Asia has reserves of many natural resources that are in high demand across the world, including oil, forest products and minerals. This has been a rationalization for conflict, particularly in areas with oil reserves and water scarcity. Beginning in the early 19th century, European nations colonized many Asian nations, including India, Palestine and Thailand, taking resources by force. Similarly, one of the reasons Japan colonized nearby nations, including Korea, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and China in the early part of the 20th century was for its resources. Today, countries in Asia and beyond its borders—particularly the United States and European nations—exert political influence to gain access to resources, sometimes leading to armed conflict. Many desired resources are in countries with insufficient infrastructure and minimal legal protections, and there are major human rights and environmental concerns related to their extraction. The disparity in wealth across Asia is due in large part to the uneven distribution of resources.

Climate and Agriculture

Asia is the largest of the world’s continents, containing 44.6 million square kilometers (17.2 million square miles) of land. Asia’s vast area allows for varied and extreme climates, and these many distinct climates affect agriculture.

The continent’s north-central region, such as the region of Siberia in Russia, is affected by cold and dry Arctic winds. Much of the land is in a state of permafrost, a condition when the ground stays frozen all year. This makes growing crops difficult in these areas. Hardier grains, such as wheat, are grown in the central and southern areas of this region. In Siberia, the permafrost is beginning to melt because of rising temperatures due to climate change. However, unfrozen permafrost is not generally arable, or usable for agriculture. Instead, the melting of permafrost often makes the land uneven, forming lakes and swamps. This makes the land difficult to live on, let alone farm.

Animal husbandry is very important in Asia’s north and central region. In Mongolia, for example, around 80 percent of the country’s agricultural output value comes from raising native livestock. However, this industry is under threat from overgrazing and climate change. The Gobi Desert is extending northward due to rising temperatures, forcing herders into smaller areas. Cashmere, which comes from native goats, is in high demand, yet herders remain in poverty unless they manage a huge herd. The government has put a limit on how many animals a herder can own, but herders ignore that limit to be able to provide for their families. Herders know the land is being degraded as a result but have little incentive to preserve the land.

The southwest region is a dry, hot region that stretches from the Gobi Desert in Mongolia through Pakistan, Iran and into the Arabian Peninsula. This region has very few areas with enough moisture and precipitation to produce crops. Grains, such as barley and wheat, are the principal irrigated crops of some countries. Heat-resistant crops, such as dates, olives and grapes, are also widely grown in this zone.

The southeast region is greatly affected by the summer monsoon season. The high temperatures and precipitation levels of Southeast Asia create the perfect conditions for the production of rice and tropical fruits. Rice is one of Asia’s most important agricultural commodities and a major food staple of the entire continent, with roughly 90 percent of total global rice production occurring in Asia. Thailand and Vietnam are among the highest producers of rice in Asia.

Rice is a vulnerable resource because its production is both affected by and contributes to climate change. Rice is grown on paddies that release greenhouse gasses, which lead to global warming and climate change. The resulting higher temperatures, along with heavy, inconsistent storms, damage rice paddies and ruin crops. Experts are working on more sustainable methods of growing rice to combat this issue. One of these experts is National Geographic Explorer Om Katel, who studies food production and sustainability in Bhutan, a country with rice as a main crop and food source.

Southeast Asia is also a major producer of tropical fruits, such as mango, papaya and pineapple. India is the world’s largest mango-producing nation, accounting for nearly half the global mango production in 2020. Vietnam is a major fruit supplier for the region, particularly durians, which are popular in China.

Forestry and Fishing

Forestry, the management of trees and other vegetation in forests, is an important industry in many Asian countries. Asia has about 18 percent of the world’s global forest land, but the amount of forest varies greatly across regions. Russia and China alone accounted for 25 percent of the world’s forest cover in 2020. Indonesia is home to the world’s third largest tropical forest area. In Western Asia, however, forest cover can be as low as 1 to 2 percent of a country’s land and possibly even less. In Saudi Arabia, for example, only about 0.5 percent of the land has tree cover.

In countries with dense forests, forestry goods are an important element of the economy. China is the world’s largest exporter of many varieties of wood products, and Russia is not far behind, with exports rising in the early 2020s. Several countries in Southeast Asia export teak, a popular choice for everything from furniture to boat decks to indoor and outdoor flooring.

Deforestation is occurring in many parts of Asia, and governments are addressing the issue in different ways. Some countries have made efforts to manage their forests and increase the amount of land covered by forests to increase the sustainability of the forest industry. For example, China intensified efforts in the 1980s and 1990s to create more forested areas, mostly through the use of organized plantations. This resulted in a greater level of forest cover by the late 2010s. Indonesia is one of the world’s leading producers of palm oil, which is also the source of much of the country’s deforestation. Deforestation began in Indonesia under colonial rule, and the subsequent independent Indonesian government continued the forest management policies established by the European colonizers, leading to greater deforestation. Indonesia also faces challenges from illegal logging, which is one of the major factors in the deforestation of teak trees. In an attempt to curb illegal logging and improve the health of its forests, the government of Indonesia has passed laws requiring all exported wood be checked to confirm it has been obtained legally.

