Eurasia

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Coordinates: 50°N 80°E / 50°N 80°E / 50; 80
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For other uses, see Eurasia (disambiguation).

Eurasia
UTC+12
Part ofAfro-Eurasia

Eurasia (/jʊəˈreɪʒə/ yoor-AY-zhə, also UK: /-ʃə/ -⁠shə) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia.[3][4] According to some geographers, physiographically, Eurasia is a single continent.[4] The concepts of Europe and Asia as distinct continents date back to antiquity, but their borders have historically been subject to change, for example to the ancient Greeks Asia originally included Africa but they classified Europe[5] as separate land. Eurasia is connected to Africa at the Suez Canal, and the two are sometimes combined to describe the largest contiguous landmass on Earth, Afro-Eurasia.[6]

Geography

Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, Eurasia spans from Iceland and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Russian Far East, and from the Russian Far North to Maritime Southeast Asia in the south, but other specific geographical limits of Eurasia states that the southern limit is in the Weber's line. Eurasia is bordered by Africa to the southwest, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the east, and the Indian Ocean to the south. The division between Europe and Asia as two continents is a historical social construct, as neither fits the usual definition; thus, in some parts of the world, Eurasia is recognized as the largest of the six, five, or four continents on Earth.[4]

Eurasia covers around 55 million square kilometres (21 million square miles), or around 36.2% of the Earth's total land area. The landmass contains well over 5 billion people, equating to approximately 70% of the

human population
. Humans first settled in Eurasia from Africa 125,000 years ago.

Eurasia contains many peninsulas, including the Arabian Peninsula, Korean Peninsula, Indian subcontinent,[a] Anatolia Peninsula, Kamchatka Peninsula, and Europe, which itself contains peninsulas such as the Italian or Iberian Peninsula.

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

Located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres, Eurasia is considered a supercontinent, part of the supercontinent of Afro-Eurasia or simply a continent in its own right.[7] In plate tectonics, the Eurasian Plate includes Europe and most of Asia but not the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula or the area of the Russian Far East east of the Chersky Range.

From the point of view of history and culture, Eurasia can be loosely subdivided into Western Eurasia and Eastern Eurasia.[8]

Geology

Further information: Laurasia

In geology, Eurasia is often considered as a single rigid megablock, but this is debated.

Euramerica
.

Rivers

This is a list of the longest rivers in Eurasia. Included are all rivers over 3,000 km (1,900 mi).

River Countries Length
km mi
1 Yangtze (Cháng Jiāng 长江)[11] China 6,300 3,915
2 Yellow River (Huáng Hé 黄河)[11] China 5,464 3,395
3 Mekong[11] China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam 4,909 3,050
4 Lena (Лена)[12] Russia 4,294 2,668
5 Irtysh (Иртыш)[13] Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Russia 4,248 2,640
6
Brahmaputra (ब्रह्मपुत्र)[11]
 China, India, Bangladesh 3,969 2,466
7 Ob (Обь)[14] Russia 3,700 2,299
8 Volga (Во́лга) Russia 3,531 2,194
9 Yenisey (Енисей)[15] Mongolia, Russia 3,487 2,167
10
Indus (सिन्धु/Síndhu/سندھ/سند/سنڌوءَ)[11]
 China, India, Pakistan 3,150 1,957

Mountains

All of the 100 highest mountains on Earth are in Eurasia, in the Himalaya, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Pamir, Hengduan, and Tian Shan mountain ranges, and all peaks above 7,000 metres are in these ranges and the Transhimalaya. Other high ranges include the Kunlun, Hindu Raj, and Caucasus Mountains. The Alpide belt stretches 15,000 km across southern Eurasia, from Java in Maritime Southeast Asia to the Iberian Peninsula in Western Europe, including the ranges of the Himalayas, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Alborz, Caucasus, and the Alps. Long ranges outside the Alpide Belt include the East Siberian, Altai, Scandinavian, Qinling, Western Ghats, Vindhya, Byrranga, and Annamite Ranges.

Islands

The largest Eurasian islands by area are

Caubian Gamay Island, Ap Lei Chau, and Navotas Island. In the Arctic Ocean, Severny Island, Nordaustlandet, October Revolution Island, and Bolshevik Island are Eurasia's largest uninhabited islands, and Kotelny Island, Alexandra Land, and Spitsbergen
are the least-densely populated.

