亚洲(yà zhōu) - Asia in Mandarin

亚洲 (Yàzhōu) is Asia, the continent. 洲 (zhōu) is the general word for "continent", the same character that closes every continent name in Mandarin: 欧洲 (Ōuzhōu), Europe, 非洲 (Fēizhōu), Africa, and 美洲 (Měizhōu), the Americas.

亚 (yà) does not carry an independent meaning of its own in modern usage outside compounds like this; it functions here purely as a transliteration syllable borrowed to represent "Asia". Learning the continents as a set makes them stick faster than learning 亚洲 (Yàzhōu) alone.

As a proper noun, 亚洲 (Yàzhōu) does not take a measure word or plural marker, unlike ordinary nouns. You simply say 亚洲 (Yàzhōu) the way you would say "Asia" in English, with no article needed either.