Eurasia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- See also Eurasia (Nineteen Eighty-Four) for the fictional superstate or country.
Eurasia is the Earth's largest landmass covering about 54,000,000 km² compared with the Americas (approximately 42,000,000 km²), Africa (approximately 30,000,000 km²), and Antarctica (approximately 13,000,000 km²). Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia. Eurasia has a population of around 4,611,307,439—more than 70% of the world population.
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[edit] 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.
Eurasia was first circumnavigated by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld in 1878-79.
[edit] Geology
Eurasia formed 375 to 325 million years ago. It formed when 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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[edit] Use of term
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 sometimes used in geopolitics 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, unaware of the extent of Eurasia, traditionally considered 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, even though Asia contains multiple regions and cultures as large and populous as Europe, and as different and geographically separated from each other as they are from Europe. From a modern perspective, the continent with the least reason for separate recognition is Europe, and in scientific circles people generally prefer to subsume Europe and Asia into Eurasia.
[edit] Use in fiction
Eurasia is a fictional country, state or supranational entity appearing in several works of fantasy, literature and science fiction, including books, movies, television series and video games:
- A Eurasia comprising approximately the same land area as the real-life landmass appears in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. This superstate excludes the British Isles (controlled by Oceania) and Eastasia, the latter of which was formed after a 'decade of confused fighting' by an alliance of the states of the real-life East Asia region, the most important two being China and Japan. India was a contested border zone between Eurasia and Oceania and was the most famous state involved.
- Robert A. Heinlein's story Solution Unsatisfactory, written in 1940, describes a future 1945 (now to be considered an alternative history) in which the Soviet Union is transformed into the 'Eurasian Union'.
- In S. M. Stirling's dystopian Draka alternative history series, the analogue to the Second World War is known as "The Eurasian War". Somewhat similar in its geography to Orwell's scenario, the war ends with most of Eurasia—excluding the British Isles, India and southeast Asia—being conquered by the extremely oppressive Draka who literally enslave everybody else.
- In the game universe of the Earth series (Earth 2140, Earth 2150, Earth 2160), one of the major factions is the Eurasian Dynasty.
- Eurasia is a large and powerful terrestrial state and member of the Earth Alliance in the Cosmic Era series of the epic anime franchise Mobile Suit Gundam Seed.
- Eurasia is also used as the name of the fictional space colony that Mega Man and Zero must stop from colliding with Earth in the video game Mega Man X5.
[edit] See also
- Palearctic
- Laurasia, a geological supercontinent joining Eurasia and North America.
- Euramerica, a geological supercontinent joining Baltica (Western Europe) and North America.
- Eurasian Economic Community
- Neo-Eurasianism
- Eurasian
- Africa-Eurasia
[edit] External links
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