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 ASIA

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II. Dependent Territories. which exists in various degrees of independence, but which is everywhere subject to British control. British Baluchistan officially inArea in square Population. Name of Country. miles. cludes the districts of Peshin, Sibi, and of Tal-Chotiali. As these Turkish Sphere. districts had originally been Afghan, they were transBaluto British authority by the treaty of Gandamak Asia Minor, Armenia and Kurdistan, chistan. ferred in 1879, although nominally they had been handed 650,000 16,800,000 Mesopotamia, Syria, &c. over to Kalat forty years previously. Now they form an official Russian Sphere. province of British Baluchistan within the Baluchistan Agency ; 180,843 9,248,695 and the agency extends from the Gomul to the Arabian Sea and Caucasus ..... 1,548,825 7,721,684 the Persian frontier. Within this agency there are districts as Central Asia..... 4,833,496 5,727,100 independent as any in Afghanistan, but the political status of the Siberia ...... 92,000 2,500,000 ..... province as a whole is almost precisely that of the native states Bokhara 22,320 700,000 of the Indian peninsula. The agent to the governor-general of Khiva ...... Kwang Tung (Port Arthur) . India, with a staff of political assistants, practically exercises supr’eme control. 6,677,484 25,897,479 The increase of Russian influence on the northern Persian border Total Asiatic Russia and its extension southwards towards Sistan have led to the appointBritish Sphere. a British India .... 964,993 221,172,952 Kirman Inen British consul at Kirman, dominating town^ of Southern Khorassan, directly the connected with Native States .... 610,836 65,706,253 Mashad on the north ; and the acquisition of rights of adminis- Baluchistan ..... 500,000 130,000 tration of the Nushki district has secured to Great Britain the Sikkim . . . . . 28,020 38,458 trade between Sistan and Quetta by the new Helmund desert Andaman and Nicobar Islands 3,135 20,000 route. Laccadive Islands .... 80 14,440 Whilst British India has so far avoided actual geographical con- Aden ...... 41,910 80 tact with one great European power in Asia on the north and west Bahrein Islands .... 25,000 has touched another on the east. The Mekong British Borneo .... 720,000 97,000 Political she which limits British interests in Burma limits Ceylon ...... 3,009,460 25,333 boundary riverthose of France in Tongking. The eastern bound- Hong Kong and Kowloon 258,000 430 between also aries of Burma are not yet fully demarcated on the Straits Settlements and DependFrance frontier. At a point level in latitude with encies. . . . . 28,000 1,000,000 and India. Chinese Mogaung, near the northern termination of the Bur- Wei-Hai-Wei . . . . mese railway system, this boundary is defined by the eastern watershed of the Nmaika, the eastern of the two great northern Total British Asia 1,887,907 292,506,473 affluents of the Irrawaddy. Then it follows an irregular course French Sphere. southwards to a position south-east of Bhamo in lat. 24°. It next 279,100 197 defines the northern edge of the Shan States, and finally strikes India ...... 363,000 23,000,000 the Mekong river in lat. 21° 45' (approximately). From that point Indo-Chinese Peninsula southwards the river becomes the boundary between the Shan 363,197 23,279,100 States and Tongking for some 200“ miles, the channel of the river Total French Asia defining the limits of occupation (though not entirely of interest) German Sphere. between French and British subjects. Approximately on the Kiaochow ..... 200 60,000 parallel of 20° N. lat. the Burmese boundary leaves the Mekong to Portuguese Sphere. run westwards towards the Salween, and thereafter following the 1,390 495,000 ■eastern watershed of the Salween basin it divides the Lower Burma India ...... 168 Damao ...... 77,450 provinces from Siam. 7,460 300,000 More important, however, than the geographical relationship Indian Archipelago 4 78,630 of Great Britain and France in the wilds of Eastern Burma Macao ...... is of GreatofBritain and Russia fartherateast. o ca qqlethat occupation Port Arthur by thestill Russians the Total Portuguese Asia. 9,022 951,080 oun ares cjose 0f war between China and Japan in 1894 Dutch Sphere. in the Russia in a position favourable for further Farthest placed Borneo, Java, Celebes, strategic developments. A line joining Vladivostok Sumatra, East. Molucca, Timor, and smaller with Port Arthur shuts off Korea from the rest of Asia, 584,000 34,000,000 islands ..... dominating the peninsula to the south as effectually as it United States Sphere. dominates Manchuria to the north. It further commands the ■entrance to the Gulf of Pe-cheli, and thus might serve to close the Philippine Islands 115,300 8,000,000 seaward gates of Peking. British occupation of Wei-hai-Wei on the opposite side of the strait connecting the Yellow Sea with the Total Dependent Asia. 10,287,110 401,494,132 Pe-cheli Gulf ensures the due maintenance of British interests on that coast; hut it not only places Great Britain in closer geogra- Grand total, all Asia, Contiphical proximity to Russia here than has ever occurred yet in 16,661,520 870,674,132 nental and Insular Asiatic history, but this juxtaposition is effected at a point where The total area of Continental Asia alone is 17,800,000 miles, all the engines of naval warfare might be brought into action at a and its roughly estimated population, 823,000,000. day’s notice. The following table gives a list of the different political divisions The Ethnography of Asia. ■of Asia, classified according as they are independent of European Powers or otherwise, with the approximate area and population :— Although no systematic inquiry into the ethnographical conditions of British Asia has been instituted of late years, collateral I. Independent, or nominally Independent. information has been acquired during the progress of late political missions and militery campaigns which has assisted to Area in square Population. Name of Country. miles. illustrate some of the more complex of Asiatic race problems. 9,000,000 Within the limits of the continent vast emigrations have taken 628,000 Persia ..... 4,000,000 place periodically, originated partly by the increase of populations 215,500 Afghanistan .... 2,000,000 in certain districts, and the diminution of food supply in others 960,000 Arabia ..... due to change of climatic conditions ; and partly by the lust of China: 1,336,850 386,000,000 conquest, resulting in the irruption of savage hordes into districts (1) China Proper 7,500,000 already brought under civilized conditions of existence. These 362,310 (2) Manchuria. 2,000,000 irruptions occurred in days when war was not relegated to a 1,288,000 (3) Mongolia 6,000,000 portion of the population set apart as the military caste, but when 652,000 (4) Tibet .... 600,000 entire nations joined the movement, and their tides swept east 147,950 (5) Dzungaria 580,000 and west in fierce currents of swarming humanity for which we 431,800 (6) Turkestan 4,218,910 402,680,000 can find no parallel later. Combining with the peoples whom Total Chinese Territories Japan ..... 152,000 46,500,000 they swamped in their course, they have survived in com5,000,000 munities all over Southern Asia in conditions so mixed that 200,000 Siam ..... the problem of individual origin is involved in the greatest 6,374,410 469,180,000 entanglement. Total Independent Asia