East Asia is a subregion of Asia covering about 12 million square kilometers and over 1.5 billion people, making it one of the most populated places in the world. Historically, many East Asian societies were influenced by Chinese culture and language. Major religions include Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion, Shinto, and more recently Christianity in South Korea. The table provided shows country demographics for East Asian nations, with China being the largest by area and population at over 1.3 billion people and a density of 138 per square kilometer.

1. Introduction of East Asia
East Asia or Eastern is a sub region of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural
terms. Geographically and geopolitically, it covers about 12,000,000 km2, or about 28% of the
Asian continent, about 15% bigger than the area of Europe.
More than 1.5 billion people, about 38% of the population of Asia and 22% or over one fifth of all
the people in the world, live in East Asia. The region is one of the world's most populated places,
with a population density of 133 inhabitants per square kilometer, being about three times the
world average of 45 /km2, although Mongolia has the lowest population density of a sovereign
state. Using the UN sub region definitions, it ranks second in population only to Southern 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.
Sometimes Northeast Asia is used to denote Japan and Korea. 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 recently Christianity in South Korea. The Chinese
Calendar is the root from which many other East Asian calendars are derived.
Demographics
Country Area km² Population
Population density
per km²
HDI (2011) Capital
China (PRC) 9,596,961 1,339,724,852 138 0.699 Beijing
Hong Kong (PRC) 1,104 7,061,200 6,390 0.898 Hong Kong
Japan 377,930 127,950,000 337 0.901 Tokyo
Macau (PRC) 30 556,800 18,662 No Data Macau
Mongolia 1,564,100 2,809,600 2 0.653 Ulaanbaatar
North Korea 120,538 24,346,000 198 No Data Pyongyang
South Korea 100,210 48,988,833 500 0.897 Seoul
Taiwan(ROC) 36,188 23,174,528 639 0.882 Taipei