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Asia

The largest continent, spanning from the Middle East through India and China to the Pacific, cradle of most of the world's major religions. Ptolemy's chorography splits it across two of his four quarters, the southeast and the northeast, giving it two triplicities rather than one.

Facts
Geography
Latitude
34.8 degrees north 1
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a large or historical region has no formal center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a precise boundary claim.
Longitude
100.6 degrees east 1
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a large or historical region has no formal center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a precise boundary claim.
Identity
Element
Earth for the southeast quarter, air for the northeast 2Tradition: Hellenistic astrology
Attributions
Tradition
Babylonian celestial omen work and mathematical astronomy underlie the technique, and the zodiac of twelve equal signs is a Babylonian construction Greek astronomy inherited. 3Tradition: Hellenistic astrology
Tradition
Ptolemy's chorography quarters the inhabited world by compass direction rather than mapping continents, which is why Asia falls across two quarters and two triplicities. 4Tradition: Hellenistic astrology
Correspondences
Zodiac Rulership
The air triplicity, Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, for the northeast quarter, which Ptolemy calls Scythia 2Tradition: Hellenistic astrology
Zodiac Rulership
The earth triplicity, Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn, for the southeast quarter: India, Persia, Babylonia, Mesopotamia and Assyria 2Tradition: Hellenistic astrology
Origins
Region
The inhabited world east of the Mediterranean, from Mesopotamia to India and the lands beyond the Caspian 2Tradition: Hellenistic astrology
Learn More
Two Quarters, Two Triplicities

Ptolemy's second book divides the inhabited world into four quarters and puts each in familiarity with one of the four triplicities of signs. Asia is the only landmass in the scheme that falls across two of them.

The southeast quarter, which Ptolemy fills with India, Persia, Babylonia, Mesopotamia and Assyria, is in familiarity with the earth triplicity, Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn. The northeast quarter, which he calls Scythia and populates with the lands north and east of the Caspian, is in familiarity with the air triplicity, Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Ptolemy assigns planetary co-rulers to each quarter as well, and those assignments are not identical to the ordinary triplicity lords, so this entry does not name them rather than report one as the other.

Splitting Asia is not a failure of the scheme. The scheme is not a map of continents. It is a division of the oikoumene, the inhabited world as a second century Alexandrian understood it, by compass quarter from a centre near the Mediterranean, and continents are simply not what it divides. Reading it as geography produces the impression of an error where there is none.

What the quarter assignment is used for is mundane astrology, the reading of eclipses, comets and great conjunctions for their effect on regions. Ptolemy's chorography is the lookup table that tells such a reading which part of the world an event in a given sign concerns.

The Astrology Asia Sent Westward

Beyond the chorography, Asia's place in this atlas's astrological material is as the source of most of it.

The technical apparatus of horoscopic astrology is built on Mesopotamian celestial omen work and Mesopotamian mathematical astronomy, and the zodiac of twelve equal thirty degree signs is a Babylonian construction that Greek astronomy inherited rather than invented. The Hellenistic synthesis of the last centuries before the common era took that material, combined it with Egyptian and Greek elements, and produced the natal astrology this vocabulary belongs to.

The traffic then ran in several directions. Greek astrological texts were translated into Sanskrit and reworked into the Indian tradition, where the technique developed along its own line and is practised continuously to the present day. From the eighth century the Abbasid translation movement carried Greek, Persian and Sanskrit astrological material into Arabic, where it was systematised and extended before passing into Latin Europe from the twelfth century onward.

So the medieval European house catalogue this atlas records under so many entries is an Asian inheritance twice over, Babylonian in its zodiac and Arabic and Persian in the form Europe actually received. Lilly's Christian Astrology of 1647 sits at the end of that chain, and the chain is the reason a continent entry belongs in an astrological vocabulary at all. The atlas records the transmission as history, and states each attribution at the level the scholarship supports rather than more precisely.

Sources A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion with Christian AstrologyWilliam Lilly

Connections

Associated With

This source names Asia directly: "Reliable for the 1990 organization of the Euro-Asia Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church: in the article's own words, "it was not until 1990 that the Adventists were able to receive the..."

Source Mikhail P. Kulakov (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Asia directly: "to the arts and cultures of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, opened in 2006 to the design of the architect Jean Nouvel and renamed in 2016 for the French president who championed its creation."

Source Musee du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac (institutional record)Musee du quai Branly - Jacques Chiracthe holders' own account

This source names Asia directly: "are drawn from Africa, the Near East, Asia, Oceania and the Americas."

Source Musee du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac (institutional record)Musee du quai Branly - Jacques Chiracthe holders' own account

This source names Asia directly: "of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, it is the officially recognized body governing mosque registration, imam appointment and permitted sermon content in Uzbekistan, organized around..."

Source Muslim Board of Uzbekistan (institutional record)the holders' own account

This source names Asia directly: "first element discovered by a team in Asia."

