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Asia is the
world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the
Earth's
total surface area (or 29.4% of its land area) and, with almost 4
billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human
population.
Manufacturing
in Asia has traditionally been strongest in China, Taiwan, Japan, South
Korea and Singapore. Japan
and South Korea continue to dominate in the area of multinational
corporations, but increasingly China, Taiwan, and India are making
significant inroads. Many companies from Europe, North America, and
Japan have operations in Asia's developing countries to take advantage
of its abundant supply of cheap labour and relatively developed
infrastructure.
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Asia is home to several language families
and many language isolates. Most Asian countries have more than one
language that is natively spoken. For instance, according to Ethnologue,
more than 600 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 415
languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in the
Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different
provinces. Korea, however, is home to only one language, albeit one
with high dialectal diversity.
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