Europe is the weirdest continent. I mean, Australia? Sure. Africa, North America, South America, definitely. But why does this awkward little spiky corner of Asia get to be its own whole thing, geographically? Weird.
Europe is the weirdest continent. I mean, Australia? Sure. Africa, North America, South America, definitely. But why does this awkward little spiky corner of Asia get to be its own whole thing, geographically? Weird.
@snarfed.org gonna guess the answer is racism. The Ural Mountains also provide a pretty significant barrier that has had cultural impact, but then so do many other geographical features in the middle of continents.
@snarfed.org Even under the surface, the whole thing is combined. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg#/media/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg
Because Europeans drew the maps 😛
I’m led to understand it has to do with mountain ranges. The continents are mostly seperated by oceans but the Europe/Asia divide is due to the mountain ranges there, which were historically more difficult to cross than the Rockies were by the time America was colonized and re-settled, so there’s a difference of perspective over time.
I’ve heard some say that India should be considered a seperate continent for the same reason, and I’ve heard others refer to it as “The Subcontinent” before.
Admittedly, I don’t know as much about mountains and their effect on geography as oceans. They’re hard to understand from a map, right? It’s land and ocean, but the land isn’t all the same. Looking at satelite photos, it might as well be all flat, but it’s hard to deal with mountains in the flesh.
Some folks presume the maps were set up due to racism or ideas of culturally superiority, but I think that’s generally a more modern thing. European regions and cultures didn’t think much better or worse of folks further east or south than they did of eachother, until the last few centuries. At least that’s what I’ve got from what I’ve studied. I could be wrong. Even then, it wasn’t universal.
That said, I have heard at least one person who lived where I do, in Canada, say that they were harshly punished by their grandmother when they didn’t call “Great Britain” the eighth continent. I don’t know any other people British or otherwise who have said anything like that. ^.^;;
I’m just coming out of nowhere after looking at Brid.gy. Thank you for making and sharing it! I’m probably going to use it later.
@snarfed.org There are those who would call the biggest land mass Eurasia. The main point is that, if you are looking for purely geomorphological criteria, you won’t see them on political maps. A venerable old debate. 😜