Eastern Asia (WGSRPD)

Eastern Asia is one of the regions of temperate Asia defined in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) for use in recording the distribution of plants. It is very much smaller than common definitions of East Asia. It consists of the Korean Peninsula, Japan (Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku, plus associated offshore islands – the Volcano Islands (Kazan-retto), the Ryukyu Islands (Nansei-shoto) and the Bonin Islands (Ogasawara-shoto)), and Taiwan.^[1] Some islands belonging to Japan politically, such as Marcus Island (Minami-Tori-shima), have greater floristic affinity with similar Pacific islands and are placed in the botanical continent of the Pacific.^[2]