Continental Drift

If you think you know a continent when you see one, think again. Asia's ambiguous geographical and cultural divisions are immediately apparent in the index of The Asia Book —the latest pictorial tome from Lonely Planet. Transcontinental nations like Turkey and Russia (whose eastern extremities stretch to the same longitudes as Japan) are seen as European in orientation, but places like Israel and Syria, which shares a border with Turkey, somehow make the cut. So do 41 other countries, grouped into five regions: Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Himalayas, and the Middle...