Asia Aswia appears to have been a remnant of a region known to the Hittites as Assuwa, centered on Lydia, or "Roman Asia". This name, "Assuwa", has been suggested as the origin for the name of the continent "Asia". The Assuwa league was a confederation of states in western Anatolia, defeated by the Hittites under Tudhaliya I around 1400 BCE. Alternatively, the etymology of the term may be from the Akkadian word "(w)aṣû(m)", which means 'to go outside' or 'to ascend', referring to the direction of the sun at sunrise in the Middle East and also likely connected with the Phoenician
Maritime Southeast Asia Maritime Southeast Asia Maritime Southeast Asia is the maritime region of Southeast Asia as opposed to mainland Southeast Asia and comprises what is now Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and Timor Leste. The local Malayo-Polynesian name for the region is Nusantara. Maritime Southeast Asia is sometimes also referred to as "island Southeast Asia" or "insular Southeast Asia". The 16th-century term East Indies, and the later 19th-century term Malay Archipelago refers to a largely similar area. This main demographic difference that sets Maritime Southeast Asia apart from Indochina is that its population predominantly belongs to the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian)