It has often been said that Australia is a little piece of Europe sitting right at the foot of Asia. Australia is clearly in Asia's sphere of influence and that influence is becoming increasingly important.

Asia has figured prominently in Australian history. Its peoples have been travelling to and from this country for centuries; the Chinese, for instance, came here in large numbers for the Gold Rush. Trade relations between Australia and Asian nations are long established, so the links are enduring and very important.

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6 percent of the earth's total surface area and 29.4 percent of its land area. With almost 4 billion people, it contains more than 60 percent of the world's current human population.

Chiefly in the eastern and northern hemispheres, Asia is bounded to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the Indian Ocean, and to the north by the Arctic Ocean.

The east-west boundary between Asia and Europe is conventionally considered to run through the Dardanelles, an important landmark for Australians, being the gateway to Gallipoli in the First World War.

Asia has the third-largest nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of all continents, after North America and Europe. Historically, Japan has had the largest economy in Asia. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP was almost as large as that of the rest of Asia combined. However, since the late 1990s, the economies of China and India have been growing rapidly, both with an average annual growth rate of more than 8 percent. Presently, the largest national economy within Asia, in terms of GDP, is that of China, followed by India and Japan.

Given its size and diversity, Asia is more a cultural concept incorporating a number of regions and peoples than a homogeneous entity.

While the Chinese and Japanese have long been coming to Australia, over the last few decades have we seen a significant increase in the number of people from the former French Indochina, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

More recently still, Australia has become home to people from the Asian corner of the former Soviet Union, chiefly from countries collectively known as the 'Stans' and from others such as Azerbaijan, which have been relatively unknown to most Australians.

Gregory Adams / Lonely Planet Images