Eurasia
Eurasia is the combined land mass of Europe and Asia. Eurasia is alternatively considered to be a continent, or a supercontinent composed of the continents of Europe and Asia.
Due to the perceived cultural differences between Asia and Europe by Europeans, it was traditional to consider two to be separate continents. This distinction then spread to the rest of the world. Obviously, the idea of "Asia" as a single cultural group is not shared by "Asians". Asia contain number of distinct major cultural, religious, racial and/or geographical groups, Oriental, Indian, Arabs as well as South East Asian among others. This confusion seems to be shared by Europeans as well. In British English, "Asian" refers to people from Indian Subcontinent. In American English, "Asian" refers to Orientals and South East Asian. In old days, "Oriental" used to mean Ottoman.
Alternatively, some historians perceive much of Southern Europe, South Asia and West Asia as historically closer to each other than to their northern counterparts, creating a vague South Eurasia. Northern Europe and parts of Northern Asia create another vaguely similar cultural and geographic sphere known as North Eurasia.
The term Eurasia is also sometimes used to refer to the newly independent former Soviet states in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
The earth sciences, with a more precise definition of continent, more frequently consider Eurasia to be a continent in and of itself.
Eurasia can be geographically defined by subtracting Africa from the
great land mass of Africa-Eurasia. The dividing line between Europe and Asia is traditionally placed along the Ural Mountains.
See also
Eurasia was also a fictional country comprising approximately the same land area in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, excluding the British Isles (controlled by Oceania); and Eastasia, which was formed when China conquered the territory to its south, and presumably Japan as well. India was a contested border zone between the three superstates.
