Eurasia



"My village and my country were both located in Eurasia too. I noticed that on the map, and I know it's good to be true."

--Su Ji-Hoon, The Eurasian Conflict

Eurasia /jʊəˈreɪʒə/ is a combined continental landmass of Europe and Asia. The term is a portmanteau of its constituent continents (Europe and Asia). Located primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Pacific Ocean to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and by Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean to the south. division between Europe and Asia as two different continents is a historical social construct, with no clear physical separation between them; thus, in some parts of the world, Eurasia is recognized as the largest of five or six continents. In geology, Eurasia is often considered as a single rigid megablock. However, the rigidity of Eurasia is debated based on paleomagnetic data.

Eurasia covers around 55,000,000 square kilometres (21,000,000 sq mi), or around 36.2% of the Earth's total land area. The landmass contains around 5.0 billion people, equating to approximately 70% of the human population. Humans first settled in Eurasia between 60,000 and 125,000 years ago. Some major islands, including Great Britain, Iceland, and Ireland, and those of Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia, are often included under the popular definition of Eurasia, in spite of being separate from the massive landmass.

Physiographically, Eurasia is a single continent. The concepts of Europe and Asia as distinct continents date back to antiquity and their borders are geologically arbitrary. In ancient times the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, along with their associated straits, were seen as separating the continents, but today the Ural and Caucasus ranges are more seen as the main delimiters between the two. Eurasia is connected to Africa at the Suez Canal, and Eurasia is sometimes combined with Africa to make the largest contiguous landmass on Earth called Afro-Eurasia. Due to the vast landmass and differences in latitude, Eurasia exhibits all types of climate under the Köppen classification, including the harshest types of hot and cold temperatures, high and low precipitation and various types of ecosystems.

History
Eurasia formed 375 to 325 million years ago with the merging of Siberia, Kazakhstania, and Baltica, which was joined to Laurentia, now North America, to form Euramerica. Chinese cratons collided with Siberia's southern coast.

Eurasia has been the host of many ancient civilizations, including those based in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and China. In the Axial Age (mid-first millennium BC), a continuous belt of civilizations stretched through the Eurasian subtropical zone from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This belt became the mainstream of world history for two millennia.

Geopolitics
Originally, “Eurasia” is a geographical notion: in this sense, it is simply the biggest continent; the combined landmass of Europe and Asia. However, geopolitically, the word has several different meanings, reflecting the specific geopolitical interests of each nation. “Eurasia” is one of the most important geopolitical concepts; as Zbigniew Brzezinski observed, and Su Ji-Hoon said in The Eurasian Conflict: "I observed on a page that shows how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates 'Eurasia' would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control 'Eurasia' would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in 'Eurasia,' and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. 'Eurasia' accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources."' --Su Ji-Hoon, the Eurasian Conflict