Eurasia

Eurasia
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• The continent has always been a method of dividing the planet into regions.

• It is obvious that Africa, Australia, and Antarctica are, for the most part, separate and distinct continents.

• The continents that come into question are North and South America and Europe and Asia.

• Nearly all of Eurasia sits upon the Eurasian Plate, one of several large plates that cover our planet.

• The Ural Mountains have long been the unofficial dividing line between Europe and Asia.

• This 1500-mile-long chain is hardly a barrier geologically or geographically.

• The highest peak of the Ural Mountains is 6,217 feet (1,895 meters), far shorter than the peaks of the Alps in Europe or the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia.

• Eurasia's Extension:

< from the Atlantic Ocean in the west [ countries - Portugal and Spain in the west (and perhaps Ireland, Iceland, and Great Britain as well) >
                     to
< Russia's easternmost point, at the Bering Strait between the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean in the east.>

< Eurasia's northern frontier- countries- Russia, Finland, and Norway bordering the Arctic Ocean in the north.>

< Eurasia's southern boundaries are the
Mediterranean Sea, Africa, and the Indian Ocean- countries - Spain, Israel, Yemen, India, and continental Malaysia>

< Eurasia also commonly includes island countries associated with the Eurasian continent such as Sicily, Crete, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Japan, Philippines, island Malaysia, and perhaps even Indonesia>

• As of 2012, there are 93 independent countries in Eurasia.

< This includes all 48 countries of Europe (including the island countries of Cyprus, Iceland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom), 17 countries of the Middle East, 27 countries of Asia (including Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, and Taiwan), and one new country now often associated with Oceania - East Timor.>

• Thus, nearly half of the world's 196 independent countries are in Eurasia.

• As of 2012, the population of Eurasia is nearly five billion, about 71% of the planet's population.

<This includes about 4.2 billion people in Asia and 740 million people in Europe, as those subregions of Eurasia are commonly understood>

• The capital cities are: Beijing, Moscow, London, and Brussels.
Beijing is the capital of Eurasia's most populous country, China.

• It  is a combined
continental landmass of Europe and Asia .

• The term is a
portmanteau of its constituent continents.

• Located primarily in the
Northern and Eastern Hemispheres.

• It is bordered by:

The Atlantic Ocean - west,

The Pacific Ocean -  east,

The Arctic Ocean - north, and

By Africa , the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean to the south.

• No clear physical separation  between Asia and Europe as the division between them is a historical and cultural construct.

. In some parts of the world, Eurasia is recognized as the largest of five or six continents.

• In geology, Eurasia is often considered as a single rigid megablock.

• Eurasia covers around 55,000,000 square kilometres or around 36.2% of the Earth 's total land area.

• The landmass contains around 5.0 billion people, equating to approximately 70% of the human population .

• Humans first settled in Eurasia between 60,000 and 125,000 years ago.
• Inclusion of landmasses-  some major islands, including Great Britain ,
Iceland, and Ireland , and those of
Japan, the Philippines and
Indonesia, are included under the popular definition of Eurasia, in spite of being separate from the massive landmass.

• Physiographically , Eurasia is a single continent.

• In ancient times the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara , along with their associated straits, were seen as separating the continents.

• But today the Ural and Caucasus ranges are more seen as the main delimiters between the two.

• Eurasia is connected to Africa at the Suez Canal, and Eurasia is sometimes combined with Africa as the largest contiguous landmass on Earth called Afro-Eurasia .

• Due to the vast landmass and differences in latitude, Eurasia exhibits all types of climate under the Köppen classification , including the harshest types of hot and cold temperatures, high and low precipitation and various types of
ecosystems .

• Eurasia formed 375 to 325 million years ago with the merging of
Siberia (once a separate continent),
Kazakhstania , and Baltica , which was joined to Laurentia , now North America, to form Euramerica .

• It has been the host of many ancient civilizations- incl. Mesopotamia , the IVC and China.

• However, geopolitically, the word has several different meanings, reflecting the specific geopolitical interests of each nation.

• In ancient times, the Greeks classified Europe (derived from the mythological Phoenician princess
Europa ) and Asia (derived from
Asia , a woman in Greek mythology ) as separate "lands".

• Eurasia is considered a supercontinent, part of the supercontinent of Afro-Eurasia or simply a continent in its own right.

• In plate tectonics, the Eurasian Plate includes Europe and most of Asia but not the Indian subcontinent.