Eurasia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- See also Eurasia (Nineteen Eighty-Four) for the fictional land.
Eurasia is the landmass composed of Europe and Asia. Mostly in the eastern and northern hemispheres, Eurasia can be considered a supercontinent, part of a supercontinent of Africa-Eurasia, or simply a continent. In plate tectonics, the Eurasian Plate includes Europe and most of Asia, but not the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent, and the area east of the Cherskiy 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 modern 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.
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. Recent decades have brought forth a view toward a greater Eurasian history, establishing genetic, cultural, and linguistic relationships between European and Asian cultures of antiquity, which had long been thought of as distinct.
Eurasia was first circumnavigated by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld in 1878-79.
[edit] Other uses
Eurasia is a fictional country in several contemporary works. A Eurasia comprising approximately the same land area as the landmass itself in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (excluding the British Isles (controlled by Oceania) and Eastasia, the latter of which was formed, as the novel says, by an alliance of the states of the region, the most important couple being China and Japan after a 'decade of confused fighting'). India was a contested border zone between Eurasia and Oceania and was the most famous state involved.
In Robert A. Heinlein's story Solution Unsatisfactory, written in 1940, he described 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 becomes known as "The Eurasian War". Somewhat similar in its geography Orwell's scenario, the war ends with most of Eurasia - excluding the British Isles, India and South-East Asia - being conquered by the extremely oppressive Draka who literally enslaved everybody else.
Eurasia is also a state or supra-national entity in numerous works of science fiction today, including books, movies, television series, and videogames.
In the game universe of the Earth series (Earth 2140, Earth 2150, Earth 2160), one of the major factions was 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.
[edit] See also
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: |
- Palearctic
- Laurasia, a geological supercontinent joining Eurasia and North America.
- Euramerica, a geological megacontinent joining Baltica (Western Europe) and North America.
- Eurasian Economic Community
- Neo-Eurasianism
- Eurasian
- Africa-Eurasia
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