Asia:
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北亚有两个定义。其中一个定义，是指俄罗斯亚洲部分，主要是指西伯利亚、以及阿尔泰山脉以北的地区，占亚洲面积的三分之一。过去亦有将蒙古包括入北亚的范围内。另一个定义，是指东北亚，即大中华地区加上日本和韩国，甚至蒙古。这是一个商业上相对东南亚的地理划分。一般来说，以前者比较普遍。
亚俄和蒙古利亚 北亚地区包括了亚俄和蒙古利亚两个地区。 匈奴民族在古代建了匈奴王国。匈奴王国之后分裂成北匈奴和南匈奴。此外，柔然也被认为是由鲜卑民族所建立。这四个国家先后在蒙古利亚(简称蒙古)称王称霸。在6-13世纪,先后出现了突厥王国、薛延陀王国、回纥王国(后改称回鹘王国)和黠戛斯王国等国,称霸中亚和蒙古。1206年，铁木真统一蒙古，建立北至吉尔吉斯，西至叙利亚，东至太平洋，南至波斯的蒙古帝国。其后只保有北亚东部;忽必烈将国名改成元帝国，并称霸中国。在西伯利亚，则有白帐汗国{斡儿答王朝}和蓝帐汗国{昔班王朝}两个蒙古帝国的封国；白帐在14世纪灭蓝帐，改称金帐。在2千纪中，也先后出现过蒙古王国，西伯利亚王国和土尔扈特王国(俄罗斯的附庸国)，但分别被后金，俄罗斯和清帝国灭。从1771至1911，北亚一直由俄罗斯，中国清王朝所统治。 在1911年，俄罗斯帮蒙古王国独立，蒙古王国成其附庸国；1915年成中国的自治领；1921年，俄罗斯助此独立，蒙古王国照样成其附庸国；1924年，蒙古王国成为苏维埃共和国(蒙古人民共和国)；1990年，蒙古人民共和国民主化，并在1992改国名为蒙古国至今。 The Phillips Illustrated Atlas of the World 1988 defines it as being most of the former USSR, the part that is to the east of the Ural Mountains. A definition pre-dating the USSR is an 1882 one by Keane and Temple, who defined it as "the two great administrative divisions of West and East Siberia, whose capitals are Omsk and Irkutsk respectively". It was, according to them "one vast political system, comprising nearly one-third of the whole continent, and, with a few trifling exceptions, directly administered by Russia". Demographics In 1875, Chambers reported the population of Northern Asia to be 8 million. Between 1801 and 1914 an estimated 7 million settlers moved from European Russia to Siberia, 85% during the quarter-century before World War I. Most estimates nowadays are that there are around 40 million Russians and Russified Ukrainians east of the Urals. The Buryats number 445,175, which makes them the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia. There are 443,852 Yakuts (Russian Census of 2002) and about 400,000 ethnic Germans living in Siberia. According to the 2002 census there are 500,000 Tatars in Siberia, but 300,000 of them are Volga Tatars who settled in Siberia during periods of colonization. There are an estimated one million Chinese in the Russian Far East. Geography There are no mountain chains in Northern Asia to prevent air currents from the Arctic flowing down over the plains of Siberia and Turkestan. The plateaux and plains of Northern Asia comprise the West Siberian lowlands; the Angara Shield, with the Taimyr Peninsula, the coastal lowlands, the Putorama Range, the Anabar Plateau, the Tunguska Plateau, and the Angara Plateau; and the Lena-Vilyuy Basin. Geomorphology The geomorphology of Asia in general is imperfectly known, although the deposits and mountain ranges are well known. To compensate for new sea floor having been created in the Siberian basin, the whole of the Asian Plate has pivoted about a point in the New Siberian Islands, causing compression in the Verkhoyansk mountains, which were formed along the eastern margin of the Angara Shield by tectonic uplift during the Mesozoic Era. There is a southern boundary to this across the northern margin of the Alpine folds of Iran, Afghanistan, India, Nepal, and Bhutan, which at the east of Brahmaputra turns to run south towards the Bay of Bengal along the line of the Naga hills and the Arakan Yoma, continues around Indonesia, and follows the edge of the continental shelf along the eastern seaboard of China. The Eurasian Plate and the North American Plate meet across the neck of Alaska, following the line of the Aleutian Trench, rather than meeting at the Bering Straits. Northern Asia is built around the Angara Shield, which lies between the Yenisey River and the Lena River. It developed from fragments of Laurasia, whose rocks were mainly pre-Cambrian crystalline rocks, gneisses, and schists, and Gondwana. These rocks can be found in the Angara Shield, the Inner Mongolian-Korean Shield, the Ordes Shield and the South-East Asia Shield. The fragments have been subject to orogenesis around their margins, giving a complex of plateaux and mountain ranges. One can find outcrops of these rocks in unfolded sections of the Shields. Their presence has been confirmed below Mesozoic and later sediments. There are three main periods of mountain building in Northern Asia, although it has occurred many times. The outer fold mountains, that are on the margins of the Shields and that only affected Asia north of the line of the Himalayas, are attributed to the Caledonian and Hercynian orogenies of the late Palaeozoic Era. The Alpine origeny caused extensive folding and faulting of Mesozoic and early Tertiary sediments from the Tethys geosyncline. The Tibetan and Mongolian plateaux, and the structural basins of Tarim, Qaidam, and Junggar, are delimited by major east-west lithospheric faults that were probably the results of stresses caused by the impact of the Indian Plate against Laurasia. Erosion of the mountains caused by this orogeny has created a large amount of sediment, which has been transported southwards to produce the alluvial plains of India, China, and Cambodia, and which has also been deposited in large amounts in the Tarim and Dzungarian basins. Northern Asia was glaciated in the Pleistocene, but this played a less significant part in the geology of the area compared to the part that it played in North America and Europe. The Scandinavian ice sheet extended to the east of the Urals, covering the northern two thirds of the Ob Basin and extending onto the Angara Shield between the Yenesei River and the Lena River. There are legacies of mountain glaciation to be found on the east Siberian mountains, on the mountains of the Kamchatka Peninsula, on the Altai, on Tien Shan, and on other small areas of mountains, ice caps remain on the islands of Severnaya Zemlya and Novaya Zemlya, and several Central Asian mountains still have individual glaciers. Siberia itself has permafrost, ranging in depths from 30m to 600 m and covering an area of 9.6 million km². Several of the mountainous regions are volcanic, with both the Koryat mountains and the Kamchatka Peninsula having active volcanoes. The Anadyr plateau is formed from igneous rocks. The Mongolian plateau has an area of basaltic lavas and volcanic cones. The Angara Shield also underlies the lowlands of the Ob River, but to the south and east in the Central Asian mountains and in the East Siberian mountains there are folded and faulted mountains of Lower Palaeozoic rocks. |
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