History

Main article: History of Eurasia

Eurasia has been the host of many ancient civilizations, including those based in

first millennium BCE), a continuous belt of civilizations stretched through the Eurasian subtropical zone
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This belt became the mainstream of world history for two millennia.

Russian geopolitical ideology

Main article: Eurasianism

Originally, "Eurasia" is a geographical notion: in this sense, it is simply the biggest continent; the combined landmass of Europe and Asia. However, geopolitically, the word has several meanings, reflecting specific geopolitical interests.[16] "Eurasia" is one of the most important geopolitical concepts and it figures prominently in the commentaries on the ideas of Halford Mackinder. As Zbigniew Brzezinski observed on Eurasia:

"... how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates 'Eurasia' would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over 'Eurasia' would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in 'Eurasia', and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. 'Eurasia' accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources."[17]

— Zbigniew Brzezinski, The grand chessboard : American primacy and its geostrategic imperatives

The Russian "

Imperial Russia in 1914, including parts of Eastern Europe.[18] One of Russia's main geopolitical interests lies in ever closer integration with those countries that it considers part of "Eurasia."[19]

The term Eurasia gained geopolitical reputation as one of the three superstates in 1984,[20] George Orwell's[21] novel where constant surveillance and propaganda are strategic elements (introduced as reflexive antagonists) of the heterogeneous dispositif such metapolitical constructs used to control and exercise power.[22]

Common Economic Space

Regional organisations and alliances

Across Eurasia, several single markets have emerged, including the

international organizations
and initiatives which seek to promote integration throughout Eurasia, including:

ASEM Partners

Asia-Europe Meeting

  • Every two years since 1996 a meeting of most Asian and European countries is organised as the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM).

Commonwealth of Independent States

Main article: Commonwealth of Independent States
  • The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a political and economic association of 10 post-Soviet republics in Eurasia formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It has an estimated population of 239,796,010. The CIS encourages cooperation in economic, political, and military affairs and has certain powers to coordinate trade, finance, lawmaking and security. In addition, six members of the CIS have joined the Collective Security Treaty Organization, an intergovernmental military alliance that was founded in 1992.
  Member States of the Eurasian Economic Union
  Observer states
  Other candidate states

Eurasian Union

See also: Enlargement of the Eurasian Economic Union

Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges

  • The Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges (FEAS) is an international organization headquartered in Yerevan, comprising the main stock exchanges in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. The purpose of the Federation is to contribute to the cooperation, development, support and promotion of capital markets in the Eurasian region.
European and CIS
countries

Russia-EU Common Spaces

  • The Russia – EU Four Common Spaces Initiative, is a joint European Union and Russian agreement to closer integrate Russia and the EU, remove barriers to trade and investment and promote reforms and competitiveness. In 2010, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for common economic space, free-trade area or more advanced economic integration, stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok. However, no significant progress was made and the project was put on hold after Russia-EU relations deteriorated following the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014.

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

Main article: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
  • The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is a Eurasian political, economic and security alliance, the creation of which was announced on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai, China. It is the largest regional organisation in the world in terms of geographical coverage and population, covering three-fifths of the Eurasian continent and nearly half of the human population.

Use of term

History of the Europe–Asia division

Main article:
Boundary between Asia and Europe
Physical map of Asia

In ancient times, the

Ural River, and the Ural Mountains. However, at least part of this definition has been subject to criticism by many modern analytical geographers like Halford Mackinder, who saw little validity in the Ural Mountains as a boundary between continents.[24]

Soviet states after decentralization

Changes in national boundaries after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc

Nineteenth-century Russian philosopher

post-Soviet space – in particular Russia, the Central Asian republics, and the Transcaucasus republics – and sometimes also adjacent regions such as Turkey and Mongolia
.

The word "Eurasia" is often used in

Kuma-Manych Depression to provide Kazakhstan and other Caspian-basin countries with a more efficient path to the ocean than the existing Volga–Don Canal.[30]

This usage can also be seen in the names of Eurasianet,[31] The Journal of Eurasian Studies,[32] and the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies,[33] as well as the titles of numerous academic programmes at US universities.[34][35][36][37][38]

This usage is comparable to how Americans use "Western Hemisphere" to describe concepts and organizations dealing with the Americas (e.g., Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation).

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Despite being considered a sub-continent, the peninsula definition is applied to southern India.

