Objective Diabetic kidney disease independently predicts cardiovascular disease and premature death. We aimed to document the prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and to examine clinical characteristics and quality of care in a cross-sectional cohort of adults with type 2 diabetes across Asia. Methods The Joint Asia Diabetes Evaluate program is a web-based portal that systematically captures relevant clinical characteristics including metabolic indices, diabetes complications and relevant clinical characteristics including metabolic indices, diabetes complications and treatment. Between July 2007 and December 2012, 28110 patients aged over 18 years (China:3415, Hong Kong:15196, India:3714, Korea:1651, Philippines:3364, Vietnam:692, Taiwan:78) consecutively enrolled into the program were analyzed. Chronic kidney disease was defined as estimated glomerular filtration rate < 60 mL/min/1.73m2. Results The point prevalence of CKD was 15.9%, microalbuminuria 33.4% and macroalbuminuria 16.9%. Compared to non-CKD patients, patients with CKD had worse metabolic profile and were less likely to achieve HbA1c< 7% (36.0% vs 42.3%) and blood pressure < 130/80 mmHg (20.8% vs 35.3%), while better at attaining LDL-cholesterol < 2.6 mmol/L (49.4% vs 46.2%). More CKD patients had retinopathy (26.2% vs 20.1%), sensory neuropathy (29.0% vs 7.7%) and cardiovascular disease (26.6% vs 8.7%). Despite high frequencies of albuminuria (74.8%) and dyslipidaemia (93.0%) among CKD patients, only 49.0% were using renin-angiotensin system inhibitors and 53.6% were on statins. On logistic regression, old age, male gender, disease duration, tobacco use, HbA1c, blood pressure, LDL-cholesterol and BMI were positively correlated with CKD. Conclusion Prevalence of diabetic kidney disease is high amongst Asians. Patients with CKD had worse metabolic control with suboptimal use of organ -protective drugs despite higher rates of cardiovascular-renal complications.