Can anyone tell me why or how Europe is a continent.Atlas shows Europe part of Asia.?

Answer 1

Since geography is defined by local convention and there is difficulty in setting lines in terms of "continuous", there are several variations as to which land masses qualify as continents, and which must be classified as supercontinents, microcontinents, subcontinents or islands. Seven landmasses and their associated islands are commonly reckoned as continents, but these may be consolidated. For example, North and South America are often considered a single continent, and Asia is often united with Europe. Ignoring cases where Antarctica is omitted, or where Australasia or Oceania are used in place of Australia (when considered as the largest island of the globe), there are half a dozen traditions for naming the continents.

Geologists use the term continent in a different manner than geographers. Rather than simply identifying large land masses, geologists have distinct criteria for identifying continents. Continents are portions of the Earth's crust characterized by a stable platform of Precambrian metamorphic and igneous rock (typically 1.5 to 3.8 billion years old) largely of granitic composition, called the craton, and a central "shield" where the craton is exposed at the surface.
By the geologists' definition, Europe and Asia are separate continents since they have separate, distinct ancient shield areas and a distinct newer mobile belt (the Ural Mountains) forming the mutual margin. Also, India is a geological continent, as it contains a central shield, and the geologically recent Himalaya mobile belt forms its northern margin. North America and South America are separate continents, the connecting isthmus being largely the result of volcanism from relatively recent subduction tectonics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continents

Answer 2

Eurasia is spilt up by Ural Mountains & Caspian sea, into two continents viz, Europe & Asia. Both have climatic differences, Cultural differences, etc. These have been so apart, that at times before 1500(approx) Europeans knew somewhere in East some land of Golden Bird- INDIA exists but don't knew the routes to India. Only Vasco da Gama discovered the Routes to India. Although in ancient times, India was a seat of Power, bussiness, having long bussiness links, but following dark ages in Europe people there lost their whole knowledge,etc. So this all shows the diversity between Europe & Asia.
Other wise Both Americas are connected. Then Africa is also connected to asia. Also the berring strait once connected america to Asia. But these are neverconsidered as one continent.

Answer 3

I was told the reason Europe is considered a continent is that Europeans do not want to be considered part of Asia. Traditionally the boundary between Asia and Europe is the Ural Mountains. Its all pretty arbitrary. North and South America connect, too, why should they be considered separate continents. Africa connects to Asia at Egypt so Africa could be considered a part of Asia, too. I guess culturally Europe is different enough from Asia that calling it a separate continent might be justified. Might.

Answer 4

Europe is attached to Asia, Asia is attached to Africa, North and South America are attached to each other, only Australia and Antarctica are completely separate.
The idea of continents and their names is something that developed in History. Often the names and the areas have changed in time.
Europe is a Continent because the people who made the map were Europeans, so they thought that their bit of land was important and deserved to be a continent in its own right.

Answer 5

Historically Europe and Asia have always been considered different continents and after having been considered so since before recorded history began it seems a bit stange to change it. Herodotos described the difference in character and habits of Europeans and Asians in his history of the war between Peria and Greece and is very clear about how these areas are most definatly unique contenents.

Answer 6

Yes its one continent but Europeans countries wanted to separate themselves from the Asian countries so that what came up with Europe and Asia.

Answer 7

Europe and Asia
are divided geographically
by the Carpathians Mountains
See any Atlas

Answer 8

That's because people use the word continent for "part of the world". In the basic definition, which describes landmasses, Europe isn't a continent.

Answer 9

traditionally, Russia has continuously been portion of Europe. in the course of the age of exploration even as Spain and England were construction wide empires contained in the Americas, Russia did not have direct get admission to to the Atlantic Ocean. really, they slowly began increasing their territory eastward till they crossed into Asia and took all of Siberia. This befell extremely lately in international heritage. contained in the previous, it became Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Hordes who did the alternative through dominating Russia and construction an empire that lined maximum of Asia and over 1/2 of Europe. It became the biggest empire that has ever existed in human heritage. Even immediately, maximum ethnic Russians stay contained in the ecu portion of the country, even as those who occupy something else are almost continuously Turkic and Mongolic peoples. :) :)

Answer 10

europe is a continent separate from asia for cultural reasons. really the only division between the two continents are the Ural mountains.