Source Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the ElementsJohn Emsley

This source names Asia directly: "Cyprus and the cities of south-central Asia Minor, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, then across the Aegean into Greece, founding congregations at Philippi, Thessalonica and Corinth, with..."

Source The New Testament, Acts of the ApostlesAnonymous

This source names Asia directly: "growth in Latin America, Africa and Asia."

Source Pentecostal Resource Page (Pew Research Center, 2006)Pew Research Center

This source names Asia directly: "in Latin America, Africa and Asia rather than in the movement's own place of origin in the American South."

Source Pentecostal Resource Page (Pew Research Center, 2006)Pew Research Center

This source names Asia directly: "Maclean is a historian of modern South Asia, and this Oxford University Press book is her academic history of the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage at Allahabad and its relationship to political power from 1765..."

Source Pilgrimage and Power: The Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, 1765-1954Kama Maclean

This source names Asia directly: "religion, and this Harvard University Asia Center book is his academic study of the religious landscape of Mount Heng, known as Nanyue, the southern peak of China's Five Great Mountains system, and..."

Source Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue) in Medieval ChinaJames Robson

This source names Asia directly: "Radio Veritas Asia is the continental Catholic broadcasting service the Southeast Asian Bishops' Conference resolved to build in December 1958 and formally launched on April 11, 1969, transmitting..."

Source About RVA (Radio Veritas Asia)

This source names Asia directly: "Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the West, edited by Geoffrey Samuel and Jay Johnston, is an academic essay collection bringing together specialists in South Asian, Chinese and Western..."

Source Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the West: Between Mind and BodyGeoffrey Samuel and Jay Johnston (eds.)

This source names Asia directly: "Laruelle is a scholar of Central Asian politics and religion, and this is her peer reviewed article in the academic journal Central Asian Survey, examining the modern revival of Tengrism, the..."

Source Religious revival, nationalism and the invention of tradition: political Tengrism in Central Asia and TatarstanMarlene Laruelle

This source names Asia directly: "tradition in post-Soviet Central Asia and Tatarstan."

Source Religious Revival, Nationalism, and the Invention of Tradition, Political Tengrism in Central Asia and Tatarstan (Central Asian Survey)Marlene Laruelle

This source names Asia directly: "as practiced in the Greek cities of Asia Minor, published by Cambridge University Press and widely regarded as the field defining treatment of the topic."

Source Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia MinorSimon R. F. Price

This source names Asia directly: "founders of Africa, the Americas and Asia whose reigns intersected the traditions this atlas covers."

Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions

This source names Asia directly: "reports across Siberia, Central Asia and beyond to argue for a universal structure underlying diverse local practices."

Source Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of EcstasyMircea Eliade

This source names Asia directly: "for Lunar New Year elsewhere in East Asia."

Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre

This source names Asia directly: "largest Sikh populations outside South Asia."

Source Sikhs In Canada (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Asia directly: "of martial arts of maritime Southeast Asia, consulted 2026-08-11."

Source Silat (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sogdian, Languages

This source names Asia directly: "Samarkand and Bukhara in Central Asia, and the working lingua franca of the eastern Silk Road until the Arab conquest."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

This source names Asia directly: "across Theravada Buddhist Southeast Asia rather than by a lunar system."

Source Songkran in Thailand, Traditional Thai New Year FestivalUNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage

This source names Asia directly: "tooth relic traditions across Buddhist Asia needs a scholarly source alongside this one, which speaks to the Kandy temple's present status rather than to that wider historical dispute."

Source Sri Dalada Maligawa: The Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic (Central Cultural Fund)Central Cultural Fund, Sri Lankathe holders' own account

This source names Asia directly: "is a peer-reviewed journal article in Asia Major, published by the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica, and its documented, checkable contribution is a study of the Shenxiang..."

Source Targeting the Readership for a Ming Publication: Comprehensiveness in the Compendium for the Expert PhysiognomistMei Chun
Taurus, Zodiac Signs

Taurus, of the earth triplicity, in familiarity with the southeast quarter.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

This source names Asia directly: "provinces in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania."

Source The Lambeth Conference: A Global Gathering of Bishops (Anglican Communion Office)

This source names Asia directly: "in Austronesian languages, and this Asia-Pacific Linguistics volume from the Australian National University is his standard scholarly reference on the Austronesian language family, covering its..."

Source The Austronesian LanguagesRobert Blust
The Betel Vine, Plants

This source names Asia directly: "vine native to South and Southeast Asia whose leaf, folded around areca nut and lime, is chewed widely across the region and offered ritually in Hindu and Buddhist practice."

Source The Oxford Dictionary of World ReligionsJohn Bowker (ed.)

This source names Asia directly: "belief and practice across Southeast Asia, covering both textual doctrine and the lived, everyday religious life of Theravada communities in the region."

Source The Buddhist World of Southeast AsiaDonald K. Swearer

This source names Asia directly: "Eade's The Calendrical Systems of Mainland South-East Asia is a specialist technical study reconstructing the interlocking lunar, solar and era-based calendars used historically across Burma..."

