Am I missing something obvious? Why is “Europe” a release area, but not “Asia”?
I have a CD distributed by Sony Music Asia. (See text on rear) It seems logical this should be selected as Asia. (Like when we have a vague “Europe” release)
What do I fill in? Do I just guess a few Asian countries and use those?
I’ve picked Hong Kong for now as that is where it was pressed (based on IFPI code).
What do you select for Asia?
The release doesn’t say it was distributed in “Asia”. (If the market were printed on the release, you’d typically see “Southeast Asia” rather than “Asia” without any qualifiers.) “Sony Music Asia” is the name of a company from Hong Kong, so that seems reasonable. (Guessing extra countries would not be reasonable, especially when the branch of Sony Music in those countries uses a different name.)
I was going to suggest checking the barcode, but it looks like more than half the entries are suspect that need fixing.
I started with the full barcode, and it wasn’t in MB. Over at Discogs there were two of them with this barcode - one marked “Asia” and the other “Indonesia”.
The Indonesian copy specifically mentions the country on the rear cover.
This one I am adding just has that Sony Music Asia text, and the IFPI code that points to a Hong Kong manufacturer. As you say Sony Music Asia is Hong Kong based I’m now happier leaving this as Hong Kong.
It just seems very odd that we don’t have an “Asia” area in the same way there is the vague “Europe”. It may not be accurate, but it would be closer as I doubt this is only staying in Hong Kong.
Your wildcard search is interesting as it has a big chunk of Hong Kong. And the scattering of European countries in there is the normal lazy “well, it is a European band” error.
I just spotted another Fatboy Slim album in that list. Set as “GB”, clearly wrong. Discogs matches that barcode as separate Asia, China, Indonesia and Malaysia versions. I’ll never know where mine was aimed at as it is bought second hand in the UK. Come back full circle.
I always figured “Europe” really meant “EU”.
Not the same at all. EU (the trading block) is only half of Europe (the continent). A small club within a continent whose members change over the decades.
When I see “Made in EU” on a cover I always alias Europe hoping that one day it will be corrected.
Europe is only really there as a selection as a vague “don’t really know, but some of these European countries had a copy. Maybe Germany and Belgium, but don’t know about Poland and Portugal… but fairly sure this version wasn’t in USA and Japan”
They are quite different to be fair. It’ must be rare if not unheard of for something to really have a release that covers all of ‘Asia’ but nowhere else (unlike the EU).
Europe:
Asia:
Asia is 30% of the earth’s landmass (according to Wikipedia) 
The only reason I was looking for an “Asia” area in the initial question here is to narrow down the release area. “This one was somewhere in this 30% of the planet, but not sure where”.
In the same way that Europe is “The chunk of land to the West of the Ural mountains”. Most “Europe” releases in the Database probably were not available in all European countries - but it is a copy you would be more likely to find in Italy than Japan.
BTW - your Europe map is wrong. That looks like the EU you have painted. Trading Block and Continent are different things. Russia is in Europe and not the EU.
EUROPE
.svg/1024px-Europe_orthographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary_(with_borders).svg.png)
(yeah - I worked out where you got your map from… lol)
Notice that this jigsaw map will fit neatly into the Asia jigsaw pieces above… Your EU version has lost some of the jigsaw pieces. Switzerland is down the back of the sofa and you’ve lost lots of the edge bits
/Geography lesson evening 
Haha, you are so right, I just quickly pasted in some pictures from Wikipedia, and the wrong page to boot 
But imo ‘Europe’ still has more in common in terms of economic/distribution lines than ‘Asia’. Anyway in this particular case I don’t think Asia would be better than Hong Kong. imo.
Yeah - well - I did notice you had kicked me out of Europe. It would be like printing a map and leaving New Zealand off… ( 
yes - I know the reference)
There are parts of Europe which have spent more years at war with the neighbours than trading with them. It is just a geographical term. MB and record industry use is as an easy way to say “you can buy this album in Germany, France, Italy, UK, Benelux, etc”. It is especially a funny term to see for record sales in the 1980s when half of Europe was the other side of a big fence.
It’s also not unknown to see “Made in Europe” on a CD (less common than “Made in the EU”, to be sure). I have yet to see anything labeled “Made in Asia” although admittedly I have a lot more CDs from European countries than Asian ones.
When I see “Made in EU” I assume this is just saving cash. There were times in the 1990s when EMI had major UK and Dutch manufacturing. So you’d get some releases coming from either or both factories and send Europe wide (Non-EU Switzerland included). I have some discs printed in UDEN but with English paperwork. They’d fire up an Italian pressing plant and burn a few more discs for Southern Europe. Printing “Made in EU” on the paperwork just make life so much easier for the repackaging.
Funny how they’ll leave out the North and South Islanz but always include the lower performing West Island. Maybe poor eyesight?
Isn’t that the place NZ dump all their undesirables and quarantine the dangerous animals? They then apply “stealth mode” on the maps and hide. In the summers they have been known to get the islands towed North nearer the equator for a sunny holiday.
The same for Australasia. It also isn’t in the list.