Politics has also affected the forest industry in Asia. In 2022, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union banned Russian wood products from entering Europe. It was discovered in 2024, however, that Russian timber was making its way to Europe via trade routes through Kazakhstan, Turkey and other Asian countries. Similarly, in the early 2020s, the United States banned imported teak wood from Myanmar because of the oppressive actions of its military regime. Still, some U.S. companies found ways to circumvent the sanctions and buy teak wood from Myanmar.

Asia represents the most important region for fisheries and aquaculture production in the world, controlling around 70 percent of the world’s seafood production each year. China is the world’s largest seafood producer, followed by Indonesia and India. Aquaculture, the rearing of fish and other aquatic animals in controlled environments, is a major part of the fishing industry in these countries and helps boost their fish production. China also has a large wild catch of about 13 million metric tons per year. This catch has made experts concerned about overfishing in international waters around China. Chinese fishing fleets have been known to travel to international waters and waters under the jurisdiction of other nations to increase their catch. They have better-equipped vessels that can catch more than traditional fishing boats. Leaders of affected nations, particularly those in Africa, have demanded more regulation and enforcement to stop Chinese fishing boats from overfishing and encroaching on their countries’ fair share of the catch.

Fishing is an important aspect of the culture in many parts of Asia. For example, Indigenous people in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan who live near the Aral Sea make art based on fishing and the sea, and their daily activities depend on the fishing seasons. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union, which controlled all of the land around the Aral Sea, began diverting water from the sea to other areas of the country to grow cotton and other crops. The Aral Sea slowly began disappearing, threatening not only the livelihood of nearby fishing communities but also their unique culture. Today, local communities are working to save what is left of the Aral Sea and keep their fishing-based culture alive.

Seafood consumption is extremely important to the lifestyle of many Asian peoples. China consumes around one-third of the global fish catch every year; however, this is in part because of the country’s high population. Maldives, an island nation in South Asia, consumes the second most fish per capita of any nation in the world, behind Iceland. There are also Asian countries that eat hardly any seafood at all. Landlocked Afghanistan is last in the world for fish consumption per capita.

Mining and Drilling

Extractive activities are an important part of the economies of many Asian countries, including China and Russia. China was the number one producer of gold in the early 2020s. China also has many coal mines and is the third largest producer of copper in the world. In Russian Siberia, an extensive geographical region that extends from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, there are rich deposits of coal, crude oil and natural gas.

Russia and China, sometimes working together, are investing in mines across the globe to secure rare earth elements, lithium, nickel, copper and cobalt, which compose the reusable batteries that power computers, smartphones and electric vehicles. The value of these minerals is expected to rise as the world moves toward environmental sustainability, and China and Russia seek to capitalize by investing in mines with these valuable resources. China, for instance, has purchased mines in Indonesia and Africa. Human rights and environmental activists caution that demand for these minerals among high-income countries often leads to lax safety measures and environmental degradation in the low- and middle-income countries from where they are taken.

Southeast Asia has many resources that are needed for current sustainable energy technologies. However, exploratory mining and other long-term mining activities have declined in the region because of safety concerns and environmental problems stemming from these activities. Foreign investment could improve development and health and safety of the mining industry, but it also contributes to political controversy and conflict. For example, Indonesia was the ninth-highest copper producer in the world in the early 2020s. In the 2010s and continuing into the 2020s, Indonesia implemented bans on the export of copper and other minerals with exceptions for countries that invested in the domestic mining industry. This policy aimed to strengthen Indonesia’s mining infrastructure. China, a major investor in Indonesia’s mining operations, has been heavily involved, but its safety improvements have largely not materialized. In 2023, 19 workers were killed in a Chinese-run nickel mine, leading to widespread concerns about the mine’s safety conditions. During the same time period, a coalition of high-resource countries led by Australia and the United States presented Indonesia with a plan for investing in the development of Indonesia’s mining sector. The plan included assurances that the United States and Australia would insist on higher safety and environmental standards, but it put Indonesia in the middle of an ongoing economic and political power struggle between China and the United States, Australia and several Western Europe countries.

