Crowdsourced Continents: Asia

Since 2009, I have been (on-and-off) asking people to draw maps of continents which I then overlay on each other.

I've asked people to draw South America, Australia, North America, Europe and Africa.

But I've waited a long while to 'do' Asia. Mainly as I didn't know how to approach Asia.

I had previously asked people at a SouthEast Asian festival to draw some maps, could I follow that idea with more regions. Should I divide Asia into regions and, if so, which regions?

The answer had been staring me in the face rather obviously: ask people to draw 'Asia' - a seemingly simple but complex challenge.

In August and September, I went to a variety of events where I asked people to draw Asia:

• London Korean Family Festival
• London Mela
• Vietnam Discovery
• Japan Matsuri

I met people at these events who I asked to draw Asia. And I also asked a few friends who have connections to Asia. So here is the result.

It's quite a tangle of lines, shapes, places. Asia seemed to be a difficult concept for the people I asked: where does it start and end? where does it include? 

Many people only drew their own country. 

Thanks to: Phuong, Alex, Darren, Aaron, Kris, Koa, Ekta, Hang Catie, Shuk Kwan, Raj, Suraj, Mohammad, Tina, Jeff, Sultan, Keejung, Niie, Dana, Chris and Taemin for humouring me and drawing a map.

Here are their maps individually.

And that is my last crowdsourced continent map: in my next blog, I'll show all the continents together.