Continents of the world
Continents of the world :
Africa | Antarctica
| America | Asia
| Australia | Eurasia
| Eurafrasia | Europe
| Oceania | North
America | South
America
Eurasia
Eurasia is a landmass covering about 54,000,000 km2 compared with the Americas (approximately 42,000,000 km2), Africa (approximately 40,000,000 km2), Antarctica (approximately 13,000,000 km2) and Oceania (9,000,000 km2). Eurasia is composed of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia.
Primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres, Eurasia is considered a supercontinent, part of the supercontinent of Africa-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, the Arabian Peninsula or the area east of the Chersky Range in Sakha. Eurasia is also used in international politics as a neutral way to refer to organizations of or affairs concerning the post-Soviet states, in particular Russia, the Central Asian republics, and the Transcaucasian republics.
Europeans traditionally consider Europe and Asia to be separate continents with the dividing line placed along the Aegean Sea, Dardanelles, Bosphorus, Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains, Caspian Sea, Ural River, and Ural Mountains, and this terminology has spread to the rest of the world. From a geographical perspective, the continents with the least reason for separate recognition are Europe and Asia, and in scientific circles people generally prefer to subsume Europe and Asia into one continent, Eurasia.
History and culture
Jared Diamond, in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, credits Eurasia's dominance in world history to the east-west extent of Eurasia and its climate zones, and the availability of Eurasian animals and plants suitable for domestication.
The Silk Road symbolizes trade and cultural exchange linking Eurasian cultures through history and has been an increasingly popular topic. Over recent decades the idea of a greater Eurasian history has developed with the aim of investigating the genetic, cultural and linguistic relationships between European and Asian cultures of antiquity. These had long been considered distinct.
Geology
Eurasia formed 375 to 325 million years ago. It formed when the Siberia (once an independent continent), Kazakhstania, and Baltica (which was joined to Laurentia (now North America) to form Euramerica) joined. Chinese cratons collided with Siberia's southern coast.
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