Countries on the Arabian Peninsula in the southwest zone of Asia have some of the world’s largest deposits of oil and natural gas. The worldwide demand for oil, particularly by countries such as the United States and China, has contributed to conflict within and beyond the region. In 1990, for instance, Iraq invaded Kuwait to take its oil fields, triggering the Persian Gulf War, during which U.S. troops were deployed to the area to protect U.S. interests. In the 2020s, China and the United States continued to broker deals with and supply arms to Persian Gulf countries, which has resulted in the continuation of conflict. Oil resources are a factor in many other conflicts, including those between ethnic or religious groups. For example, the Houthis, a religious and political group from Yemen, has waged war against the Yemeni government since 2004. The Houthis have targeted and damaged important oil sites in attempts to harm the government and take over the country. Though the conflict is largely religiously based—the Houthis are a minority group of Shiite Muslims and the Yemen government is controlled by a Sunni majority—control of oil plays a part because of its importance internationally. The Houthis are believed to be backed by Iran while the Yemeni government receives support from Saudi Arabia and its ally, the United States, and all three backers have an interest in protecting or expanding their access to, and control, of oil reserves. This influence plays out in other parts of Asia as well. In Myanmar, China and India both have an interest in the oil reserves found in an area called Rakhine. Rakhine was largely inhabited by Rohingyas, an ethnic and religious minority denied citizenship rights by Myanmar’s government. In 2017, the government attacked Rohingyas living in Rakhine, killing many in an act of genocide. In part, the wish to gain access to local resources fueled the massacres.

Political unrest does not always end when violence does, even after a political solution has been achieved. The results can continue to negatively impact the people formerly affected by the armed conflict for years afterward. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Iraqi Prime Minister Saddam Hussein in 2003, for instance, Iraqis in the Basra province (where 70 percent of Iraq’s oil is produced) hoped new leadership would create stability and allow them to reap the benefits of their oil reserves. Instead, the Iraq and U.S. governments set up a system that benefited people working in the Iraqi government, but not the people of Basra. Today, toxic pollution from the oil fields contributes to widespread illness among Basra’s residents, who also lack access to public services, such as education and healthcare.

Industry and Innovation

Some of the fastest growing cities in the world, both in population and in economic growth, are in Asia. Many cities are investing in new innovations in technology as part of this growth. One of the most well-known tech-oriented cities in Asia is Hyderabad in India. Nicknamed “Cyberabad,” the city has focused on training people to work in software development, and information technology (IT) as a major industry. Because IT can be applied to many industries, Hyderabad has also seen growth in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, science research and banking sectors. In Southeast Asia, many cities are shifting to focus on growing the technology and innovation industries as well. In recent years, Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam has transitioned from other areas of manufacturing to focus on the technology sector, producing semiconductors used in many devices.

With this shift to the technology sector came many challenges, including wide disparities in wealth. Ho Chi Minh City is not alone in wealth disparity. Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is also the wealthiest city in Southwest Asia and has the highest density of millionaires in the world. However, much of the capital is concentrated in the wealthiest 1 percent of the population. Foreign-born residents account for 88 percent of the country’s population. Many are migrants from South Asia who move to Dubai in search of economic opportunity. In Dubai, however, foreign-born residents experience many of the same problems as those in poorer cities: small, inadequate living spaces; exploitative jobs or, even, forced labor with few or no protections from abuse; and water and food insecurity. Many migrants cannot easily return to their home countries because visa rules punish them for leaving their employers. Others are reluctant to leave because their families are dependent on remittances, which are funds that immigrants send back to their home country. Legislation passed in 2017 to protect migrant workers has not significantly addressed the issue of inequality in wealth, health and safety in Dubai.

Another major challenge for Asian countries is balancing innovation with environmental risk. Measures taken to address modern problems, including climate change, sometimes inadvertently harm the environment. For example, China’s Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest hydroelectric power station. The dam stretches for 2,335 meters (7,660 feet) across the Yangtze River. In 2020, it produced 111.88 terawatt hours of electricity, setting a new world record. While experts agree that the dam is more environmentally friendly than using fossil fuels, the massive project has devastated the local population and the natural environment. The damming of the Yangtze River created a huge reservoir, taking out hundreds of towns and villages and displacing more than 1.2 million people. The flooding also submerged many culturally significant archaeological sites, including some related to the Ba people, an ancient tribe and ethnic group. The Chinese government arranged for many relics to be relocated, but the flooding meant no further study could be made of the ancient areas, and many artifacts were likely lost. The effect on animals and their habitats is also a major issue. The number of fish in the Yangtze River decreased significantly, and the dam likely contributed to the extinction of the Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei), of which only two known males survive.

Challenges

One of the challenges that Asia faces today are territorial disputes about land and resources. There are many areas where countries are engaged in disputes regarding borders or where political control is claimed by two or more entities. Other disputes, such as the clash over the India-Nepal border or the disagreement between India and China over the Aksai Chin plateau, stem from colonization, when foreign powers divided land with little concern for ethnic or cultural divisions. Another highly contested area in Asia is the South China Sea, an area of the Pacific Ocean that borders China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan. In the last several decades, China has expanded its claim on the South China Sea and its resources, leading to disputes with other countries in the area. Armed conflict has sometimes erupted between China and other claimants, including Vietnam and the Philippines.

In Asia, as in other parts of the world, resources have drawbacks as well as benefits. People simply cannot live without resources, and they also can be a great source of wealth and power. However, resources also often serve as a source of conflict among individuals, groups and nations.