Key Stage 3 geography · Locational knowledge

KS3 Asia geography: China, India and beyond

Asia is the world’s largest and most populated continent, and at Key Stage 3 children study it with special attention to China and India, the two countries with the most people. They learn to locate its countries and major cities on world maps, to describe its very varied environmental regions, from Arctic tundra to tropical rainforest and from high mountains to hot deserts, and to explain how landscapes and climate influence where people live.

Asia, including China and India, explained

The National Curriculum names Asia, “including China and India”, as one of the places pupils should study to extend their knowledge of where countries are, using maps of the world. As with Africa, Russia and the Middle East, the focus is on environmental regions, key physical and human characteristics, and countries and major cities. The programme does not list which countries or cities to learn, so schools choose, but nearly all cover China and India in some depth and add a handful of others, such as Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Thailand.

Asia covers around 44 million square kilometres, nearly a third of the world’s land, and holds roughly three in every five people alive. It stretches from the Arctic coast of Siberia, where some islands are polar desert, to the Equator and just beyond it in Indonesia. This gives it almost every environmental region: tundra and taiga in the north, steppe and cold deserts such as the Gobi, hot deserts such as the Thar and the Arabian Desert, monsoon forests and tropical rainforest in the south-east. Physical highlights include the Himalayas, where Mount Everest, at just under 8,850 metres, is the highest point on Earth above sea level; the Tibetan Plateau; and great rivers, such as the Yangtze, the Yellow River, the Ganges, the Indus and the Mekong. The Tropic of Cancer crosses both China and India.

China, with its capital in Beijing, has about 1.4 billion people. Most of them live in the east, on the coastal plains and in the valleys of the Yangtze and the Yellow River, in cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chongqing. The west is mostly high plateau, mountain and desert, and is thinly populated. India, with its capital in New Delhi, also has about 1.4 billion people and has recently overtaken China as the country with the most people. Its main landscapes are the Himalayas in the north, the fertile plain of the Ganges, the Thar Desert in the north-west and the dry highlands of the Deccan Plateau in the south, with Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru among the major cities. Both countries are changing fast, with rapid growth of cities, industry and trade.

The monsoon is a central idea. In much of south and east Asia, winds change direction with the seasons, bringing heavy rain in summer and a dry period in winter. Farmers plan their year around it, and for hundreds of millions of people the harvest depends on when the rains arrive. Spatial awareness grows as children use latitude and longitude, scale and compass directions on a physical map, a political map and a population map side by side, and learn to tell the difference between what they show: where places are, what the land is like and how many people live there.

Words your child will hear

Monsoon: A seasonal wind that brings a wet season in summer and a drier season in winter, especially in south Asia.
Plateau: A large, high, fairly flat area of land, such as the Tibetan Plateau.
Plain: A large area of low, flat land, often fertile and crowded, such as the Ganges Plain.
Population density: The average number of people living in each square kilometre of an area.
Delta: Low, flat land where a river splits into channels as it reaches the sea, leaving fertile silt.
Megacity: A city with more than 10 million people living in it.
Cold desert: A dry region with very cold winters, such as the Gobi, where little rain or snow falls.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 3 says:

Pupils should be taught to extend their locational knowledge and deepen their spatial awareness of the world’s countries, using maps of the world to focus on Africa, Russia, Asia (including China and India), and the Middle East, focusing on their environmental regions, including polar and hot deserts, key physical and human characteristics, countries and major cities
Pupils should consolidate and extend their knowledge of the world’s major countries and their physical and human features.
Pupils will continue to enrich their locational knowledge and spatial and environmental understanding.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: answering an enquiry with evidence

Why do most people in China live in the east of the country?

Describe the pattern first. On a population map, the east and the coast are dark (crowded), while the west is pale (thinly populated). Naming the pattern before explaining it keeps the answer clear.
Look at the physical geography of the west. Check a relief map: the Tibetan Plateau is very high and cold, the Himalayas form its southern edge, and to the north the Taklamakan Desert and the Gobi Desert are very dry. Steep, cold or dry land is hard to farm and to build on.
Look at the east. The Yellow River and the Yangtze have built broad, flat plains of fertile silt. Rain from the summer monsoon is plentiful, so wheat grows in the north and rice in the south. Farming here has supported large populations for thousands of years.
Add human reasons. The coast has ports for trade, and factories, services and cities have grown there, which draws more people to move for work. Roads, railways and airports are easier to build on the plains.
Compare with another place for extra depth. India shows a similar pattern: the Ganges Plain is crowded, while the Himalayas and the Thar Desert have far fewer people.

Most people in China live in the east because the land there is low, flat and fertile, the monsoon gives enough rain for farming, and the coast supports ports, trade and industry. The west is mainly high plateau, mountain and desert, which makes farming and building harder, so fewer people live there. India shows the same link between landscape and population.

Common mistakes and how to help

Treating Asia as one place, or “Asian” as a nationality

Asia has around 50 countries, with different languages, climates and ways of life. “Asian food” or “Asian people” hides that variety, just as “European” does.

What helps: Encourage your child to name the country or region. Ask what a coastal city and a mountain village in the same country would have in common.

Mixing up capital cities and biggest cities

Mumbai, Shanghai and Tokyo are famous, so children say they are capitals. India’s capital is New Delhi and China’s is Beijing.

What helps: Learn each country with its capital and biggest city as a pair. Ask why those cities grew where they did.

Believing India is hot and dry, or China is crowded, everywhere

India includes snowy Himalayan peaks and one of the wettest places on Earth, as well as desert. China has huge empty areas in the west. Averages for a whole country hide big differences within it.

What helps: Ask “where in India?” or “where in China?” before agreeing with any generalisation, and look at a map of rainfall or population density to check.

Thinking the Middle East is separate from Asia

The Middle East has its own name, but most of it, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq, lies in south-west Asia. Egypt links Africa and Asia.

What helps: Look at an atlas of the continent. Point to the places that schools study as the Middle East and see where they sit within Asia.

How to help at home

Map the monsoon. Find rainfall maps for summer and winter in an atlas and talk about how they differ across India. Ask what a farmer would do differently in each season.
Compare two countries. Make a simple table for China and India with capital, biggest city, main rivers, main mountains and desert. Look for similarities and for differences.
Spot the products. Check labels on clothes, toys, rice, spices and tea for Asian countries. Find each on the map and ask which environmental region produces the crop.
Cities on the clock. Choose a city in Asia, such as Tokyo or Mumbai, and work out the time there compared with the UK. Ask what your family would be doing at that hour.

Builds on

Key Stage 2: Countries of Europe and Russia
Key Stage 2: North America: countries and features
Key Stage 2: South America: countries and features
Key Stage 2: Counties and cities of the UK
Key Stage 2: UK regions, mountains and rivers
Key Stage 2: UK land use and change
Key Stage 2: Latitude, longitude and hemispheres
Key Stage 2: Tropics and polar circles
Key Stage 2: Prime Meridian and time zones