Asia and Oceania
Indonesia is today more commonly referred to as one of the Southeast Asian countries, and thus simply Asian. However, the Malay Archipelago is sometimes divided between Asia and Australasia, usually along the anthropologic Melanesian line or the Weber Line. Indonesia controls the western half of New Guinea, geographically part of Australasia. The eastern half of the island is part of Papua New Guinea which is considered to be part of the Pacific. East Timor, an independent state that was formerly a territory of Indonesia, which is geographically part of Asia, is classified by the United Nations as part of the "South-Eastern Asia" block. It is expected to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, having been involved as an ASEAN Regional Forum member since independence, and has participated in the Southeast Asian Games since 2003. Occasionally, all of the Malay Archipelago is included in Oceania, although this is extremely rare, especially as most of the archipelago lies on the Asian continental shelf.
The Commonwealth of Australia includes island possessions in Oceania and closer to Indonesia than Australia.
Read more about this topic: Boundaries Between Continents
Famous quotes containing the words asia and and/or asia:
“I have no doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric age, for men have always thought more of eating than of fighting; then, as now, their minds ran chiefly on the “hot bread and sweet cakes;” and the fur and lumber trade is an old story to Asia and Europe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“[N]o combination of dictator countries of Europe and Asia will halt us in the path we see ahead for ourselves and for democracy.... The people of the United States ... reject the doctrine of appeasement.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)