AI Tutor
If you drew a circle around just East and South Asia on a globe, you would capture more than half of all living humans on planet Earth.
To pinpoint exactly where these giant population hubs and their neighboring oceans sit, geographers use four core tools: the global grid, cardinal directions, the map legend, and the map scale.
How do we turn a giant, spinning sphere into an address system anyone can read?

The Global Grid and Hemispheres

The Equator is an imaginary belt around Earth's middle at 0∘0^\circ that splits the planet into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Lines running parallel to it measure latitude in degrees North or South.
The Prime Meridian runs from pole to pole at 0∘0^\circ, splitting Earth into the Western and Eastern Hemispheres; lines running alongside it measure longitude East or West.
Because both East and South Asia sit north of the Equator and east of the Prime Meridian, their coordinates are always marked with N (North) and E (East).
Now that we know their grid neighborhood, which bodies of water border each region?

Cardinal Directions and Neighboring Oceans

A compass rose indicates cardinal directions—North, South, East, and West—along with intermediate headings like Northeast and Southwest.
South Asia forms a triangular peninsula pointing straight south into the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, bounded by the Arabian Sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east.
East Asia sits to the northeast of South Asia, facing east directly onto the world's largest body of water, the Pacific Ocean.