References

  1. ^ "Population of Europe (2023) - Worldometers". www.worldometers.info. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  2. ^ "Population of Asia (2023) - Worldometers". www.worldometers.info. Archived from the original on 4 October 2022. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  3. ^ Nield, Ted. "Continental Divide". Geological Society. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2012.
  4. ^ a b c McDaniel, Melissa; Sprout, Erin; et al. (20 September 2011). "How many continents are there?". Continent. National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 27 July 2017. By convention there are seven continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Antarctica. Some geographers list only six continents, combining Europe and Asia into Eurasia. In parts of the world, students learn that there are just five continents: Eurasia, Australia (Oceania), Africa, Antarctica, and the Americas.
  5. ISBN 9780521005210. Archived
    from the original on 8 December 2023. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  6. ISBN 9780816072293. Archived
    from the original on 9 June 2016. Retrieved 26 June 2012. And since Africa and Asia are connected at the Suez Peninsula, Europe, Africa, and Asia are sometimes combined as Afro-Eurasia or Eurafrasia.
  7. ^ "Pangaea Supercontinent". Geology.com. Archived from the original on 13 January 2011. Retrieved 19 February 2011.
  8. Lexington Books
    . p. 25. Anthropologically, historically and linguistically Eurasia is more appropriately, though vaguely subdivided into West Eurasia (often including North Africa) and East Eurasia
  9. S2CID 129745964. Archived
    from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 12 October 2022 – via SpringerLink.
  10. ISSN 0956-540X. Archived
    from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 12 October 2022.
  11. ^ a b c d e Longest Rivers in Asia Archived 15 November 2023 at the Wayback Machine world-meters.com
  12. ^ "Государственный водный реестр: река Лена". textual.ru. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 13 January 2023.
  13. ^ "Государственный водный реестр: река ИРТЫШ". textual.ru. Archived from the original on 31 October 2013. Retrieved 13 January 2023.
  14. ^ Обь (река) in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969–1978 (in Russian)
  15. ^ "Государственный водный реестр: река ЕНИСЕЙ". textual.ru. Archived from the original on 14 December 2022. Retrieved 13 January 2023.
  16. ^ Andreen, Finn (15 April 2014). "The Concept of Eurasia". Blogger.com /. Comment and Outlook. Archived from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  17. ISBN 978-0465027262
    .
  18. ISBN 978-5238006826
    .
  19. ^ Andreen, Finn. "The Concept of Eurasia". Blogger.com. Commentary and Outlook. Archived from the original on 30 January 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  20. ISBN 978-1-58566-253-1. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 7 August 2019. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  21. ^ Porter, Patrick (27 February 2012). "The Maps are Too Small: Geography, Strategy and the National Interest". Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Government Digital Service. Archived from the original on 27 July 2019. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  22. S2CID 151769284. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 12 April 2019. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
  23. ISBN 9780521005210. Archived
    from the original on 8 December 2023. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  24. ISBN 978-0-19-820171-7. Archived
    from the original on 8 December 2023. Retrieved 23 August 2010.
  25. ^ Schmidt, Matthew (2005). "Is Putin Pursuing a Policy of Eurasianism?". Demokratizatsiya. 1 (13): 90.
  26. ^ "L. N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University". Emu.kz. 29 July 2010. Archived from the original on 28 February 2009. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
  27. ^ "The Eurasian Media Forum". Eamedia.org. Archived from the original on 9 April 2010. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
  28. ^ "Eurasian Development Bank". Eabr.org. Archived from the original on 24 May 2010. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
  29. ^ "Eurasian Bank". Eurasian-bank.kz. Archived from the original on 24 November 2010. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
  30. ^ Canal will link Caspian Sea to world Archived 11 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine (The Times, 29 June 2007)
  31. ^ "Eurasianet". Archived from the original on 1 October 2019. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  32. ^ Journal of Eurasian Studies. Elsevier. Archived from the original on 13 March 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  33. ^ "About ASEEES". Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Archived from the original on 23 March 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  34. ^ "Slavic and Eurasian Studies". Duke Graduate School. Archived from the original on 13 March 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  35. ^ "Russian and Eurasian Studies". George Mason University. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  36. ^ "Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies". University of Texas at Austin. Archived from the original on 13 March 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  37. ^ "Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies". Stanford University. Archived from the original on 13 March 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  38. ^ "Institute of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies". University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on 14 February 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2017.

Further reading

External links

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Eurasia.
Look up eurasia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  • Media related to Eurasia at Wikimedia Commons

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