Eurasia

Eurasia is a geographic-geological term for Europe and Asia as a combined continent. It has an area of 55 million square kilometers and about 5.3 billion inhabitants.

The word is an amalgamation of Europe and Asia. The term is used to reflect the fact that Europe and Asia have been parts of a coherent landmass since the Triassic - i.e. for about 250 million years - first parts of the supercontinent Pangaea, later Laurasia and today Eurasia. Geologically, the large continent consists of four large tectonic plates, of which the Eurasian Plate is the largest, as well as several smaller plates and cratons.

Term and meaning

The designation of Europe as a separate continent is historically and culturally conditioned and goes back to the world view of European antiquity.

In the sense of cultural history, Eurasia refers to the prehistoric and early historic cultural area of the Eurasian steppe, which extends from the Altai across Kazakhstan, southern Russia and the Ukraine to the Danube. The Hungarian Puszta is an exclave of this Eastern European plain.

Among others, the Anglo-Indians, who are descendants of British and Indians, were called Eurasians.

Inner Eurasian border

Boundary

In the absence of a clear marine boundary, as with the other continents, which is also geophysically and culturally identifiable, any demarcation between Europe and Asia is a matter of convention. In fact, there is no definition of this border under international law.

Undisputed as boundaries between Europe and Asia are the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The Russian islands of Waigatsch and Novaya Zemlya, which lie to the north of an extension of the Ural chain, are also generally assigned to Europe, and the Siberian islands to the northeast of the Ural Mountains to Asia. In contrast, the affiliation of Franz Josef Land is viewed differently.

With the Urals as a border, there are at least two determinations. One follows the Ural ridge, usually also the watershed. On the other hand, a continental border at the eastern foot of the Urals, the transition to Siberia, is marked by many monuments and border markings.

Especially in the area between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, there is no uniform definition. In part, the Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov and the Manyt Strait, which lies about 300 kilometres north of the Caucasus Mountains, are considered to be the border between the continents, because in their place the present Caspian Sea was once connected to the present Black Sea. Likewise, the Caucasus, and here specifically the watershed between the northern flank and the southern flank, is considered the border between Europe and Asia. In English- and French-speaking countries this definition dominates. There, the definition of the Manytschniederung as the southeastern border of Europe is often considered a special interpretation of the Russian Tsarist Empire (the Manytschniederung was the northern border of the General Governorate of Caucasia in the Russian Empire). Even in the Soviet Union, some geologists have reportedly preferred the Caucasus boundary. In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, until the last edition, the continental border was still entered according to Strahlenberg. Depending on which definition is followed, Elbrus, the highest mountain of the Caucasus, lies in the first case in the Asian part, in the last case in the European part, which would make it the highest mountain in Europe.

There is also no clear demarcation in the Aegean. Whereas the Aegean Sea with its islands used to be regarded in its entirety as a transition from one continent to another, since the 20th century the political border between Greece and Turkey, which has existed in its present form since 1923/47, has generally been equated with the border between Europe and Asia, although many Greek islands lie closer to the coast of Asia Minor than to the Greek mainland.

History of the border

Geographically, there is no clear characteristic for an inner Eurasian border. Originally, however, the ancient Greeks (cf. Herodotus) considered the Bosporus and the Caucasus to be the border of Europe; at the time of the so-called "migration of peoples" and in the Middle Ages, it was the Bosporus and the river Tanais (Don) that separated Europe from Asia (cf. for example Jordanes or Snorri Sturluson). The last officially recognized border is that of Philip Johan von Strahlenberg from the first half of the 18th century; it runs through the Manytschniederung north of the Caucasus, then through the Sea of Azov and the Strait of Kerch (Cimmerian Bosporus) to the Black Sea. A dispute had previously existed for centuries over the exact demarcation of the borders in the area between the Don and the Caucasus. After Strahlenberg was commissioned by the Russian tsar to survey the area, his determination of the border was recognized by the tsar's house in 1730 and adopted by the scientific community. Furthermore, since modern times - starting with Vasily Tatishchev, the geographer of Peter the Great - it had become customary, based on different geographical, historical and social considerations, to regard both Urals (mountain and river) as Europe's eastern border with Asia. The preliminary results of an expedition of the Russian Geographical Society to Kazakhstan, carried out in April/May 2010, have shown that the demarcation of the border between Europe and Asia along the Ural River has no sufficient scientific basis. The problem is that the Southern Urals deviates from its axis and divides into several parts. The mountains gradually flatten and lose their significance as a geographical boundary. To assume the Ural and Emba rivers (which - according to von Strahlenberg - was also considered a border river; see line A) as another geographical boundary makes little sense, since the terrain on both sides of the rivers is similar, nor are living and economic areas divided by the rivers. As a result of the expedition, a delimitation southeast of line A was proposed: the southern part of the border extends from the Southern Urals to the Mugodzhar Mountains (Kazakhstan, Aqtöbe region), then along the southern edge of the Caspian Depression, where the Eastern European Plain ends. The Caspian Depression was formed millions of years ago when the Caspian Sea washed out the western slopes of the Ustyurt Plateau. According to scientists, the border between Europe and Asia should be considered this edge of geological formations. The Ural Mountains and the Ural River were given the same name only during the reign of Catherine II, who renamed the river Jaik, probably to erase the memory of the Pugachev Uprising, during which extensive fighting took place in the river region.

Different historical definitions of the Europe-Asia border


А-F: Boundary demarcations between Europe and Asia in Russia. The conventional border after Strahlenberg (A) is marked in red. A frequently accepted borderline runs along (B) Ural (mountains and river) and (F) Caucasus watershed.