Would you say Europe and Asia are the same continent?
I would call a continent a continuous landmass.
I see nothing like water separating Europe and Asia.
Eurasia!
I am referring to the map or globe.
I would call a continent a continuous landmass.
I see nothing like water separating Europe and Asia.
Eurasia!
I am referring to the map or globe.
USAFisnumber1
The division is more political than anything else. Like Berlin, where for decades we had a West Berlin and an East Berlin, solely due to political issues.
Anonymous
Geologically Europe and Asia are a single continent: Eurasia. However, for cultural, historical and political purposes they are treated as two separate ones.
Anonymous
Indeed a tricky concept.
In Russia the division is fairly obvious - the Ural Mountains, which conveniently run north to south across much of that country, dividing it into the western part, with three-quarters of the population, and the eastern part with three-quarters of the land area.
Simply culturally "Europe" has seemed an entity and "Asia" to Europeans has seemed "the other place". And for a lot of history as seen by Europeans that has been the case, even in Roman times when there was much trade between China and Europe and North Africa etc.
You could even argue for a continuity with Africa, since Asia (the Middle East part) s actually not separated from Africa except by the artificial waterway called the Suez Canal.
There is one city which is in Asia and in Europe, and that is Istanbul - the two parts separated by the narrow Bosporus (a seaway, though narrow), with a recent (1970s) bridge and many ferries linking the two parts.
CantHaveItBothWays
No
az_lender
Long-standing convention defined Europe and Asia as separate continents, even though the boundary (the Ural Mountains) was not a water boundary. In a physical sense, it would make more sense to define India as a continent separate from the rest of Asia, as India sits on a tectonic plate that is moving relative to the rest of Asia. It is "colliding" with the Himalayas. In plate tectonic terminology, the Eurasian Plate is indeed considered all one continuous thing. (Though Eastern Siberia lies on the North American Plate!)