Asia

Asia is the largest and most populous continent and, for an Indian exam, the single most heavily tested — not just because India sits in it, but because West Asia (the Gulf), Central Asia, and Southeast Asia each generate their own recurring current-affairs and static-GK questions (oil economies, Taliban-run Afghanistan, ASEAN summits, Belt and Road partners). The table below is grouped by sub-region so you can revise it in the same clusters described above. Asia is also home to the largest share of this book's G20 members — China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Turkey are all Asian G20 economies — and to four of the eleven current full BRICS members (China, India, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates), a useful cross-reference to keep in mind when the Blocs section further below comes up in the same paper as a country-capital question.

Asia — Capitals and Currencies

South Asia (SAARC region)

Country	Capital	Currency
Afghanistan	Kabul	Afghani
Bangladesh	Dhaka	Taka
Bhutan	Thimphu	Ngultrum (pegged 1:1 to the Indian rupee; Indian currency also accepted)
India	New Delhi	Indian Rupee
Maldives	Malé	Maldivian Rufiyaa
Nepal	Kathmandu	Nepalese Rupee (pegged to the Indian rupee)
Pakistan	Islamabad	Pakistani Rupee
Sri Lanka	Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte (official/legislative); Colombo (commercial/former)	Sri Lankan Rupee

Southeast Asia (ASEAN region)

Country	Capital	Currency
Brunei	Bandar Seri Begawan	Brunei Dollar (pegged 1:1 to the Singapore dollar; each accepted in the other country)
Cambodia	Phnom Penh	Riel
Indonesia	Jakarta (capital status transitioning to Nusantara — see the Recently Changed section)	Rupiah
Laos	Vientiane	Kip
Malaysia	Kuala Lumpur (official); Putrajaya (administrative)	Ringgit
Myanmar	Naypyidaw	Kyat
Philippines	Manila	Philippine Peso
Singapore	Singapore	Singapore Dollar
Thailand	Bangkok	Baht
Timor-Leste	Dili	US Dollar
Vietnam	Hanoi	Dong

Central Asia (the "-stans")

Country	Capital	Currency
Kazakhstan	Astana (renamed from Akmola in 1998, then Nur-Sultan 2019–2022, back to Astana in 2022)	Tenge
Kyrgyzstan	Bishkek	Som
Tajikistan	Dushanbe	Somoni
Turkmenistan	Ashgabat	Turkmen Manat
Uzbekistan	Tashkent	Uzbekistani Som

West Asia / the Gulf

Country	Capital	Currency
Bahrain	Manama	Bahraini Dinar
Iraq	Baghdad	Iraqi Dinar
Israel	Jerusalem (disputed; most countries maintain embassies in Tel Aviv)	Israeli New Shekel
Jordan	Amman	Jordanian Dinar
Kuwait	Kuwait City	Kuwaiti Dinar (the world's highest-valued currency unit)
Lebanon	Beirut	Lebanese Pound
Oman	Muscat	Omani Rial
Palestine (observer state)	Ramallah (administrative seat); East Jerusalem (claimed)	Israeli New Shekel / Jordanian Dinar in circulation
Qatar	Doha	Qatari Riyal
Saudi Arabia	Riyadh	Saudi Riyal
Syria	Damascus	Syrian Pound
United Arab Emirates	Abu Dhabi	UAE Dirham
Yemen	Sana'a (de jure); Aden (interim seat of the internationally recognised government)	Yemeni Rial

East Asia

Country	Capital	Currency
China	Beijing	Renminbi (Yuan)
Iran	Tehran	Iranian Rial
Japan	Tokyo	Japanese Yen
Mongolia	Ulaanbaatar	Tugrik
North Korea	Pyongyang	North Korean Won
South Korea	Seoul	South Korean Won

Transcontinental / other Asia-adjacent countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Turkey) are covered together in their own box below, since they sit on the Europe-Asia boundary and are frequently tested as a "which continent" trick.

Landlocked countries in Asia worth knowing as a set: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan — twelve in total, a cluster dominated by Central Asia and the Himalayan belt. Kazakhstan is the world's largest landlocked country by area, and Uzbekistan is one of only two "doubly landlocked" countries on Earth (surrounded entirely by other landlocked countries) — the other being Liechtenstein in Europe. Island nations in Asia include Bahrain, Brunei (shares Borneo with Malaysia and Indonesia, so only partly insular), Cyprus, Indonesia (the world's largest archipelagic state, spanning over 17,000 islands), Japan, Maldives, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Timor-Leste.

SAARC and ASEAN

SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), founded in 1985 and headquartered in Kathmandu, has exactly eight members: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan was the last to join, in 2007 — a fact worth knowing since exams occasionally ask which member joined most recently, or (in reverse) which of India's immediate neighbours is not geographically adjacent to India (Afghanistan and Maldives are the two SAARC members without a land border with India, though Afghanistan shares a narrow, disputed strip with India via Pakistan-occupied Kashmir).

ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), founded in 1967 in Bangkok and headquartered in Jakarta, expanded to eleven members in October 2025 when Timor-Leste was formally admitted as its newest member — the first expansion of the bloc since Cambodia joined in 1999. The other ten are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. This is a genuinely fresh current-affairs fact — treat "how many members does ASEAN have" as a live number rather than a fixed ten, since older revision material will still say ten.

Memory hook — "SAARC is eight, ASEAN is now eleven": SAARC's eight members are exactly the eight South Asian countries in the table above — no more, no less, and the bloc hasn't added a member since Afghanistan in 2007. ASEAN, by contrast, just grew — Timor-Leste's 2025 accession is a live fact worth flagging in your own notes with the date, since it is exactly the kind of number an older answer key will get wrong.

Practice Recall: Name all eight SAARC members and all eleven current ASEAN members without looking, then identify which two SAARC members do not share a land border with India, and which country most recently joined ASEAN.

Transcontinental Countries

A handful of countries straddle the conventional Europe-Asia dividing line (traditionally drawn along the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and the Caucasus range) and get classified differently depending on the source — a genuine, recurring source of "which continent" confusion in objective papers.

Country	Usually classified as	Why it's contested
Turkey (Türkiye)	Asia (geographically, via Anatolia) but culturally/politically tied to Europe	A small part of Istanbul (Thrace) lies in Europe; Turkey is a long-standing NATO member and EU candidate
Russia	Europe (by population/political centre) and Asia (by land area — over 75% of Russian territory lies in Asian Siberia)	The Ural Mountains run through Russia itself, splitting it across both continents
Cyprus	Geographically Asia, politically counted as Europe	An EU member and eurozone user, despite lying in the eastern Mediterranean close to Turkey and Syria
Georgia	Asia (Caucasus) in most UN geoscheme classifications, sometimes grouped with Europe	Seeking EU membership; culturally oriented toward Europe
Azerbaijan	Asia (Caucasus), sometimes grouped with Europe	Similar Caucasus-boundary ambiguity as Georgia and Armenia
Armenia	Asia (Caucasus), sometimes grouped with Europe	Member of the Europe-facing Council of Europe despite Asian geography
Kazakhstan	Mostly Asia, with a small western portion west of the Ural River technically in Europe	The only country besides Russia with meaningful territory on both continents
Egypt	Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula lying in Asia	Included here for completeness — the only African country with a toehold in Asia

Memory hook — "The Caucasus Three, plus Turkey and Russia": Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan (the "Caucasus Three") are Asia by strict geography but frequently discussed alongside Europe; Turkey and Russia are the two genuinely split countries with real territory on both continents.

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