It is conventional to speak of Europe and Asia as separate continents, but there is little physical reason to do so, and most modern geographers speak of a single continent of Eurasia.
Where Europe and Asia Meet
When a distinction is made, the line has not always been drawn in quite the same place. You may wish to look at the map of Europe in your atlas to trace it.
For most geographers today, the dividing line between Europe and Asia runs down the eastern edge of the Ural Mountains (in Russia), then along the Emba River (in Kazakhstan) to the shore of the Caspian Sea. However some map makers move it over so that it follows the border of Kazakhstan and Russia rather than the Emba River. Others follow the Ural River.
Once the line reaches the northern shore of the Caspian, it cuts more or less straight westward across the flat Kuma-Manych Depression (Russia again) to the northern shore of the Sea of Azov (roughly at the city of Taganrog).
The line next goes through the Sea of Azov and out through Kerch strait at the south end of the Sea of Azov (along the dividing line between Ukraine and Russia). (Some cartographers represent the line as going south in the Caspian to the port of Baku, in Azerbaijian, and then along the southern flanks of the Caucasus Mountains through Georgia, then along the Georgian shore of the Black Sea and ending up at Kerch.)
From Kerch, the dividing line crosses the Black Sea, and passes through the Bosphoros (Bosporus) Strait and the Dardanelles (and through the city of Istanbul), then southward through the Mediterranean.
Vagaries of Arbitrariness
The island of Cyprus is thus arbitrarily Asian, while the island of Crete is arbitrarily European. If you pick the Emba River as the dividing line, then the Kazakh town of Makat is arbitrarily European. If you pick the Ural River, then Makat is Asian. If you run the line through the Caspian town of Baku, then Russian Chechnya is in Europe. If you run the line further north across the Kuma-Manych Depression, it is at least partly in Asia. Greek islands along the coast of Turkey tend to be classed as Europe, while nearby Turkish islands are classed as Asian. At 5,642 meters, Mount El'brus is the highest point in Europe. Unless it's in Asia. And so on.
Asia & Africa
The Asian continent is arbitrarily considered to connect to Africa along the Egyptian-Israeli border. It would probably make more geographical sense for the line to pass through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, but most maps simply follow modern political borders
Why This Is All a Nuisance
Most of the world is located far from the continental borders, and there really are European or Asian societies, birds, climates, and so on.
But there are also societies, birds, and climates that straddle a border. The irrelevance of the continental boundaries between Europe, Africa, and Asia is nicely reflected in the term "Middle East," which incorporates both north African and southwest Asian nations, as well as European parts of Turkey and Kazakhstan.
(Note that "Middle East" is a modern political term. "Near East" is used in archaeological contexts. Both contrast with "Far East," the eastern end of Eurasia. The "near" and "far" refer to distance from the zero meridian.)
In my own usage, I tend to prefer the term "Eurasia" much of the time, since interactions between Europeans and Asians were not related to the continental border. I sometimes also speak of "Afro-Eurasia," since a term like "Out of Africa hypothesis" (involved in the discussion of fossil humans), seems to me to make Africa seem more completely cut off from Eurasia than it probably ever was, especially in periods when sea levels were lower.
Content Revised: 2008-09-02
Software Last Modified: 2022-05-30
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