapted elements of Chinese civilization of this period (that of the Tang dynasty), in particular Buddhism, Confucian social and political values, and literary Chinese and its writing system." terms. Geographically and geopolitically, it covers about 12,000,000 km², or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia as Central Asia. In some contexts, Vietnam is considered part of East Asia because of the significant Chinese cultural influence it has experienced. More than 1.5 billion people, about 38 percent of the population of Asia or 22 percent of all the people in the world, live in geographic East Asia, which is about twice the population of Europe. The region is one of the world's most populated places, with the population density of East Asia, 131 per km², being about three times the world average of 45 per km². Using the UN subregion definitions, it ranks second in population only to South Asia.

Historically, many societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, and East Asian vocabulary and scripts are often derived from Classical Chinese and Chinese script.

Major religions include Buddhism (mostly Mahayana), Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion in China, Shinto in Japan, Shamanism in Korea, Mongolia and other indigenous populations of northern East Asia, and more recently Christianity in South Korea. East Asian calendars are often derived from Chinese Calendar.

This combination of language, political philosophy, and religion (as well as art, architecture, holidays and festivals, etc.) overlaps with the geographical designation of East Asia for the most part,Fact: date=January 2008 with a few exceptions, such as the overseas Chinese (including those in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, and the West).

East Asia and Eastern Asia (the latter form preferred by the United Nations) are both more modern terms for the traditional name the Far East, which describes the region's geographical position in relation to Europe rather than its location within Asia. However, in contrast to the United Nations definition, East Asia commonly is used to refer to the eastern part of Asia, as the term implies.