World Park Special Status on Some ...

North East Asia is a sub-region of Asia comprising five countries: the People’s Republic of China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mongolia and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (UNEP, 2004). It has the highest population of all the sub-regions with a total of 1.5 billion people (http://ru-world.net/north-east-asia/). All five countries are unique in terms of their natural landscape, cultural heritage and biodiversity. For example, Eastern China is bound by the Yellow Sea and Western China has major mountain ranges, notably the Himalayas. Mongolia comprises the largest unfenced grassland steppe in the world and Gobi Desert, which is the second-largest desert after the Sahara. Korea forms a peninsula that extends from the Asian mainland and is surrounded by the Sea of Japan and Yellow Sea. Japan is an island country with unique landscape and biodiversity as well.