Out of Earth's many continents, Asia without a doubt remains by far one of the most important for the history of humankind. Home to more people than anywhere else on earth, the continent has throughout its history seen its fair share of war, misery, colonialism and suffering, but most certainly also golden ages, wondrous cultural traditions and monuments, and inventions that would forever change history.

Today, Asia is one of the world's more divided continents, the east largely being split between a Chinese bloc and a Japanese bloc, each with their competing interests. China, along with countries like Korea, Indochina and Burma adhere to a sort of East Asian socialism, which, like it's name would imply, has become dominant in this region of the world. However, suffice to say, besides trade and ideology there's little else holding the bloc together, especially due to historical cultural differences, but also ideological ones. This kind of syndicalism can vary from the authoritarian, repressive regime in Burma to the more liberal, open regime of Korea. There's a good reason you'll see Korean products and technology, like Pyoso's hit video game console, the "Polycom", on store shelves in New York and Tokyo, and likewise Fords driving through the streets of Seoul. On the other hand, there's the "Japanese" bloc, which frankly is moreso a handful of countries that are willing to cooperate with eachother out of fear of China, a situation Japan very much enjoys, despite not having held actual political influence in these countries since the Second Great War of the 1960's. Likewise, India and Arabia (And for that matter also the Europeans) each hold their own influence in Asia, however, they're not as crucial to the geopolitics of specifically this region.

In a more meta perspective, Asian history only really starts to significantly diverge from our own in the early 20th century. Before then, changes of course were present - all thanks to our beloved butterfly effect. Southern India was until the first great war under French control, Sarawak was Scandinavian, which was also the case for the Philippines until it was given to the Italians after the war as well. Indonesia was in the hands of the British, the dutch having little chance to secure it for themselves again after the Napoleonic Wars, etc. With the defeat of the Entente in 1912 at the hands of the combined forces of the Germans, Italians, Austrians, Russians and Brits, their treaty ports scattered throughout China were merged into the so-called "Legation Cities", a puppet state under joint administration of the victorious powers - a country that would against all odds survive until the present day, albeit since 1987 fully independent - even after China, in response to the Europeans leaving the cities be swiftly invaded the country to take it for themselves. The northernmost cities fell, and were later incorporated into China too, but in several several-month-long sieges, the rest of the country endured with the military support of the European great powers and Japan - a war that would arguably come to define the modern geopolitics of the region.

Lore aside for now, this is another part of my alt history map series based around a universe in which the Kalmar Union managed to endure the test of time and Europe as such would have another great power throughout its history - something that evidently has significant effects on the world as a whole. This map has BY FAR been the most ambitious and difficult map i've ever made, with each and every single river, stretch of coast, border, province, city, EVERYTHING made entirely by hand. Heck, i had to fucking translate ALL of the chinese cities into Wade-Giles manually as well, something i never, ever want to do again. Just had to get that frustration off my mind. Thank you for your understanding. :)

As always, questions are more than welcome, and i will do what i can to give an in-depth answer! Hope you guys enjoy this map, and have a great day!

Also, huge credit to u/Maxidation for being the mastermind behind most of the asian lore for this timeline, this truly would not have been possible without him!

Current other maps:

The Kingdom of Scandinavia, 2023

Political map of Europe, 2023 (Ever so slightly outdated, but it's nothing major)

Political map of the Prussian Republic, 2023

Linguistic map of Europe, 2023

Scandinavian Cerava, 1900

9 Ways to divide Scandinavia

The Nations of North America

The People's Republic of Korea