Source The Calendrical Systems of Mainland South-East AsiaJ. C. Eade

This source names Asia directly: "and missionary expansion across Asia using the surviving historical and archaeological record of a tradition whose own history spans much of the Asian continent, a documented geographic reach many..."

Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumer

This source names Asia directly: "personal written seal used across East Asia to mark a document as genuinely issued by the person named."

Source The Dai Honzon of 1274 (Gohonzon Shu catalogue, cross-referenced)Gohonzon Shu catalogue project contributors

This source names Asia directly: "by Cornell University's Southeast Asia Program in 1978, is a scholarly study of the god-king cult central to Southeast Asian, principally Khmer, sacred kingship."

Source The Devaraja CultHermann Kulke

This source names Asia directly: "Delegates voted to organize the Euro-Asia Division at the General Conference World Congress held that year in Indianapolis, Indiana, and elected Mikhail P."

Source Mikhail P. Kulakov (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Asia directly: "South, Africa, Latin America and Asia together, held a clear majority of the world's Christian population, roughly sixty-one percent against Europe and North America's thirty-nine."

Source Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian PopulationPew Research Center

This source names Asia directly: "intermittently in the Aegean and Asia Minor for decades."

Source HistoriesHerodotus

This source names Asia directly: "around his worship across East Asia."

Source The Healing BuddhaRaoul Birnbaum

This source names Asia directly: "The Indianized States of Southeast Asia is a classic and still widely cited scholarly synthesis tracing how Indian religious, political and cultural models spread across and were adapted by early..."

Source The Indianized States of Southeast AsiaGeorge Coedes

This source names Asia directly: "the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, both as everyday formal dress and specifically as attire favored for Friday congregational prayer and other formal religious occasions."

Source The Oxford Dictionary of World ReligionsJohn Bowker (ed.)

This source names Asia directly: "collarless tunic worn across South Asia by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs alike, serving equally as ordinary daily dress and, in its plainer or more formal forms, as the garment worn to pray in a mosque..."

Source The Oxford Dictionary of World ReligionsJohn Bowker (ed.)

This source names Asia directly: "church into Latin America, Africa and Asia at a pace its earlier nineteenth century European missions had never matched."

Source The Oxford Handbook of MormonismTerryl L. Givens and Philip L. Barlow (eds.)

This source names Asia directly: "in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, a Duke University Press journal, 2005, is peer-reviewed academic scholarship."

Source The Mourning of History and the History of Mourning: The Evolution of Ritual Commemoration of the Battle of KarbalaAli J. Hussain

This source names Asia directly: "it has spread through, from Central Asia to the Ottoman world and beyond."

Source The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi TraditionItzchak Weismann

This source names Asia directly: "of South, Southeast, East and Central Asia specifically so that a single reference could define terms consistently across regions that are more often treated separately, which is a genuine editorial..."

Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.

This source names Asia directly: "languages across East and Southeast Asia, with individual chapters contributed by specialists in particular branches and languages of the family."

Source The Sino-Tibetan LanguagesGraham Thurgood and Randy J. LaPolla (eds.)

This source names Asia directly: "explained, published by Radio Free Asia in 2024, is news journalism from an outlet that specializes in coverage of Tibet, China and other Asian regions where information is otherwise tightly..."

Source The story of one of Buddhism's most revered figures, long missing, explainedRadio Free Asia

This source names Asia directly: "in the Cornell University Southeast Asia Program's studies series, is an academic study of the stupa, the Buddhist reliquary monument, examining its symbolic and cosmological meaning across Buddhist..."

Source The Symbolism of the StupaAdrian Snodgrass

This source names Asia directly: "2007 study from the Harvard University Asia Center, is a major scholarly social history of Daoist clergy in the imperial and early republican capital."

Source The Taoists of Peking, 1800-1949: A Social History of Urban ClericsVincent Goossaert

This source names Asia directly: "Africa than in South or Southeast Asia, the Middle East or Central Asia, with no single country's figure standing in for a worldwide total since sectarian and order affiliation data of this kind..."

Source The World's Muslims: Unity and Diversity

This source names Asia directly: "principally the Parsis of South Asia and later migrant communities in Britain and North America, documenting religious adaptation and community organization outside Iran rather than treating..."

Source The Zoroastrian Diaspora: Religion and MigrationJohn R. Hinnells

Showing 51 to 100 of 115 in Associated With, page 2 of 3.

Contrasts With

Americas, Continents

Asia holds two of the four quarters of the classical chorography. The Americas hold none, because the hemisphere lay outside the inhabited world the scheme divides.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy
Global, Continents

Global is not a landmass. It marks material whose spread crosses the continents rather than belonging to one of them.

Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
2. Tetrabiblos
Claudius Ptolemy, W. Foulsham, 1900Book II, on the familiarities of countries with the triplicities and starsView the Source
3. A History of Western Astrology
Nicholas Campion, Continuum, 2009View the Source
4. Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune
Chris Brennan, Amor Fati Publications, 2017View the Source
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